I have encountered a bunch of pop-sci articles on the late bronze age collapse and "Sea People" (usually claiming them being at fault for it) over the years but this lecture was so much better...
I have encountered a bunch of pop-sci articles on the late bronze age collapse and "Sea People" (usually claiming them being at fault for it) over the years but this lecture was so much better than all of them. Not only did he manage to keep everything interesting (and at points funny), but he also made an incredibly compelling case for the causes of the collapse not being nearly as simple as most articles make it seem. That was a really great lecture on a fascinating and incredibly broad subject. Thanks for sharing!
He really should not be talking about other periods of history. That would put the collapse at the early 4th century (which is at least a century too early even if you think all the Empire just...
He really should not be talking about other periods of history.
5:00:
It was a huge loss to the world, comparable to the collapse of the Roman empire 1500 years later
That would put the collapse at the early 4th century (which is at least a century too early even if you think all the Empire just ceased to be)... besides, even Wikipedia puts the collapse of the Western Roman empire in the 5th century. It's OK, because the Eastern Roman empire wasn't ever all that important anyway.
ಠ_ಠ
14:30:
These people that are coming, they're not like Vikings, they're not just raiding
I'm not sure how he could be more wrong about the Vikings.
Around this time he basically disregards all other possible sources of tin and only considers the Badakhshan region of Afghanistan as a possible source for late Bronze age tin.
From The tin problem in the prehistoric near east [PDF]
Expeditions in the 1970s by Cleuziou and Berthoud revealed the presence of several tin deposits in Afghanistan, compatible with textual evidence from Bronze Age Mesopotamia indicating that tin came from the east. The relative proximity in Afghanistan of tin with sources of lapis lazuli and gold, two materials also highly sought after by the Mesopotamian elite, subsequently lead to a general acceptance of Afghanistan as one of the most plausible sources for Near-Eastern tin. However the discovery of a new potential tin source in western Iran and the publication of new datasets in the last decade have started to challenge this view.
I can't watch anymore after the flippant disregard of historical facts and the linchpin of his whole thesis, that tin primarily came from Afghanistan, is under question.
He may have said "collapse of the Roman empire 1500 years later" but the slide clearly says the same sentence with "more than 1500 years later"... so it's pretty obvious he simply misspoke. And...
That would put the collapse at the early 4th century (which is at least a century too early even if you think all the Empire just ceased to be)... besides, even Wikipedia puts the collapse of the Western Roman empire in the 5th century. It's OK, because the Eastern Roman empire wasn't ever all that important anyway.
He may have said "collapse of the Roman empire 1500 years later" but the slide clearly says the same sentence with "more than 1500 years later"... so it's pretty obvious he simply misspoke. And further evidence of that being the case is when later in the lecture he goes on at length about Western Rome and why Historians generally refer to the date of its fall as 455 AD despite it actually being an incredibly lengthy process of decline. He also discusses the Eastern Roman Empire a fair bit and how it continued to function for roughly a thousand years afterwards.
I'm not sure how he could be more wrong about the Vikings.
He also goes on to discuss the importance of the Scandinavian amber trade, amongst other things related to their trade empires, later in the video. So his throwaway comment about "not like vikings, not just raiding" is not at all indicative of his understanding of the peoples of that region from the time.
and the linchpin of his whole thesis, that tin primarily came from Afghanistan, is under question.
Uh, what? Tin coming Afghanistan is not the linchpin of anything regarding his thesis (in which disruption of Bronze production is only a byproduct of the collapse not a contributing factor) and if you had actually watched the video for literally just a few minutes longer you would have seen that since at 22m15s he lays out his thesis in full... which you will notice has nothing to do with tin, copper or bronze at all:
Gone, all gone; But what could have caused it?
a) Sea Peoples originally (and frequently still) blamed
i) but not clear if they did all that they are blamed for
b) what else could have caused it? Also evidence for:
i) Drought - in Levant and Cyprus
ii) Famine - in Anatolia, Ugarit and elsewhere
iii) Invaders - Ugarit kiln letter; Tweini and Ugarit
iv) Earthquakes - Greece, Anatolia and Levant
IMO it's pretty unfair of you to dismiss the entire lecture based solely on two minor mistakes and a misunderstanding on your part about his thesis. So ಠ_ಠ right back at you...
Thanks for the reply. I might not have been in a good mood after his quip about Vikings, so I'll have to watch the rest of the video. Anyway, I do want to address a thing or two I may not have...
Thanks for the reply. I might not have been in a good mood after his quip about Vikings, so I'll have to watch the rest of the video. Anyway, I do want to address a thing or two I may not have been very clear on.
He may have said "collapse of the Roman empire 1500 years later" but the slide clearly says the same sentence with "more than 1500 years later"... so it's pretty obvious he simply misspoke. And further evidence of that being the case is when later in the lecture he goes on at length about Rome and why Historians generally refer to the date of its fall as 455 AD despite it actually being an incredibly lengthy process of decline. He also discusses the Eastern Roman Empire a fair bit and how it continued to function for roughly a thousand years after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
Ok, while I would argue that 1600 years would be a better estimate for the ending point of Western Rome, I still think the two events don't particularly compare. The collapse of Rome was more stagnation and gradual decline, rather than the absolute collapse of civilization which seems more analogous to the disappearance of the Norse in Greenland, than anything. I just want him to pick a better analogy is all. It also seems to me like he's saying that a comparable dark age happened after the fall of Western Rome ... which is not something a professional historian should be implying.
He also goes on to discuss the importance of the Scandinavian amber trade, amongst other things related to their trade empires, later in the video. So his throwaway comment about "not like vikings, not just raiding" is not at all indicative of his understanding of the peoples of that region.
Fair enough, (again I will have to watch the whole video in a better state of mind) I still take issue with it even being in his presentation as it presents an inaccurate model of the Viking age, which is just pandering to myths of a raiding-only culture. Again, not something a professional historian should be saying.
Tin coming Afghanistan is not the linchpin of anything regarding his thesis (in which disruption of Bronze production is only a byproduct of the collapse not a contributing factor)
Is it not? Well, it seemed like it at the moment, but I do think he is ignoring research here. The point of large amounts of tin production being a bit closer (Western Iran) than Afghanistan would seem like something he should have pointed out.
But the texts do not tell us how the tin got to Assur and where it came from. ... The tin itinerary from Mari ... adds to the list of distribution points but does not say much more about sources.
Which directly contradicts what he says at 17:50~ish
We have to get it all the way from Afghanistan over to this area and we do know that they are doing this, because we have a text from the site of Mari ...
At least at the beginning it feels like he's omitting things and over-simplifying other periods to make his point. Although, I think the thesis itself is fine and he does provide plenty of evidence for it, just that some of the things that come before are questionable.
So ಠ_ಠ right back at you.
While I deserved that, I still think he should be more accurate with statements of periods that he does not study.
Edit:
He also goes on to discuss the importance of the Scandinavian amber trade, amongst other things related to their trade empires, later in the video. So his throwaway comment about "not like vikings, not just raiding" is not at all indicative of his understanding of the peoples of that region from the time.
While he does talk briefly about the Scandinavian peoples in relation to the late Bronze Age, that doesn't really have anything to do with the folks during the Viking period ... so, I'm not really going to give him any slack for that comment.
I'm about to head to bed but just wanted to acknowledge I saw your comment and will reply more thoroughly when I wake up. But I just want to say that, for the record, I don't entirely disagree...
I'm about to head to bed but just wanted to acknowledge I saw your comment and will reply more thoroughly when I wake up.
But I just want to say that, for the record, I don't entirely disagree with you. He probably should have tried to stick to his wheelhouse more. however I suspect the only reason he included all the other ancillary stuff was because his audience were not Historians or even History students, this wasn't a lecture at his University, it was just a free talk he gave at a Skeptics society and so he was just attempting to provide some comparisons and parallels that the laymen in attendance would recognize and could understand. But if you can get past that aspect of the discussion, IMO the meat of the lecture and his thesis is rather solid and seems to be based on a fair bit of comprehensive research by himself as well as many other legitimate and accredited historians and archeologists.
I didn't take it as an entire disagreement, rather that I should give the whole thing a chance. And after watching the whole thing, I do agree the rest of it was acceptable and I might just have...
But I just want to say that, for the record, I don't entirely disagree with you.
I didn't take it as an entire disagreement, rather that I should give the whole thing a chance. And after watching the whole thing, I do agree the rest of it was acceptable and I might just have to read the book.
however I suspect the only reason he included all the other ancillary stuff was because his audience were not Historians or even History students, this wasn't a lecture at his University, it was just a free talk he gave at a Skeptics society and so he was just attempting to provide some comparisons and parallels that the laymen in attendance would recognize and could understand.
I didn't realise I wasn't the intended audience until the end. While I do think that such appeals to the popular mythos could work, from my perspective it's just perpetuating ideas that are better off left in the historical gutter, as it were.
Technically he isn't, seen that Viking means essentially 'raider', and it did so in Old Norse too. That's why they spoke of Danegeld and Danelagh instead of Wicinggeld or Wicinglagh - viking...
I'm not sure how he could be more wrong about the Vikings.
Technically he isn't, seen that Viking means essentially 'raider', and it did so in Old Norse too. That's why they spoke of Danegeld and Danelagh instead of Wicinggeld or Wicinglagh - viking doesn't mean just any Norseman, but specifically a raider.
I'm afraid that while yes, viking was mainly used to mean raider during the time-frame we are talking about, "viking" now is used as a shorthand for the entire age from the late 8th century to the...
I'm afraid that while yes, vikingwas mainly used to mean raider during the time-frame we are talking about, "viking" now is used as a shorthand for the entire age from the late 8th century to the middle of the 11th, where the folks from Scandinavia did things like trading with far-off nations, settling far away lands, along with various forms of raiding and conquering. Enough so that we can talk about a distinct Viking age.
From Everyday Life in the Viking Age, by Jacqueline Simpson
In medieval Scandinavian languages, a vikingr is a pirate, a freebooter who seeks wealth either by ship-borne raids on foreign coasts or by waylaying more peaceful seafarers in home waters. There is also an abstract noun viking, meaning 'the act of going raiding overseas'.... Strictly speaking, therefore, the term should only be applied to men actually engaged in these violent pursuits, and not to every contemporary Scandinavian farmer, merchant, settler or craftsman, nor even to warriors fighting in the dynastic wars of their lords or in their own private feuds. However, it was the raiders who made the most impact on the Europe of their time, so that it has become customary to apply the term 'Viking Age' to the period of Scandinavian History beginning in the 790's (the time of the first recorded raids on Western Europe) and petering out somewhere round the middle of the eleventh century (by which time raids and emigrations had ceased, the settlements established abroad had become thoroughly integrated with the local populations, and social changes in the Scandinavian homelands had marked the transition to their true Middle Ages). Indeed, the term is such a convenient label for the distinctive culture of this period that one now talks not only of 'Viking ships' and 'Viking weapons' but of 'Viking art', 'Viking houses', and even 'Viking agriculture' - expressions which would have seemed meaningless to people living at the time.
The authors use Danes in the 10th and 11th centuries a total of 5 times:
Year 910. Here the English raiding-army and the Danes ...
Year 1010 ... and the Danes had possession of the place of slaughter ...
Year 1018 ... And at Oxford Danes and English were agreed.
Year 1040 ... was immediately received by both English and by Danes ...
With quite a bit more references to Denmark around the same time period. 15 in total (I will only include a few)
Year 1005 ... and this year the [enemy] fleet turned from this country to Denmark ...
Year 1018 ... And then some of the raiding-army travelled to Denmark ...
Year 1025. Here King Cnut went to Denmark ...
Danish appears 27 times from 836 to 1086, some examples:
Year 836 ... and the Danish had possession of the place of slaughter
Year 869 ... and the Danish took the victory
Year 991 ... it was first decided tax be paid to the Danish men ...
They use viking considerably less, a total of four times, two of which are in the same year.
Year 878. In that year a gang of vikings gathered ...
Year 884. ... then they met 16 ships of vikings and fought against them ... they met a great raiding ship-army of vikings
Year 1097 ... And Earl Hugh was killed in Anglesey by foreign vikings
They were more apt to call them heathen than viking, heathen appears 11 times from 793 to 870, with three instances in 959 and 963, all of which talking about the past.
Year 794 And the heathen raided in Northumbria ...
Year 835 Here heathen men raided across Sheppey
Year 851 ... fought against the heathen men ...
Year 963 ... would give him all the monasteries the heathen men had broken up earlier
Though the writers really liked to use raiding-army, for a total of 150 times from 845 to 1097, though the latter references were about William gallavanting around England and Wales
Year 851 ... greatest slaughter of a heathen raiding-army ...
Year 865 ... Here the heathen raiding-army stayed in Thanet ...
Year 869. Here the raiding-army went back to York ...
Year 997. Here in this year the raiding-army ...
From these excerpts we can see that the writers of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle used various terms interchangeably to denote these specific people, least of which was viking, though they seemed to also know/assume that they were Danish and stopped using both viking and heathen around the beginning of the Danelaw. So, we can say that they had no reason to use something like wicingeld or wicinglagh because the Anglo-Saxons knew the folks coming in and doing more than raiding were Danish, or at least thought they were. I would argue that the usage of viking and heathen in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles is up until the writers have a better name for them and not because they were necessarily distinguishing between raiding and non-raiding peoples, as they were very keen on using raiding-army well into the period they were referring to Danes rather than to vikings.
Also, while it is good to acknowledge that people used words in a different manner than we do today, so as to keep them in context. When we are using our words, and not theirs, we use them how we please, not how they used them. If we only used fossilized definitions of words, we would not be using a living language. And quite frankly, it's silly to argue that a word does not have more than a single definition, when it is quite clear that the word's usage covers more than that single meaning.
Eric Cline, PhD, 2016.
An in-depth look at the Bronze Age Collapse and various theories on its causes.
I have encountered a bunch of pop-sci articles on the late bronze age collapse and "Sea People" (usually claiming them being at fault for it) over the years but this lecture was so much better than all of them. Not only did he manage to keep everything interesting (and at points funny), but he also made an incredibly compelling case for the causes of the collapse not being nearly as simple as most articles make it seem. That was a really great lecture on a fascinating and incredibly broad subject. Thanks for sharing!
He really should not be talking about other periods of history.
That would put the collapse at the early 4th century (which is at least a century too early even if you think all the Empire just ceased to be)... besides, even Wikipedia puts the collapse of the Western Roman empire in the 5th century. It's OK, because the Eastern Roman empire wasn't ever all that important anyway.
ಠ_ಠ
I'm not sure how he could be more wrong about the Vikings.
To just mention a few: they settled Normandy, Dublin, the Shetland and Orkney islands, Iceland, Greenland, North America. Not to mention their vast network of trading.
Around this time he basically disregards all other possible sources of tin and only considers the Badakhshan region of Afghanistan as a possible source for late Bronze age tin.
I can't watch anymore after the flippant disregard of historical facts and the linchpin of his whole thesis, that tin primarily came from Afghanistan, is under question.
Edited to add more Viking information.
He may have said "collapse of the Roman empire 1500 years later" but the slide clearly says the same sentence with "more than 1500 years later"... so it's pretty obvious he simply misspoke. And further evidence of that being the case is when later in the lecture he goes on at length about Western Rome and why Historians generally refer to the date of its fall as 455 AD despite it actually being an incredibly lengthy process of decline. He also discusses the Eastern Roman Empire a fair bit and how it continued to function for roughly a thousand years afterwards.
He also goes on to discuss the importance of the Scandinavian amber trade, amongst other things related to their trade empires, later in the video. So his throwaway comment about "not like vikings, not just raiding" is not at all indicative of his understanding of the peoples of that region from the time.
Uh, what? Tin coming Afghanistan is not the linchpin of anything regarding his thesis (in which disruption of Bronze production is only a byproduct of the collapse not a contributing factor) and if you had actually watched the video for literally just a few minutes longer you would have seen that since at 22m15s he lays out his thesis in full... which you will notice has nothing to do with tin, copper or bronze at all:
IMO it's pretty unfair of you to dismiss the entire lecture based solely on two minor mistakes and a misunderstanding on your part about his thesis. So ಠ_ಠ right back at you...
Thanks for the reply. I might not have been in a good mood after his quip about Vikings, so I'll have to watch the rest of the video. Anyway, I do want to address a thing or two I may not have been very clear on.
Ok, while I would argue that 1600 years would be a better estimate for the ending point of Western Rome, I still think the two events don't particularly compare. The collapse of Rome was more stagnation and gradual decline, rather than the absolute collapse of civilization which seems more analogous to the disappearance of the Norse in Greenland, than anything. I just want him to pick a better analogy is all. It also seems to me like he's saying that a comparable dark age happened after the fall of Western Rome ... which is not something a professional historian should be implying.
Fair enough, (again I will have to watch the whole video in a better state of mind) I still take issue with it even being in his presentation as it presents an inaccurate model of the Viking age, which is just pandering to myths of a raiding-only culture. Again, not something a professional historian should be saying.
Is it not? Well, it seemed like it at the moment, but I do think he is ignoring research here. The point of large amounts of tin production being a bit closer (Western Iran) than Afghanistan would seem like something he should have pointed out.
This is an aside, but I also found this Tin in the Ancienct Near East (Admittedly a little dated)
Which directly contradicts what he says at 17:50~ish
At least at the beginning it feels like he's omitting things and over-simplifying other periods to make his point. Although, I think the thesis itself is fine and he does provide plenty of evidence for it, just that some of the things that come before are questionable.
While I deserved that, I still think he should be more accurate with statements of periods that he does not study.
Edit:
While he does talk briefly about the Scandinavian peoples in relation to the late Bronze Age, that doesn't really have anything to do with the folks during the Viking period ... so, I'm not really going to give him any slack for that comment.
I'm about to head to bed but just wanted to acknowledge I saw your comment and will reply more thoroughly when I wake up.
But I just want to say that, for the record, I don't entirely disagree with you. He probably should have tried to stick to his wheelhouse more. however I suspect the only reason he included all the other ancillary stuff was because his audience were not Historians or even History students, this wasn't a lecture at his University, it was just a free talk he gave at a Skeptics society and so he was just attempting to provide some comparisons and parallels that the laymen in attendance would recognize and could understand. But if you can get past that aspect of the discussion, IMO the meat of the lecture and his thesis is rather solid and seems to be based on a fair bit of comprehensive research by himself as well as many other legitimate and accredited historians and archeologists.
I didn't take it as an entire disagreement, rather that I should give the whole thing a chance. And after watching the whole thing, I do agree the rest of it was acceptable and I might just have to read the book.
I didn't realise I wasn't the intended audience until the end. While I do think that such appeals to the popular mythos could work, from my perspective it's just perpetuating ideas that are better off left in the historical gutter, as it were.
Technically he isn't, seen that Viking means essentially 'raider', and it did so in Old Norse too. That's why they spoke of Danegeld and Danelagh instead of Wicinggeld or Wicinglagh - viking doesn't mean just any Norseman, but specifically a raider.
I'm afraid that while yes, viking was mainly used to mean raider during the time-frame we are talking about, "viking" now is used as a shorthand for the entire age from the late 8th century to the middle of the 11th, where the folks from Scandinavia did things like trading with far-off nations, settling far away lands, along with various forms of raiding and conquering. Enough so that we can talk about a distinct Viking age.
As for specific usages in English, let's look at the Anglo-Saxon chronicle
The authors use Danes in the 10th and 11th centuries a total of 5 times:
With quite a bit more references to Denmark around the same time period. 15 in total (I will only include a few)
Danish appears 27 times from 836 to 1086, some examples:
They use viking considerably less, a total of four times, two of which are in the same year.
They were more apt to call them heathen than viking, heathen appears 11 times from 793 to 870, with three instances in 959 and 963, all of which talking about the past.
Though the writers really liked to use raiding-army, for a total of 150 times from 845 to 1097, though the latter references were about William gallavanting around England and Wales
From these excerpts we can see that the writers of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle used various terms interchangeably to denote these specific people, least of which was viking, though they seemed to also know/assume that they were Danish and stopped using both viking and heathen around the beginning of the Danelaw. So, we can say that they had no reason to use something like wicingeld or wicinglagh because the Anglo-Saxons knew the folks coming in and doing more than raiding were Danish, or at least thought they were. I would argue that the usage of viking and heathen in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles is up until the writers have a better name for them and not because they were necessarily distinguishing between raiding and non-raiding peoples, as they were very keen on using raiding-army well into the period they were referring to Danes rather than to vikings.
Also, while it is good to acknowledge that people used words in a different manner than we do today, so as to keep them in context. When we are using our words, and not theirs, we use them how we please, not how they used them. If we only used fossilized definitions of words, we would not be using a living language. And quite frankly, it's silly to argue that a word does not have more than a single definition, when it is quite clear that the word's usage covers more than that single meaning.