A typical cycle of rural settlement and abandonment
includes some or all of the following elements: Expansion is
instigated by the urban centers, the seats of elite governments
and their trappings of symbolic identifi cations on which re-
gional states are founded. Growing demand in the center
stimulates agriculture and settlement of the countryside,
including ecologically marginal areas. Maximal growth is
contained in order not to cross the threshold of the environ-
mental carrying capacity, but the system at its greatest expan-
sion is vulnerable when this threshold drops—for example,
if yields diminish because of minor shift s in rainfall or river
levels. Political demands for surplus remain constant, and
pressure on the rural producers therefore increases, leaving
them no alternative but to grow more on their land, which
compounds the problem of diminishing returns by increas-
ing soil poverty and salinity. Once producers start fl eeing the
oppression of their urban landlords, the agricultural infra-
structure can no longer be maintained, and the downward
spiral accelerates, ending with the desertion of rural settle-
ments and the decline of the urban political center, usually
resulting in dynastic collapse.
Ancient Mesopotamian texts show that sequences of
political growth and waning and the associated expansion
and contraction of settlement were thought to obey univer-
sal cyclical patterns. Th e Mesopotamian word for “dynasty”
designates any temporary term of public duty, and dynastic
collapse was considered an inevitable shift in offi ce. Political
discontinuity sometimes occurred well before expansion en-dangered the resilience of the rural economy—for example,
when the last indigenous Mesopotamian dynasty fell and the
land was integrated in the Persian Empire (535 b.c.e.)—but
more oft en dynastic change took place when the fragility of
the rural social and ecological systems had already eroded
the state’s economic foundations. Under these circumstances
even relatively minor external pressure, such as an attack by
rival powers, could topple dynasties.
Major cities suff ered during phases of settlement reduc-
tion and agricultural decline but usually survived. Cities were
the custodians of divine worship, high culture, and learning,
institutions that were quickly revitalized by new contenders
to power who sought to be recognized and took up the tra-
ditional seats of rule. Nevertheless the archaeological record
contains ample evidence for crises that disrupted a region’s
urban centers over and beyond its rural settlements. In many
cases large cities were permanently abandoned, oft en with
telltale signs of destruction in their fi nal moments. Extreme
instances reveal widespread breakdown—for example, the
great collapse that occurred around 1200 b.c.e. when the Hit-
tite capital, Hattusha, and the Syrian cities Emar and Ugarit
(as well as many centers of Mycenaean Greece and Cyprus)
were abandoned, never to be reoccupied. Th is and similar
episodes clearly represent major disruptions in the devel-
opment of human society. A comparable cycle of urban de-
cay occurred at the transition from the Early to the Middle
Bronze Age (ca. 2200–2000 b.c.e.).
Many of the theories proposed to account for collapses
of this scale attribute them to external forces. Two factors, in
particular, are oft en brought into the debate: abrupt climatic
deterioration, leading to droughts and famines; and foreign
invasion. Current consensus is that no single factor was deci-
sive and that combinations of a variety of causes—external as
well as interna l—cou ld lead to societa l brea kdown. Economic
interdependency through trade networks explains how epi-
sodes of collapse could simultaneously aff ect large areas of
the Near East and beyond.
Despite the fragility of the Near Eastern environment,
agriculture, and settlement, ancient societies were remark-
ably successful in preserving their civilizations over time, an
endurance that can be credited to the cities and their palace
and temple resources. Only when the collapse of a state in-
volved the total destruction of its urban centers—for example,
during the fall of Assyria in 614–612 b.c.e.—was it possible to
fully eradicate an ancient Near Eastern civilization.ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
BY FRANCIS ALLARD
Asia and the Pacifi c region make up a large and culturally di-
verse area with a history marked by the rise of numerous states
and empires, some of which display continuity with present-
day nations. Less well known are the many archaeological
cultures and polities that emerged as culturally and politically
distinct entities but eventually collapsed or underwent trans-Basalt relief of a gazelle, Neo-Hittite, ninth century b.c.e., from
Carchemish, southeastern Anatolia (modern-day Turkey); aft er the
collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1200 b.c.e., Hittite culture
survived in places such as Carchemish that had once been under
Hittite control. (© Th e Trustees of the British Museum)1002 social collapse and abandonment: Asia and the Pacific0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1002 1002 10/10/07 2:30:43 PM