Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies

The study of the collapse of past societies raises many questions for the theory and practice of archaeology. Interest in collapse extends as well into the natural sciences and environmental and sustainability policy. Despite a range of approaches to collapse, the predominant paradigm is environmental collapse, which I argue obscures recognition of the dynamic role of social processes that lie at the heart of human communities. These environmental discourses, together with confusion over terminology and the concepts of collapse, have created widespread aporia about collapse and resulted in the creation of mixed messages about complex historical and social processes

Post-eruptive flooding of Santorini caldera and implications for tsunami generation

Caldera-forming eruptions of island volcanoes generate tsunamis by the interaction of different eruptive phenomena with the sea. Such tsunamis are a major hazard, but forward models of their impacts are limited by poor understanding of source mechanisms. The caldera-forming eruption of Santorini in the Late Bronze Age is known to have been tsunamigenic, and caldera collapse has been proposed as a mechanism. Here, we present bathymetric and seismic evidence showing that the caldera was not open to the sea during the main phase of the eruption, but was flooded once the eruption had finished. Inflow of water and associated landsliding cut a deep, 2.0-2.5 km(3), submarine channel, thus filling the caldera in less than a couple of days. If, as at most such volcanoes, caldera collapse occurred syn-eruptively, then it cannot have generated tsunamis. Entry of pyroclastic flows into the sea, combined with slumping of submarine pyroclastic accumulations, were the main mechanisms of tsunami production

Traces of places: sacred sites in miniature on Minoan gold rings.

Sacred sites in Minoan Crete are known from both archaeological remains and iconography. Glyptic art is the most extensive body of Aegean Bronze Age representational art and consists of carved seals in the form of engraved metal signet rings, stone seals, and the clay impressions (sealings) that these were used to produce. Gold signet rings from the Cretan Neopalatial period (1750–1490 BCE) depict various types of sacred site including mountain, rural, cave, and urban sanctuaries. How should we understand the built structures depicted in these miniature cult scenes? Do they all depict variations of walls or buildings, or are they altars? This paper differentiates the built structures depicted in cult scenes on Minoan gold rings, correlates them to archaeological remains at Minoan sacred sites, and proposes an explanation of ephemeral cult structures now only recorded in the iconographic evidence. It will be demonstrated that these miniature art forms represent Minoan sacred sites in three ways: as natural places characterised by the presence of trees and stones and the absence of architecture; as outdoor sanctuaries surrounded by ashlar stone walls; and as shrines and altars, the shapes of which evoke natural cult locations such as mountains and sacred groves through abstract form. It will be argued that representation of Minoan cult structures that evoked the natural landscape within prestigious art forms was a method whereby Neopalatial elites naturalised their authority by depicting themselves in special relationship with the animate landscape