Dramatic Kinneret Discovery: Climate Crisis Ruined Ancient Empires

Photo Credit: Yaakov Naumi / Flash 90

These groups, including the Sea Peoples known from the texts of the period, moved by land and sea, assaulted cities and disrupted trade routes. All this caused a severe economic crisis which developed from north to south and reached Canaan. “It was an all-out war on dwindling resources,” says Ben-Dor Evian.

The study shows that the dry period ended around 1100 BCE and was followed by a wet period that helped many of the uprooted groups to settle down, especially in the hilly areas of Canaan and Syria. A century or two later these groups established the territorial kingdoms of the Iron Age, among them Israel and Judah.

The results of the researcher’s study appeared in a university journal Tuesday and will be published elsewhere soon .