Late Bronze Age Collapse

The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition period in the Near East, Anatolia, the Aegean region, North Africa, the Caucasus, the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, a transition which most historians believe was violent, sudden, and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean region and Anatolia that characterized the Late Bronze Age disintegrated, transforming into the small isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages.

A range of explanations for the collapse have been proposed, without any achieving consensus. Several factors probably played a part, including climatic changes (such as those caused by volcanic eruptions), invasions by groups such as the Sea Peoples, the effects of the spread of iron-based metallurgy, developments in military weapons and tactics, and a variety of failures of political, social and economic systems.