A disappearing forest A submerged island

An eroding shore A slowing ocean circulation

A toxic river An extinct species

A nuclear accident A mountain without its top

A cloned cow

DEMOGRAPHIC COLLAPSES B LESSONS FOR TODAY *

Francoise Hall

* White pages are presented as a timeline reference only.

Colored pages form the body of this document.

Number of Words: 26,976 August 17, 2007

(c) Copyright 2007, Francoise Hall, all rights reserved

DEMOGRAPHIC COLLAPSES B LESSONS FOR TODAY*

* White pages are presented as a timeline reference only.

Colored pages form the body of this document.

DEMOGRAPHIC COLLAPSES................................................................................................. 2

The Collapse of the Akkadian Empire............................................................................... 11

The Collapse of the Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization................................................ 22

The Collapse of the Minoan Crete Civilization................................................................. 26

The Collapse of the Mycenaean Civilization..................................................................... 34

The Collapse of the Moche Civilization............................................................................ 44

The Collapse of the Maya Civilization.............................................................................. 48

The Collapse of the Tiwanaku Civilization........................................................................ 59

The Collapse of the Anasazi Civilization........................................................................... 63

The Collapse of the Greenland Norse Culture................................................................... 71

The Collapse of the Mangareva, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands Cultures...................... 84

The Collapse of the Easter Island Culture......................................................................... 92

SUMMARY B CAUSES OF COLLAPSE.............................................................................. 100

FACTORS NOT DISCUSSED................................................................................................. 104

PARALLELS WITH THE GLOBAL SITUATION TODAY................................................ 105

RESOURCE DEPLETION............................................................................................ 105

ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION....................................................................... 115

CLIMATE CHANGE..................................................................................................... 120

DECLINE IN TRADE, ENEMIES, ISOLATION........................................................ 124

THE OBLIVIOUSNESS OF LEADERS...................................................................... 125

FACTORS SET TO PLAY A ROLE IN HUMANITY=S COLLAPSE................................ 126

CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................... 129

REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................... 130

WHITE PAGES.............................................................................................................. 130

COLORED PAGES........................................................................................................ 132

ILLUSTRATIONS B WHITE PAGES.......................................................................... 139

DEMOGRAPHIC COLLAPSES B LESSONS FOR TODAY*

* White pages are presented as a timeline reference only.

Colored pages form the body of this document.

For illustrations referred to in White Pages, see

Hall, Francoise, 2006. AThe History of Western Art B

A pictorial Representation of the Evolution of Consciousness.@

March 25 (103 pages, unpublished).

B.C.E.

6,000,000-200,000: THE PLEROMA-UROBORIC LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Australopithecus africanus (4,000,000-1,000,000) is the earliest known hominid. He arises during the Pliocene Geologic Epoch (5,100,000-2,000,000), when the climate of the earth was cool and dry, foreshadowing the glacial climate of the Pleistocene Epoch. Mammals were supreme. The first tools of Australopithecus were simple stone choppers, and date from toward the end of his reign (just over 1,000,000 B.C.E.).

2,000,000-100,000 B Lower Paleolithic Period. The Lower Paleolithic Period (2,000,000-100,000) of cultural and technological evolution encompasses the first 95 percent of the whole Paleolithic Period (2,000,000-10,000) B a Period which coincides with the Pleistocene Geologic Epoch (2,000,000-10,000), the most recent major glaciation of the European continent.

Homo habilis (2,000,000-1,600,000) is the first member of the genus Homo.

Homo habilis evolves into Homo erectus which exists for well more than a million years (1,600,000-250,000), and which, during the latter part of its existence (400,000-250,000), evolves into Homo sapiens. Beginning around 500,000 B.C.E., new forms stone tools appear which are either of the core variety (made by chipping the stone to form a cutting edge), or the flake variety (derived from fragments struck off a stone). The stones thus sharpened are used as hand axes to hunt and gather food.

Man=s world and man=s self (the new evolving center of his experience) are basically undifferentiated. Man=s self is embedded in physical nature (pleroma), and dominated by animal-reptilian impulses B uroboros is a serpent eating its own tail. Man is self-possessed and narcissistic. He is pre-temporal, having no concept of time. He does not anticipate death. This is the structure of consciousness which lies behind the theological myths of a Garden of Eden B a time of innocence, before Man Afell@ into separation, and self-reflective knowledge.

200,000-9,500: THE TYPHONIC LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS

200,000-50,000: The Low Typhonic Level

This stage in the development of consciousness coincides approximately with the Middle Paleolithic Period (100,000-35,000).

Neanderthal Man (from the Neader Valley, Germany), exists from around 200,000 to 50,000 B.C.E. He is either a sub-species of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neandertalis) or a separate species (Homo neandertalis). Neanderthal Man is a proficient hunter, making use of stone tools and bone implements. The environment is cold but he has discovered fire and uses it to keep himself warm. Plants are scarce and he probably consumes them only seasonally.

Cognitively, Neanderthal Man possesses only the crudest of paleo-symbols and images (the primary process of dreams). He is almost entirely pre-verbal, his language including intentional calls only by 70,000 B.C.E. He may have practiced a primitive religion since he paints the dead before burying them. As a whole, however, the evidence for religious beliefs or the production of art, is scant and controversial.

50,000-9,500: High Typhonic Level

This stage in the development of consciousness coincides approximately with the Upper Paleolithic Period (35,000-10,000).

Cro-Magnon Man exists from 50,000 to 10,000 B.C.E. He has finely crafted tools (made of stone and bone) and jewelry (made of shell and ivory). He creates polychrome paintings on cave walls. Around 50,000, his language includes modifiers, by 35,000, it includes commands, and by 20,000, it includes nouns.

Cognition consists of the primary process (the process of dreams), causing Cro-Magnon Man to confuse subject and object, and whole and parts. While his experience is no longer the undifferentiated wholeness of experience of the pleroma-uroboric stage of consciousness, Cro-Magnon Man still does not connect the parts of his newly differentiated experience by means of logic. He makes sense of his experience by means of magical association and contamination.

Cro-Magnon Man now differentiates himself from his environment. He experiences himself as separate from the natural world, though still magically intermingled (confused) with it.

Cro-Magnon Man still, however, does not differentiate himself from his body, and he experiences himself as a body-self. This body-self seems central to the natural world, and this induces Cro-Magnon Man to make the assumption (which the average person still makes today), that there is a Aself-in-here@ which must be defended at all costs against Athe world-out-there.@

Many human cultures, of which the Cro-Magnon is an example, arise during the Upper Paleolithic Period. Tools are of a great variety. Communal hunting and fishing begin. Pit houses are the first man-made shelters. Sewn clothing is worn. Sculpture originates B in particular, the carving of Venus figures. Painting originates. Time consists of an awareness of the simple present and its needs B Cro-Magnon Man is no longer content to eat, he goes on the AGreat Hunt.@

The self, now more individualized, faces a greater apprehension of death. There is a definite belief system which centers on magic and the supernatural. Magic both defends against (wards off) death, and delivers it (deals it out) to animals (the Hunt). War, in which death is delivered to other humans on a large scale, still does not exist.

28,000 The Lion-Human, from Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany. Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany (Stokstad 2005, p. 4).

The primitive typhon is interconnected with the head of an animal in nature. Note the similarity between the Lion-Human and the Sorcerer of Trois Freres, St.-Giroud, France (10,000 B.C.E.), which portrays man-as-typhon. In each case, the Aman@ is an entity distinct from its surroundings, and hence, not a pleromatic-uroboric self. However, in each case, he is magically (confusedly) composed of different parts B that is, his self is his own body and the bodies of nature.

22,000 A Woman from Brassempouy, Grotte du Pape, Brassempouy, Landes, France. Musee des Antiquites Nationales, St.-Germain-en-Laye, France (Stokstad 2005, p. 5).

21,500 A Woman from Willendorf, Austria. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna (Stokstad 2005, p. 4).

This is a Venus figure, and is the earliest known form of the Great Mother (the Great Environment, the Great Surround) which dominates the typhonic and early mythic-membership structures of both the child and primitive humans. The Great Mother is a correlate of bodily existence, the representative of a global, separate and vulnerable existence in space and time. She engenders both the desire for a Great Protectress and the fear of a Great Destroyer.

21,000 Wall Painting with Horses, Rhinoceroses and Aurochs, Chauvet Cave, Vallon-Pont-d=Arc, Ardeche gorge, France. (Aurochs are extinct ancestors of oxen) (Stokstad 2005, pp. xlviii and 1).

Note the similarity between this Wall Painting, the Paleolithic Cave Drawing at the Trois Freres site, St.-Giroud, France, the Spotted Horses and Human Hands (16,500 B.C.E., p. 6), and the Hall of Bulls (14,000 B.C.E., p. 9). In all cases, the figures overlap B by magic.

16,500 Spotted Horses and Human Hands. Pech-Merle cave, Dordogne, France (Stokstad 2005, p. 6).

Note again the overlapping of the figures B that is, magic B as in the Paleolithic Cave Drawing at the Trois Freres site, St.-Giroud, France, the Wall Painting with Horses, Rhinoceroses and Aurochs (21,000 B.C.E., p. xxx), and the Hall of Bulls (1,400 B.C.E., p. 9).

14,000 Hall of Bulls, Lascaux caves, Dordogne, France (Stokstad 2005, p. 9).

Note again the overlapping of the figures B magic B as in the Paleolithic Cave Drawing at the Trois Freres site, St.-Giroud, France, the Wall Painting with Horses, Rhinoceroses and Aurochs (21,000 B.C.E.), and Spotted Horses and Human Hands (16,500 B.C.E.).

14,000* Bird-headed Man with Bison, Lascaux caves, Dordogne, France (Stokstad 2005, p. 9).

It may be that this is a portrayal of man-as-typhon B as in the Sorcerer of Trois Freres (10,000 B.C.E.) and the Lion-Human (28,000 B.C.E.). There is magic between the body of the Aman@and the bodies in nature.

* However, the bird is the classic symbol of spiritual power, including that of the shaman as he soared into the skies of the All, beyond the confines of earthbound mortality and the terror it engenders. This portrayal of a man, dressed in a bird costume, lying prostrate, with at his side, a staff with a bird perched on its top, could represent the vision of a shaman in a trance B a vision perhaps as powerful as the great bison which looms above. If this is so, then the scene depicts a more advanced level of consciousness than the typhonic B perhaps the psychic level, the ascent of consciousness to nature mysticism (the Nirmanakaya of the Buddhists).

9,500-2,500 B.C.E.: THE MYTHIC-MEMBERSHIP LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS

9,500-4,500: Low Mythic-Membership Level

This stage begins at the end of the Pleistocene Geologic Epoch (2,000,000-10,000), most recent major glaciation of the European continent. It comprises the whole of the Mesolithic Period (10,000-7,000) and the beginning of the Neolithic Period (7,000-1,500).

With the retreat of the glaciers, hunting and fishing settlements arise along rivers and on lake shores. Man discovers farming, and societies are horticultural. The Neolithic Period is characterized by the domestication of plants and animals which makes possible life in settled villages. Crafts include pottery and weaving. Tools are still made out of stone B metals as yet have not been discovered. An early form of writing is developed.

The self is still close to the body, instincts and nature. Cognition is mythic B a mixture of magic and logic. The world view is based on magic.

Time is extended as preparations must be made for future harvests. It is seasonal, cyclic. Man pictures the future more vividly and apprehends his own mortality with more terror than in the past. Ceremonial graves are a common practice. Language is the vehicle of man=s new temporal consciousness. Able, by means of language, to transcend the present, the new self is now able also to transcend the present-tense-only body. The self is now a mental self as well as a physical self.

The cult of the uroboric Great Mother (the Serpent Mother) is prevalent throughout the Neolithic Period (7,000-1,500). Particularly during the early stages of this cult (c.7,500-3,500 B.C.E.), the Great Mother is a local figure in all mythologies B a simple biological nourisher and fertility token amplified magically to cosmic proportions, and worshiped. She is the bountiful goddess Earth, the mother and nourisher of life.

Immortality resides in the invisible world of power, and specific human steps, such as sacrifice, must be taken to come into accord with Spirit. The Great Mother demands human sacrifice to ward off death. The rage at being only a finite creature is now turned into rage at other finite creatures, and war, in the form of aggression and mass homicide, begins.

6,500 Figure from Ain Ghazal, Jordan. National Museum, Amman, Jordan (Stokstad 2005, p. 29).

4,500-2,500: High Mythic- Membership Level

Civilization begins. The city-states and theocracies of Egypt and Mesopotamia flower. Kingship blossoms. There is an all-powerful, righteous Other (the King) who enforces a code of conduct based on absolutist and unvarying principles of Aright@ and Awrong.@ Social hierarchies are rigid, with an emphasis on law and order. Beliefs are concrete, literal and fundamentalistic. The self is conventional, conformist.

Contemplative endeavors arise, and the universal sequence of hierarchic levels of increasing breadth of consciousness is conceptualized as a AGreat Chain of Being.@

By 3,200, specialists have produced the alphabet, mathematics, writing and the calendar B the first purely mental productions of humans. Money symbolizes material transfer, and wages symbolize labor.

Immortality now resides in the visible world, and death is overcome by the accumulation of time-defying monuments. Egypt has mortuary cults, builds pyramids, and invents both golden death masks and mummies. This self now efficiently converts its extreme terror of death into murderous aggression. Beginning at this stage, the history of mankind is the history of the wholesale substitute sacrifices and murderous wastage which have marked Homo sapiens specifically.

3,500 Figures of a Woman and a Man, from Cernavoda, Romania. National Historical Museum, Bucharest, Romania (Stokstad 2005, p. 21).

3,150 Face of a Woman, from Uruk (modern Warka, Iraq). Iraq Museum, Baghdad. The piece was stolen in 2003 and then recovered (Stokstad 2005, p. 33).

3,000 People and Animals, detail of a rock shelter painting, Cogul, Lerida, Spain (Stokstad 2005, p. 13).

2,550* The Great Sphinx, Giza, Egypt (Stokstad 2005, p. xxix).

* The self which is portrayed here is the centaur, an integration of the mind and body (the noosphere and the biosphere). The observing self can see the body-mind as an object in consciousness. It can look at itself (the body-mind) and the world. The world view is world-centric. The centaur represents the vision-logic, aperspectival world view and is, therefore, a more advanced level of consciousness than the average one prevailing at the time.

2,500 B.C.E.-PRESENT: THE EGOIC LEVEL

2,500-500 B.C.E.: The Low Egoic Level

This stage in the evolution of consciousness coincides very approximately with the Bronze Age (3,000-1,500). Societies are feudal agrarian. The egoic structure of consciousness emerges. The old cosmologies and mythologies of the Great Mother goddess begin to be transformed in favor of male-oriented, patriarchal mythologies. The new hero myth expresses the emergence of the unique individuality B the Aego.@

In the East, the Great Mother (the typhonic level) is transformed into the Great Goddess, the metaphysical symbol of Oneness, the arch-personification of the power of matter, space and time, within the bounds of which all beings are born and die (the subtle level, the level above the psychic, the level of the saints, the Sambhogakaya of the Buddhists). In the West, however, the Great Mother is never differentiated from the Great Goddess. Instead, the Great Mother is dissociated and suppressed, and, except for Mary, women are completely left out of subsequent mythology. The Judaeo-Christian-Islamic religions are patriarchal in the extreme, without a trace of the subtle level Great Goddess.

Morality (that of the warrior, the duty-bound, the ethno-centric), does not see the value of universal compassion, interpreting it as a sign of weakness. ATruth@ is only that which fits the religious dogma. All that is called art depicts some aspect of the mythic organization.

Time is conceptual, linear and historical.

2,170 B.C.E. The Collapse of the Akkadian Empire:

3,500 B.C.E.:

City-states make their appearance in Mesopotamia. The northern region would become Akkad, the southern one, Sumer. The language is Akkadian, a Semitic language.

2,340 B.C.E.:

An Empire: King Sargon (Sharru-kin, Alegitimate king@) reigns for 55 years (2,340-2,285). He first unites Akkad and Sumer, and then conquers the surrounding city-states to form the world=s first empire B the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia. The empire reaches west to the shores of the Mediterranean, east to Elam (in present-day western Iran), north to Anatolia (the Asian part of Turkey), and south to Magan (in present-day Oman). Akkadians henceforth date all events from the time of Sargon. The capital city, Agade, has a population of around 36,000. Roads and a postal service connect the various parts of the empire.

Enheduanna: To help control the empire, Sargon installs his daughter Enheduanna as priestess to Nanna (the Sumerian moon god) at the temple in Ur, in the extreme south of Sumer. Enheduanna becomes the first known poet (man or woman) in history. She is also an early war protester, her work decrying the same horrors of war that we know today (See Enheduanna=s poem, ALament to the Spirit of War@ below, in this section of the present document)

Disk of Enheduanna (2,200 B.C.E.): The disk of Enheduanna is Akkadian but comes from the city of Ur, in Sumer (modern Muqaiyir, Iraq). On the back, a cuneiform inscription reads:

AEnheduanna, priestess and wife of the God of the Moon, and child of Sargon, king of the universe, built an altar in the Ur temple of Ishtar, and named it, >Table of Offerings to Heaven=@ (Stokstad 2005, p. 37. Translation adapted by Francoise Hall).

* Ishtar was a Great Mother Goddess (the Great Environment, the Great Surround), the earliest known representation of which is A Woman from Willendorf (21,500 B.C.E.). Such figures of the Great Mother Goddess are called AVenus Figures@ and represent bodily existence, separate from the mother (See the present document, White Pages, under 21,500 B.C.E.).

In Babylonian and Assyrian religion, Ishtar was both the Goddess of Fertility (the source of all generative powers), and the Goddess of War (capable of unremitting cruelty).

Climate: The Mesopotamian climate is benign. In the north (present-day northern Iraq), rain supports the agriculture. In the south (present-day southern Iraq), rainfall is less than 20 millimeters per year, and irrigation is necessary. However, with irrigation, yields are larger than those with modern farming (30 grains harvested for every one grain sown). Very large surpluses are produced. The land is flat and the water table very high, so that floods are frequent, and they are less predictable than those of the Nile. The water table is replenished by weather at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers B snow melts in the summer (March-July), and storms in the winter (October-March). Agriculture includes wheat and barley.

Trade and Confiscation: Akkad and Sumer lack metal ores, timber and building stone. Imports and confiscations include cedars from Lebanon, lapis lazuli (a deep-blue gem, usually flecked with yellow iron pyrites) from Afghanistan, silver from Anatola, and copper from Oman.

Akkadians invent the casting of bronze (an alloy of tin and copper). [Bronze would also be invented by the Indus Valley civilization (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.), the Minoan Crete civilization (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.) and the Mycenaean Greek civilization (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)].

Rebellions: Sargon=s two sons (Rimush, who would reign nine years, and Manishtushu, who would reign 15 years), face rebellions.

Sargon=s grandson, Naram-Sin (ABeloved of Sin,@ Sin being the Akkadian version of Nanna, the Sumerian God of the Moon), has at his disposal an army of 360,000 men, the largest of any state to date. A campaign against the northeastern mountaineers of the Zagros (mountains in present-day western Iran) leads to the carving of the famous stele of Naram-Sin.

The Stele of Naram-Sin (2,250 B.C.E.): The stele (upright stone slab) is from the Akkadian city of Sippar, on the Euphrates river. It commemorates Naram-Sin=s military victory over the northeastern mountaineers, and is an early example of the celebration of the achievements of an individual ruler B literally carving in stone the concept of imperial authority. Wearing the horned crown of deities, Naram-Sin ascends a mountain, the conquered enemy either sprawled in death or begging for mercy (Stokstad 2005, pp. 36-37).

c.2,225 B.C.E.:

The climate suddenly turns very dry and windy. The rainfall is dramatically diminished. The drought is accompanied by a cooling of temperatures.

The drought is extreme. The soil becomes fine, wind-blown sand, with no sign of earthworm activity. It is full of debris. The sea is covered with dust. People and animals starve.

2,170 B.C.E.:

Naram-Sin=s son (King Sargon=s great-grandson), Sharkalishari, cannot maintain control. Trade collapses. The empire is overrun by northeastern tribes from the Zagros mountains. The area falls into chaos, as animals die and people abandon the area in search of water. It would be a hundred years before any sign of recovery would take place.

The catastrophic drought and cooling affect all of the Middle East, and may be due to small variations in solar radiation. Other hypotheses include a major volcanic eruption and an impact by an asteroid (See the present document under The Collapse of the Maya, 760 C.E.).

The collapse coincides with the 2,258 B.C.E. collapse of the Old Kingdom in Ancient Egypt (3,110-2,258).

Factors in the Collapse: Environmental degradation was not prominent. Climate is the predominant factor in the collapse. As a result of the decline, kings were less able to assert their authority within the empire, or obtain imports on which they had come to depend, either by trade or confiscation. The empire was under no threat from another power of equal strength and stature. Isolation was not an issue. Leaders did not anticipate the climate change, or if they did, did not take action. Very approximately, the empire lasted 170 years.

2,120 B.C.E.:

The only area where peace is maintained is in the southern city-state of Lagash, under King Gudea.

Votive Statue of Gudea (2,120 B.C.E.), from Lagash (modern Telloh, Iraq). Musee du Louvre, Paris. AVotive@ means expressing a vow, wish or desire B a prayer (Stokstad 2005, p. 38).

(P. 174. Wikipedia 2007 AAkkad,@ pp. 1-12. Chase-Dunn et al 2004, p. 3. Pfeiffer 2004, p. 10. Columbia Encyclopedia 2000. See the present document under The Collapse of the Maya, Entry 760 C.E., and also under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates).

Table No. 1 (Partial, No. 1): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

Lament to the Spirit of War

In battle, you hack everything down,

God of War! With your fierce wings,

you slice away the land and charge,

disguised as a raging storm!

You growl like a roaring hurricane,

yell like a tempest,

thunder, rage, roar, drum,

expel evil winds!

Your feet are filled with anxiety!

On your lyre of moans

I hear your loud dirge scream.

Like a fiery monster, you fill the land with poison!

Like thunder, you growl over the earth!

Trees and bushes collapse before you!

You are blood rushing down a mountain.

You are a spirit of hate, greed and anger,

a dominator of heaven and earth!

Your fire wafts over our land,

riding on a beast with indomitable commands.

You decide all fate.

You triumph over all our rites.

Who can explain why you go on so?

(Enheduanna c.2,300 B.C.E. In Gioseffi 2003, p. 3. Translation adapted by Daniela Gioseffi and Francoise Hall. See also Francoise Hall 2003, Poem, ATo Enheduanna@).

2,000 Menhir Statue of a Woman, from Montagnac, France. Musee d=histoire naturelle et pre-historique, Nime, France. A Menhir statue is one in which the elements of the human figure are incised on all four sides of a single, upright, free-standing block of stone (Stokstad 2005, p. 20).

1,700 B.C.E. The Collapse of the Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization:

3,300 B.C.E.:

The Indus Valley civilization begins in the valleys of the Indus and the Ghaggar-Hakra rivers, in present-day Pakistan. Later, it would expand to present-day western India, and parts of both Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Harappa is the name of the first of its cities to be excavated, around 1925.

People live in villages. They grow crops (peas, sesame seeds, dates and cotton). They domesticate various animals (including the water buffalo). They use the plough. They trade with other regional cultures, reaching to Central Asia and the Iranian plateau. They make beads from lapis lazuli (a deep-blue gem, usually flecked with yellow iron pyrites). They bury the dead. The society is hierarchical.

3,000 B.C.E.:

People develop an early form of the AIndus script.@ The script is pictographic, probably a system of symbols rather than a system for encoding language (writing).

2,500 B.C.E.:

Agriculture: The region is transformed, probably from irrigation. Agriculture is highly productive. Wheat and barley have been domesticated.

Population: Villages have turned into urban centers. Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, the Atwin capital cities,@ are probably the largest. Lothal, with a population of around 15,000, is slightly smaller. This period marks the beginning of the flourishing of the Indus Valley civilization.

Technology: Cities have the world=s first urban sanitation systems, draining waste water from houses into covered, brick-lined sewers which line major streets. Length, mass and time are measured with great accuracy. The system of uniform weights and measure is among the first in the world. Unique inventions include the tidal dock (to measure tides), and an instrument to measure whole sections of the horizon. Metallurgic techniques produce lead, tin, copper and bronze. Early dentistry is practiced, including the installing of molar crowns. Transportation is by means of bullock carts, sailboats and sea-going crafts. Long-distance sea trade is feasible with the innovative development of a plank-built watercraft equipped with a single central mast supporting a sail made of woven rushes or cloth.

Arts and Crafts: Pottery, seals, sculptures, gold jewelry, and anatomically detailed figures are carved in terracota, bronze and steatite (earthenware). Necklaces, bangles and other ornaments are made from shell, ceramic, agate and glazed steatite (porcelain, faience). String musical instruments are in use. Toys and games include dice with from one to six holes on each of the six surfaces.

Society: The society is egalitarian B some houses are larger than others, but all are connected to water and drainage facilities. There is no evidence of a high concentration of wealth. People use the AIndus script.@ They eat beef and practice yoga-like postures. They either bury or cremate the dead, in the latter case preserving the ashes in burial urns. Religion probably centers mostly on a Mother Goddess, symbol of fertility.

1,800 B.C.E.:

The climate begins to be significantly drier and colder. Substantial portions of the Ghaggar-Hakra river disappear. The Indus river shifts course.

Signs of a gradual decline emerge.

1,700 B.C.E.:

Most of the cities are abandoned.

1,500 B.C.E.:

The Indus Valley civilization has collapsed.

Climate change has probably played the principal role. Competing hypotheses are a tectonic event and/or an invasion by Aryans.

Factors in the Collapse: Environmental degradation was not prominent. Climate was probably the underlying, fundamental factor in the collapse. A decline in trade does not appear to have been important. The presence of enemies did precipitate the collapse, but probably as a final, proximate precipitating factor. Isolation was not an issue. Leaders did not anticipate the climate change, or if they did, did not take action. Very approximately, the civilization lasted 800 years.

(Pp. 3 and 547. Wikipedia 2007 AIndus Valley Civilization,@ pp. 1-12. Wikipedia 2007 ALothal,@ p. 7. Pfeiffer 2004, p. 10. Columbia Encyclopedia 2000. See the present document under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates).

Table No. 1 (Partial No. 2): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

1,600 B.C.E. The Collapse of the Minoan Crete Civilization:

2,700 B..C.E.:

A Bronze Age civilization begins on the Island of Crete. It would be named the Minoan civilization after its prosperous and just King Minos.

The Greeks on the mainland are condescending toward the Minoan civilization, seeing it as not as advanced as their own B specifically, as not yet having fully differentiated the bodies of humans from the bodies of nature. In Greek mythology, King Minos= wife, Pasiphae, bore Athe Minotaur,@ a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man (Columbia Encyclopedia).

The statue Woman or Goddess with Snakes (1,625#), may confirm that the Minoan civilization was based on a lower level of consciousness than that on mainland Greece (See below, under 1,700 B.C.E.).

In our own vocabulary, a cretin is one who is mentally-retarded.

1,700 B.C.E.:

The Cretan society is highly organized. Minoans make bronze. They raise cattle, sheep, pigs and goats. They grow wheat, barley, chickpeas, and vetch (herbaceous, twining leguminous plants). They cultivate grapes, figs and olives, and grow poppies. They domesticate bees and adopt pomegranates and quinces from the near East. (They do not have either oranges or lemons). They develop poly-culture (the practice of growing more than one crop at a time). They use wooden plows, bound by leather to wooden handles, and pulled by a pair of donkeys or oxen.

Population: The population of Knossos, the capital city, reaches around 12,000.

Woman or Goddess with Snakes (1,625 B.C.E.#): From the Palace Complex, Knossos, Crete. Archaeological Museum, Iraklion, Crete (Stokstad 2005, p. 98).

# This statue is a classic representation of the uroboric Great Mother. Her typhonic form (that is, the magical connection between her own body and the bodies of nature), is revealed by the intimate presence of the serpent-uroboros. Her serpent (awareness) has evolved only through what the perennial philosophy, in the form of kundalini yoga, has systematized as the lowest three chakras B food, sex and power. The uroboric Great Mother demands sacrifice to ward off death.

The serpent also represents the phallus of the Great Mother, who is always hermaphroditic, that is, virgin, in the sense that with regards to intercourse, she belongs to no man whatsoever. She is forever the same, while men are but interchangeable bearers of the consort phallus. She is both mother and lover, and hence her consort is both her son and husband.

The level of consciousness represented by this statue is a lower level of consciousness than the average one prevailing on mainland Greece, where the mental ego is beginning to emerge from the typhonic realms.

c.1,600 B.C.E.:

The climate abruptly turns disastrously drier and colder. Rainfall is reduced by 30 percent. The change is due either to normal variations in the earth=s climate, or to the eruption (explosion) of a volcano at the site of present-day Thera (Thira) Island.

Agriculture fails. The Minoan culture collapses.

Factors in the Collapse: Environmental degradation was not prominent. Climate change was the dominant factor in the collapse. Neither lack of trade nor enemies precipitated the collapse. Isolation was not an issue. It is unlikely that leaders could have anticipated the change. Very approximately, the civilization lasted 1,100 years.

(P. 3. Wikipedia 2007 AMinoan Civilization,@ pp. 1-15. Wiener 1989, between pp. 128 and 161. Pfeiffer 2004, pp. 9-10. Columbia Encyclopedia 2000. See the present document under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates).

Table No. 1 (Partial No. 3): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

1,500 The Iron Age (1,500 B.C.E.- Present). Civilizations are urban. A great variety of metal tools are used. Ox-drawn plows and wheel vehicles assume new importance. Warfare is conducted on horseback and in horse-drawn chariots. Alphabetic writing based on the Phoenician script, becomes widespread.

In the Near East, male-oriented, patriarchal mythologies of thunder-hurling gods are now the dominant divinities.

Around 1,500 B.C.E., in both the West and the East, written records and mythologies begin to scream out in psychological anguish in ways hitherto not known. Records explode in grief, doubt and sorrow. The moral problem of suffering moves to center stage, where it would remain to the present time. For the first time in history, there is a yearning for release from what is felt to be an insufferable state of sin, exile or delusion. This is what the theologians (and scientists) have called the Fall of Man.

The notion of a historical fall from Eden is present during this period, but the idea that humans are actually evolving toward Spirit is not yet conceived. History is viewed as a devolution B a continuous fall from God. The world of manifestation is devolving away from Spirit. God lies in our collective past, the Garden of Eden was yesterday, the Golden Age lies on the road behind us.

Science, as represented, for instance, by Carl Sagan (1934-1996), interprets the AFall of Man@ as occurring around 2,000 B.C.E., when Man first experienced self-awareness, when he Afell@ out of his subconscious slumber in nature, magic and myth, awaking as a self-conscious ego, able to reflect, and hence apprehend his fate. Historical Eden is a pre-personal immersion in nature. The Fall is a psychological one, symbolizing the reflective awareness of a self awash in a world of hunger, pain and mortality.

Mystics and all esoteric religions, however, interpret the AFall of Man@ as having occurred together with the creation of the world, the ABig Bang@ (c.8,000,000,000 B.C.E.), when Spirit Alost@ itself in each successive descending level of reality, each level having a more restricted consciousness. Less aware than its predecessor, each level is less able to grasp, fully remember its predecessor. Since all levels are created by a forgetting of Spirit, all, except the non-dual, are forgetful of their Source. All seem to themselves to be dismembered, fragmented, living in separation from Spirit, in alienation, sin and suffering. The agony of each level is that it appears to itself, that is, it seems to itself, to be separate from Sprit. In reality, it is not, of course, since there is nothing but Spirit.

In contrast to its evolution in the East, the ego, in the West, becomes overly heroic, and draws the (illusory) conclusion that it is self-sufficient and independent. It does this by repressing both the lower levels of consciousness from which it has emerged (the Great Mother and the mythic-membership stages), as well as the higher realms, which should have been its destiny. The new ego, thus built upon a repression of the Below and a denial of the Above, upon a disdain of necessary Earth and a refusal of Heaven, this doubly defended consciousness, with its hubris and cosmo-centricity, would proceed to remake the Western world, and eventually underwrite an entire civilization.

Around 1,300 B.C.E., history, as the chronicle of events in a society, begins to exist. Because of the dissociation of the ego from both body and God (the ego has dissociated itself from the body and thinks itself God), history becomes a chronicle of the power-laced feats of the ego, rather than a chronicle of the evolutionary steps toward Atman B one step of which would be, of course, the death and transcendence of the ego itself.

By 1,000 B.C.E., levels of murderous aggression and mass atrocities yet unknown in the history of the world occur. The new ego, more conscious of itself than its mythic-membership predecessor, is more vulnerable, more guilty and more terrorized by the thought of death B and hence, also more willing to deal joyously in massive substitute sacrifices. Joyful release accompanies the outbreak of war.

1,330 Inner Coffin of Tutankhamun=s Sarcophagus, from the bomb of Tutankhamun, Valley of the Kings, near Deir el-Bahri, Egypt.

The new ego wants to be, pretends to be, immortal B God (Stokstad 2005, p. 81).

1,200 The (Real) Trojan War. Greece destroys Troy.

1,100 B.C.E. The Collapse of the Mycenaean Civilization:

1,600 B.C.E.:

Greeks arrive in the Aegean Sea. They would develop the Mycenaean (Bronze Age) Greek civilization.

In time, the population of 129 Mycenaean settlements would reach around 20,000. The Mycenaean would develop writing, and their civilization would serve as the historical setting for much of Greek mythology, and specifically, for the epics of the first European poet, Homer (before 700 B.C.E.).

1,100 B.C.E.:

The Mycenaean civilization collapses. Writing disappears and Greece returns to illiteracy.

The collapse is probably due in great part to environmental problems, including deforestation, soil erosion, and siltation of valley bottoms.

Factors in the Collapse: Environmental degradation was the principal factor in the collapse. There is no evidence that either a climate change, a decline in trade, or enemies precipitated the collapse. Isolation was not an issue. Leaders did not anticipate, or if they did, did not act on the effects of the environmental degradation. Very approximately, the civilization lasted 500 years.

[Pp. 3, 14 and 546. Wikipedia 2007 AHistory of Greece,@ pp. 2-3. Carothers and McDonald 1979, pp. 433-454 (JSTOR, p. 1). See the present document under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates].

Table No. 1 (Partial No. 4): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Mycenaean Greek (Greece) (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	-	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

900* Centaur, from Lefkandi, Euboea. Archaeological Museum, Eretria, Greece (Stokstad 2005, p. 119).

* The centaur represents the vision-logic, aperspectival world view which is that of a self more advanced than the average self during this period of time (See the Great Sphinx, 2,550 B.C.E.).

875* Human-headed Winged Lion (Lamassu), Assurnasirpal II Palace Complex, Kalhu (modern Nimrud, Iraq). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Stokstad 2005, p. 26).

* The centaur represents the vision-logic, aperspectival world view which is that of a self more advanced than the average during this period of time (p. 27; See the Great Sphinx, 2,550 B.C.E.).

850 Assurnasirpal II killing Lions, Assurnasirpal II Palace Complex, Kalhu (modern Nimrud, Iraq). The British Museum, London (Stokstad 2005, p. 41).

750* Man and Centaur, perhaps from Olympia, Greece. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Stokstad 2005, p. 120).

* The centaur represents the vision-logic, aperspectival world view which is that of a self more advanced than the average during this period of time. In this sculpture, the centaur seems to be shaking a man who is blind (p. 120; See the Great Sphinx).

580 Gorgon Medusa, detail of sculpture from a pediment of the Temple of Artemis, Korkyra, Greece (Stokstad 2005, p. 125).

In Greek mythology, Artemis is an Olympian goddess, daughter of Zeus, and, therefore, a derivative of him who symbolizes the newly emerging ego. The Medusa is a monster, both menacing and protective. According to legend, countless people tried to kill her, only to die when they looked at her face. The Greek hero Perseus succeeded because he beheaded her while looking only at her reflection in his polished shield (Stokstad 2005, p. 125).

This is a classic hero myth. The mental ego emerges from the typhonic realms. Medusa is a derivative of the Great Mother which represents the typhonic level of consciousness. As all typhons, she contains both the serpent-uroboros and the lower aspects of human nature (emotional-sexuality and magic). Her serpent (awareness) has evolved only through what the perennial philosophy (in the form of kundalini yoga) has systematized as the lowest three chakras B food, sex and power. In Greek mythology, Perseus slays the Gorgon Medusa, thereby achieving enormous power B the ability to turn Atlas (who held the sky on his shoulders for all eternity) into a mountain of stone. The progression from a lower to a higher level of consciousness is always accompanied by a sense of victory and enormously increased power (Compare to Zeus defeating the Typhon; Compare also to The Devil).

500 B.C.E.-1,500 C.E.: The Middle Egoic Level (in Europe and Near East)

The dissociation of the ego (mental) from the typhonic and mythic-membership (body-bound) structures of consciousness B the mind from the body B is now a permanent element in the European tradition, and the distinguishing mark of European and Western man. The mind and body are dissociated rather than integrated.

B.C.E.

450 Myron, Discus Thrower (Diskobolos). Roman copy after the original bronze of c.450 B.C.E. Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome, Italy (Stokstad 2005, p. 112).

400* Battle of Centaurs and Wild Beasts, Hadrian=s Villa, Tivoli, Italy. This is a mosaic done in c.123 C.E., of a much-admired 5^th century B.C.E. painting by the Greek artist Zeuxis (Stokstad 2005, p. 220).

* Note again that the centaur represents the vision-logic, aperspectival world view and is, therefore, a more advanced level of consciousness than the average one during this period of time (See the Great Sphinx, 2,550 B.C.E.).

300 Head of a Man. Palazzo dei Consevatori, Rome, Italy (Stokstad 2005, p. 191).

150 Hagesandros, Polydoros and Athanadoros of Rhodes, Laocoon and his Sons, Musei Vaticani, Museo Pio Clementino, Cortile Ottagono, Rome (Stokstad 2005, pp. xliv, xlv and 174-175).

The statue depicts an episode of the Trojan War. The War was probably a real one, having occurred around 1,200 B.C.E., when the Greeks invaded Troy. Over the years, however, it became part of Greek mythology. The events in the final year of the War form the major part of the Iliad, an epic poem by the first European poet, Homer (c.700 B.C.E.).

Historically, the serpent has been the symbol of levels of consciousness. Its presence, therefore, points to a possible interpretation of the sculpture in those terms.

According to Greek legend, when the Trojan prince, Paris, abducted Helena, a married Spartan woman, the Greeks set off to invade Troy. After nine years of battle, they finally tricked the Trojans into letting them into the city, by means of a giant wooden horse in which Greek warriors were hidden. Troy was destroyed.

The precipitating event for the war, the abduction of a married woman, was a lowly deed, seemingly driven only by very low levels of consciousness development B the 2^nd (sexual) chakra and possibly the 3^rd (power) chakra of the perennial philosophy.

Two people in Troy warned their fellow citizens not to take the giant horse within the city walls B Cassandra and Laocoon.

* Cassandra was a Trojan princess who had the gift of prophecy, together with the curse that her prophecies would never be believed.

* Laocoon was a priest (Stokstad 2005, p. 175).

It is possible that these two individuals had a level of consciousness more advanced than the average, and had access to psychic capacities B capacities which are said in the perennial philosophy to exist only at the psychic level, the Nirmanakaya level, epitomized by the 6^th (ajna) chakra (the spot between and behind the eyebrows, the Athird eye@ of the psychics). This is the stage of consciousness achieved by the true shamans in typhonic times (200,000-9,500 B.C.E.).

Among the gods who favored the Greek side of the war, were Hera, Poseidon and Athena.

* Hera, both protective and destructive, represents the Great Mother whose cult was prevalent during the mythic membership stage of consciousness development (7,500-1,500 B.C.E.). According to the perennial philosophy, the Great Mother represents the lowest chakras B the 1^st chakra (food, matter, as in fecal matter), and the 2^nd chakra (the genitals).

* Poseidon, god of the sea, extremely powerful (able to cause earthquakes) and with a vengeful and violent disposition, represents gut reactions B emotions, power, vitality, the 3^rd chakra of the perennial philosophy.

* Athena, having been born fully-armed from Zeus= skull, is a derivative of Zeus, the supreme god of the Greeks. Zeus (root meaning, Abright@ or Asky@) represents the ego. He is the hero of the classic hero myth whereby his victory over Typhon (a derivative of Gaea, the Great Mother), earned him his reign over the patriarchal gods of Mount Olympus. Athena represents the victorious ego stage of consciousness development, the emergence of the unique individuality B the voice box, the discursive intellect, the 5^th chakra of the perennial philosophy.

During the early stages of ego development (Low Egoic Level B 2,000-500 B.C.E.), in the West, both the lower and the higher levels of development were suppressed B the lower, that is, the Great Mother, the mythic-membership stage, and the higher, that is, the levels beyond the ego, of which the Nirmanakaya is the first super-conscious.

We see exactly this suppression operating in the punishment of Laocoon. The precipitating event for the war is a deed driven by the 2^nd and 3^rd chakras. Athena (ego, 5^th chakra) dispatches serpents (the classic representation of consciousness) to strangle Laocoon and his sons (6^th chakra). The result is the destruction of 2^nd, 3^rd and 6^th chakras in Troy. The presence of the serpent is the clue, the universal power of the mysterious serpent, the same serpent that was in the Garden of Eden (Stokstad 2005, p. xliv).

50 The Medici Venus. Roman copy of a 1^st century Greek Statue. Villa Medici, Florence, Italy (Stokstad 2005, p. xxxiv).

C.E.

36 Jesus Christ. In the West, Jesus Christ has a causal level apprehension, AI and the Father are one.@ He is crucified.

The causal level is the level of the sage, the Dharmakaya of the Buddhists. The self dis-identifies with any and every object in awareness, because no object in awareness is the observing self. The self, the seer, the witness, is pure subjectivity B and thus can never be seen, can never be an object. The self is an opening, a clearing, an Emptiness, a vast spaciousness in which all objects (body, mind and nature) float by.

75 Young Woman writing, detail of a wall paining, from Pompeii. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy (Stokstad 2005, p. 210).

575 Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels, Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sanai, Egypt (Stokstad 2005, p. 285).

As Theotokos (bearer of God), Mary was viewed as the powerful, ever-forgiving intercessor, appealing to her Divine Son for mercy on behalf of repentant worshipers. The Christian warrior-saints, Theodore (left) and George (right), are both legendary figures, said to have slain dragons B the legends representing of the triumph of the Church over the Aevil serpent@ of paganism (Stokstad 2005, pp. 283-284).

The unquestioned hierarchy as well as the minor importance of the woman, are revealed by Mary appealing to her son for mercy toward repentants.

The slaying of the dragon is a hero myth symbolizing the emergence of the ego from the typhonic realms (the Great Mother). The dragon guards the ego, preventing it from liberating itself (differentiating) from the Mother (Compare with Zeus defeating the Typhon).

600 C.E. The Collapse of the Moche Civilization:

1 C.E.

The Moche begin to thrive on the northern Peruvian coast. They become a technologically advanced people who carve images of their daily lives on ceramic pottery, and trade with people as far away as the Maya. Their practices would include elaborate burials, blood-drinking rituals, and human sacrifice.

450 C.E.

This is the beginning of Phase (Period) IV in the Moche civilization. The population of the Moche State has reached 650,000. The society is complex and structured hierarchically. A supreme ruler and a coterie of warrior-priests are believed to be invested with supernatural powers. Healers, architects, engineers and lesser religious officials form a small middle class. The mass of the population produce food, serve in the army, and provide labor for the construction of public works.

Traders use llamas for transport. Defeated enemies are sacrificed. Art becomes increasingly realistic.

600 C.E.:

A 30-year drought, accompanied by severe flooding, affects the whole area of the Moche (Phase IV) civilization. The capital city is destroyed, fields and irrigation systems are swept away, and widespread famine ensues. The drought coincides with small variations in solar radiation.

The Moche civilization collapses. Eventually, the capital city is moved northward, and new adaptive agricultural and architectural technologies are developed.

Factors in the Collapse: Environmental degradation was not predominant. Climate change seems to have been the dominant factor in the collapse. There is no evidence that a decline in trade or that enemies precipitated the collapse. Isolation was not an issue. Leaders did not anticipate the drought, or if they did, did not act on this knowledge. Very approximately, the civilization lasted 600 years.

(Pp. 3 and 174. Wikipedia 2007, APre-Columbian,@ p. 9. Weiss and Bradley 2001, p. 4. Pfeiffer 2004, p. 10. Encarta Encyclopedia undated ANative Americans of Middle and South America,@ pp. 1-7. See also the present document under The Collapse of the Maya, Entry 760 C.E., and under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates).

Table No. 1 (Partial No. 5): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Mycenaean Greek (Greece) (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	-	Yes
Moche (Peru) (1- 600 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Flooding	-	-	-	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

910 C.E. The Collapse of the Maya Civilization:

Mesoamerica is the ancient Native American cultural region which extends from central Mexico to the northwestern border of Costa Rica. Within Mesoamerica, the Maya area comprises the Yucatan peninsula, much of the present Mexican state of Chiapas, as well as Guatemala, Belize, parts of El Salvador and the extreme western part of Honduras. In its time, the Maya area was one of two centers of innovation in the New World, the other being the Inca Empire, comprising some 9 to 14 million people, and, from 1,438 to 1,533 C.E., dominating the Andes of South America

6,000 B.C.E.

An extreme drought affects the Yucatan Peninsula. It would last until 5,000 B.C.E..

5,000 B.C.E.

From 5,000 to 500 B.C.E., the climate in the Maya area is relatively wet.

3,000 B.C.E.:

Outside the Maya area, in lowlands to its west and southwest, corn, beans and squash are domesticated and become important components of the diet.

2,500 B.C.E.:

Outside the Maya area, in lowlands to its west and southwest, pottery is developed.

1,500 B.C.E.:

Outside of the Maya area, in lowlands to its west and southwest, people organize themselves in villages. This event marks the beginning of the Formative Period of Maya civilization (1,500 B.C.E.-250 C.E.).

1,200 B.C.E.:

In the tropical coastal plains, the Olmec consolidate themselves around a capital city (San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan). They develop pottery.

1,000 B.C.E.:

The Maya organize themselves in villages, and develop pottery.

600 B.C.E.:

In the Oaxaca area, the Zapotec develop writing.

500 B.C.E.:

The climate in the Maya area (which has been wet since 5,000 B.C.E.) becomes dry and would remain so until 250 B.C.E.

The Maya live in buildings which are substantial.

400 B.C.E.:

The Maya develop a writing system using pictographs and syllabic elements forming text and codices (manuscript books). The inscriptions are first on stone, pottery and wood, and later, on (highly perishable) bark paper coated with plaster. During the whole of the Maya period, commoners would never be the subject matter of writing. Only the conquests of kings and nobles would be worthy of description.

250 B.C.E.:

The climate in the Maya area (which has been dry since 500 B.C.E.), returns to being relatively wet. It would remain wet for 750 years (250 B.C.E.-125 C.E.). The rise of Maya civilization may be facilitated by this return of wetter conditions.

This period marks the beginning of the flourishing of the Maya civilization.

36 B.C.E.:

Outside the Maya area, Mesoamericans enter their first date on the Long Count solar calendar of 360 days, which they have developed and backdated to 3,114 B.C.E. (2,500 years before any writing appeared in the New World). They have also developed a complementary ritual calendar of 260 days.

125 C.E.:

A drought affects the Maya and surrounding areas. It would last 125 years (125-250 C.E.). The city of El Mirador collapses.

197 C.E.:

The Maya record for the first time, on a monument, an event dated according to their Long Count solar calendar.

250 C.E.:

The climate in the Maya area, which has been dry since 125 C.E., returns to being wetter. It would remain so until 600 C.E.

Kings and Adynasties@ (kingdoms) begin to take control. This marks the beginning of the Classic Period of Maya civilization (250-900 C.E.). Kings claim divine ancestry, and promise rain and prosperity in return for the support by the peasantry of their luxurious lifestyle.

600 C.E.:

A drought in the Maya area leads to a decline in the city of Tikal and some other cities. The drought is of short duration and wet conditions return until 760 C.E..

750 C.E.:

Population: The Maya society is at its height. The number of inhabitants in the lowlands of the Maya area is between 3 and 13 millions. The society is complex. The number of buildings and monuments, as well as the number of dates recorded on monuments and pottery, have grown exponentially, and are at their peak.

Soil: The Yucatan Peninsula consists of karst B a porous, sponge-like limestone which absorbs rain, leaving little or no surface water. Both the rainfall and its timing are unpredictable from year to year. Much of the southern part of the Peninsula lies too high above the water table to be accessible by wells.

Agriculture: Seventy percent of Maya society consists of farmers. The productivity of Maya agriculture is low B one farmer is able to support only himself and one non-farmer. (This contrasts with the United States, where the ratio is one farmer able to support himself and 125 non-farmers, and Ancient Egypt, where one farmer was able to support himself and four non-farmers). Deforestation and hillside erosion are severe.

The Maya depend on a narrow range of crops B 70 percent of their diet consists of corn. (They do not have potatoes, quinoa, wheat or barley). The humid climate limits corn storage to one year. The Maya have neither the plow nor animal-powered transport. Edible domestic animals consist of dogs, turkey and duck B all insufficiently large to pull a plow or carry loads. (The Maya have neither llamas, horses, oxen, donkeys nor camels). The Maya hunt deer for meat. (They do not have cows, sheep, pigs or goats).

Technology: The Maya have only stone and wooden tools. [They have neither metal tools, pulleys, machines, wheels (except locally as toys), nor boats with sails].

Culture: The Maya develop a vigesimal (base 20) system of counting, notable for its use of the zero as a place-holder.

Societal Organization: The relatively low productivity of agriculture and the lack of draft animals, severely limit the duration and distance of military campaigns. Maya armies and bureaucracies remain small and unable to mount lengthy campaigns over long distances. Maya society is politically divided into small kingdoms of 25,000 to 50,000, up to 500,000 people, all within a radius of two to three days= walk from the king=s palace. The kingdoms are perpetually at war with each other, and would never become united into a large empire. No one kingdom would ever be sufficiently strong to unite a whole region. Cities remain small.

Religion: Maya religion centers on ancestor worship (rather than universalist gods).

760 C.E.:

The worst drought since 6,000 B.C.E. precipitates the collapse of the Classic Maya civilization. It is the most prolonged drought in the first millennium of the Current Epoch.

The drought has four peaks, each of which contributes to the collapse of certain Maya sites:

C.E.

760 Two dry years.

810-820 A decade even drier than the dry years of 760.

860 Three years even drier than the decade 810-820.

910 Six years even drier than the dry years of 860.

Droughts in the Maya area recur at intervals of about 208 years. These cycles may be due to small variations in solar radiation. The collapse of other pre-historic civilizations also coincides with droughts due to changes in solar radiation. Such collapses include:

* Around 2,170 B.C.E., the collapse of the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia.

This drought affects the whole Middle East and is probably also responsible for the collapse of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, in 2,258 B.C.E.

* Around 600 C.E., the collapse of the Moche (Phase IV) civilization on the Peruvian coast.

* Around 1,100 C.E., the collapse of the Tiwanaku civilization in the Andes.

800 C.E.:

The population is excessive compared to resources. Land is scarce. Wars between kingdoms, between cities and kingdoms, civil strife and fights between commoners, are increasingly frequent and intense.

909 C.E.

The Maya record for the last time, on a monument, an event dated according to their Long Count solar calendar.

910 C.E.:

The Maya civilization has collapsed. Only 5 percent of the population have survived. In the southern lowlands, less than one percent of the population has survived.

Factors in the Collapse: Factors precipitating the collapse of the Classic Maya include:

1. Environmental Degradation: Deforestation, soil nutrient depletion and erosion, resulted in a decrease of available farmland.

2. Climate change: The drought was severe. The population density was such that when the drought came, the whole population could not be accommodated in those few areas where the water supply continued to be reliable.

3. Trading: A decline in trading does not seem to have been a predominant factor in the collapse.

4. Fighting: The Maya fought among themselves, not with threatening external enemies, of whom there were none of their stature. As the expanding population fought over diminishing resources, internal fighting increased. Maya warfare, already endemic, peaked just before the collapse. By creating between municipalities areas unsafe for farming, warfare further diminished the amount of land available for agriculture.

5. Isolation: Isolation was not an issue.

6. Non-anticipation by Leaders: The attention of leaders was focused on their own short-term goals B enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each other, and exploiting the peasantry so as to be able to maintain the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed. To the extent that leaders were aware of long-term problems, they did not heed the information, much less acted on it.

Very approximately, the civilization lasted 1,160 years.

(Pp. 157-177. Haug et al 2003, between pp. 1731 and 1735. Pfeiffer 2004, p. 10. Wikipedia 2007, APre-Columbian,@ p. 6. See the present document under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates).

Table No. 1 (Partial No. 6): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Mycenaean Greek (Greece) (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	-	Yes
Moche (Peru) (1- 600 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Flooding	-	-	-	Yes
Maya, Mesoamerica (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier	-	-	-	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

975 Emeterius and Ende, Battle of the Bird and the Serpent, copy of a page from the Commentary on the Apocalypse, compiled around 750 by Beatus, Abbot of the Monastery of San Martin at Liebana, in the north Spanish kingdom, Asturias. The Commentary is an analysis of the visions set down in the Apocalypse (the Book of Revelation, that book of the New Testament which vividly describes the final, fiery triumph of Christ). Beatus=s work is an impassioned justification for orthodox beliefs, and appealed to Christians who were in a long struggle against Islam. The book was widely read, copied and illustrated. This Mozarabic style copy was produced under the direction of the scribe-painter, Emeterius, a monk in the workshop of the Monastery of San Salvador, at Tabara, in the kingdom, Leon (Stokstad 2005, pp. 448-449).

A peacock grasping a snake in its beak is a metaphorical description of the triumph of Christ over Satan. A bird with a powerful beak and beautiful plumage (Christ), covers itself with mud to trick the snake (Satan). Just when the snake decides the bird is harmless, the bird swiftly attacks and kills it. Senior, the scribe for the project wrote:

ASo Christ in his incarnation clothed himself in the impurity of our human flesh, that through a pious trick, he might fool the evil deceiver . . . With the word of his mouth, he slew the venomous killer, the devil@ (Stokstad 2005, pp. 448-449).

1,100 Wiligelmus, Creation and Fall, facade, Modena Cathedral, Modena, Emilia, Italy (Stokstad 2005, p. 510).

1,100 C.E. The Collapse of the Tiwanaku Civilization:

200 B.C.E.:

Agriculture: Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) is a small village near the southeastern shore of Lake Titicaca, in present-day Bolivia. Farmers develop the Araised-field@ method of farming, which consists of raising planting-mounds artificially, and separating them by canals filled with water. During the day, the canals provide moisture and absorb solar heat. During the night, they release the heat, providing crops with needed insulation against the bitter cold. Crops cultivated in this manner survive frosts which kill most crops grown the traditional way. The yields are also impressive B up to nine times the yields of traditional agriculture in the region (and 1 2 times the yield of modern agriculture with its artificial fertilizers and pesticides).

500 C.E.:

The regional population increases and communities begin to prosper.

700 C.E.:

Tiwanaku is a regional power, the city itself inhabited by 40,000 people, and the whole region by some 800,000 people. They lack writing.

1,100 C.E.:

A drought sets in. It coincides with small variations in solar radiation.

The Tiwanaku culture collapses. The city of Tiwanaku falls into decay and its characteristic artistic style vanishes. The region continues to be inhabited, but the number of inhabitants and the standard of living plummet.

Factors in the Collapse: Environmental degradation was not a prominent factor in the collapse. Climate change seems to have been the principal factor. There is no evidence of a decline in trade or a threat from enemies. Isolation was not an issue. Leaders did not anticipate the drought, or if they did, did not act on the information. Very approximately, the civilization lasted 1,300 years.

(Pp. 3 and 174. Pfeiffer 2004, p. 10. Wikipedia 2007 ATiwanaku,@ pp. 1-3. See also the present document under The Collapse of the Maya, Entry 760 C.E., and under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates).

Table No. 1 (Partial No. 7): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Mycenaean Greek (Greece) (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	-	Yes
Moche (Peru) (1- 600 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Flooding	-	-	-	Yes
Maya, Mesoamerica (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Tiwanaku (Bolivia) (200 B.C.E.-1,100 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier	-	-	-	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

1,123 The Master of San Clemente, Christ in Majesty. Detail of apse painting from the Church of San Clemente, Tahull, Catalonia, Spain. Museu Nacional d=Art de Catalunya, Barcelona (Stokstad 2005, p. 489).

Christ has a powerful presence as ruler and judge of the world. He sits within a mandorla. The symbols alpha and omega are on each side of his head. He holds the open Gospel inscribed Aego sum lux mundi@ (I am the light of the world, John 8:12). Four angels, each holding an evangelist=s symbol, float at his sides. At his feet are six apostles B Bartholomew and John visible here B and the Virgin holding a bowl (Stokstad 2005, p. 488).

1,175 Virgin and Child, from the Auvergne region, France. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Stokstad 2005, p. 485).

1,175 C.E. The Collapse of the Anasazi Civilization:

11,000 B.C.E.:

The Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo) are the Asian ancestors of modern Native Americans. They colonize the New World and arrive in what is now the southwestern part of the United States. They are hunter-gatherers and are not literate. They do not develop agriculture, probably because of the paucity of wild plant and animal species which can be domesticated. The environment is fragile. Rainfall is low and unpredictable, the soil quickly exhausted, and forest re-growth very slow. Major droughts and episodes of streambed erosion recur at intervals which are longer than either a human lifetime or oral memory span.

2,000 B.C.E.:

The domestication of corn spreads from Mexico.

800 B.C.E.:

The domestication of squash spreads from Mexico.

600 B.C.E.:

The domestication of beans spreads from Mexico.

400 B.C.E.:

The domestication of cotton spreads from Mexico.

1 C.E.:

Some southwestern tribes form villages and become primarily dependent on ditch-irrigated agriculture.

500 C.E.:

The number of inhabitants explodes and they spread over a wide area.

600 C.E.:

The Chaco Canyon Anasazi begin to flourish. Like the other Native American tribes, they live in underground pit houses (the most primitive type of housing).

700 C.E.:

The Chaco Canyon Anasazi independently invent techniques of stone construction, eventually adopting a core of rubble (broken rock fragments) with a facing of cut stones.

920 C.E.:

The Chaco Canyon Anasazi construct stone buildings which are two stories high. Their population reaches around 5,000.

Problems with water supply become apparent. The combination of clearing the vegetation to make way for agriculture, and the diversion of water into irrigation channels, results in the cutting by water of deep arroyos (ravines) in which the level of the water is below the level of the field B making both surface- and ground-water irrigation impossible until the arroyos refill. Once formed, such arroyos can extend six miles in three days, leaving an agricultural field incised and dry.

1,000 C.E.:

Deforestation becomes a major problem. Instead of their local supply of timber, Chacoans now have to obtain their wood for construction 50 miles away, at elevations several thousand feet higher than Chaco Canyon. Without draft animals available, they carry down the mountain, solely by means of human muscle power, about 200,000 logs, each weighing up to 700 pounds.

Despite a reduced crop production due to water shortage, and the lack of timber supply within the Canyon itself, the Anasazi population continues to increase.

Environmental problems mount and the population of Chaco Canyon relies ever more heavily on outlying satellite settlements for crucial items, such as food, wood, stone and pottery. It itself offers nothing tangible for sale to these satellite settlements. It only exploits them. It is becoming an empire, divided between an elite living in luxury, and a peasantry raising the food and doing the work.

1,029 C.E.:

There is a big spurt in construction.

1,040 C.E.:

A drought occurs.

The Anasazi survive as a society. Their population is still relatively small, there is still plenty of land in which to expand, and the society is not as dependent on outlying settlements as it would be by the time of either the drought of 1,090 C.E. or the final one of 1,130 C.E..

1,090 C.E.:

A drought occurs.

The Anasazi again survive as a society. Their population is still relatively small, there is still land in which to expand, and the society is not as dependent on outlying settlements as it would be by the time of the final drought (1,130 C.E.).

1,100 C.E.:

The Chaco Canyon Anasazi construct buildings which are six stories high, have 600 rooms, and have roof supports which consist of logs up to 16 feet in length and up to 700 pounds in weight. These buildings are the largest and tallest in pre-Columbian North America, unmatched on the Continent until the 1880=s, in Chicago. The society is complex, geographically extensive and regionally integrated around one large city. There is no writing system.

1,117 C.E.:

A mere 88 years after the construction spurt of 1029, strife and cannibalism (eating the dead) set in. People eat field mice. There is no evidence of an external enemy.

1,130 C.E.:

A drought sets in and temperatures get colder. The climate change would last 30 years (until 1,160 C.E.).

The lack of rainfall makes rain-supported agriculture impossible. The water table drops to below the level where it can be either tapped by plants, or reachable for irrigation agriculture. Corn only lasts in storage three years, after which it is too rotten or infested to be edible. The population fills all of the land, and there is no more room for expansion. The Anasazi are dependent on outlying settlements for necessities, including food. As prayers for rain remain unanswered, these outlying settlements stop their deliveries. The Anasazi society does not survive.

1,175 C.E.:

The Anasazi have abandoned Chaco Canyon. They have disappeared as a society. Survivors have sought refuge with other southwestern Native American societies, in particular among the Hopi and the Zuni. The Canyon would remain empty until Navajo sheep herders would re-occupy it 600 years later, in 1775. They would call the Canyon=s previous, vanished inhabitants, the AAnasazi@ B The Ancient Ones.

Factors in the Collapse: Three principal factors acting synergistically played a role in the collapse of the Anasazi society:

1. Environmental degradation B especially deforestation and soil erosion, leading to the spontaneous cutting of arroyos.

2. Climate change B a change in rainfall and temperature. This change interacted with the effects of environmental degradation.

3. Trade in food, timber, pottery, stone and luxury goods with neighboring groups, permitted the Anasazi society to be more complex than it would have been in isolation. This inter-dependence also made their society more fragile. When the trade diminished, they reverted back to a less complex state.

The Anasazi attacked and were attacked by surrounding groups. However, they were too distant from other populous and advanced societies to have been seriously threatened by external enemies. The collapse was not due to an invasion by external enemies. Isolation was not an issue. Leaders did not anticipate the drought, or if they did, did not take action.

Very approximately, the civilization lasted 575 years.

(Pp. 136-137, 139-140, 143-145, 147-151, 153, 155-156 and 213. Pfeiffer 2004, p. 10. See the present document under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates).

Table No. 1 (Partial No. 8): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Mycenaean Greek (Greece) (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	-	Yes
Moche (Peru) (1- 600 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Flooding	-	-	-	Yes
Maya, Mesoamerica (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Tiwanaku (Bolivia) (200 B.C.E.-1,100 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Anasazi (Southwestern U.S.) (600-1,175 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier Colder	Yes	-	-	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

1,280 Cimabue (Cenni de Pepi), Virgin and Child enthroned, Church of Santa Trinita, Florence, Italy (Stokstad 2005, p. 572).

The Virgin holds the infant Jesus in her lap and points to him as the path to salvation (Stokstad 2005, p. 570).

1,300 The Italian Renaissance. The Italian Renaissance in art consists of a radical departure from medieval methods of representing the natural world. This is accompanied by a renewed interest in the forms of classical antiquity, an attempt to represent the human figure with a greater sense of physical presence, a growing esteem for the individual, a more realistic depiction of space, and a new appreciation of all aspects of physical nature which would henceforth enrich the veneration of the celestial realm. The art of portraiture flourishes.

1,330 Vesperbild, from Middle Rhine region, Germany. Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany (Stokstad 2005, p. 559).

1,348 The Black Death. A Black Death epidemic kills many artists and patrons.

1,425 C.E. The Collapse of the Greenland Norse Culture:

800 C.E.:

In comparison to the average temperature from 13,000 B.C.E. to 800 C.E., Greenland=s climate from 800 to 1,300 C.E., is mild B similar to or slightly warmer than it is today. This is the AMedieval Warm Period.@

984 C.E.:

The Vikings: The Vikings (Araiders@) are Germanic tribes who are living in Scandinavia (particularly Norway) and who, since 793 C.E., have attempted to escape the emerging power of would-be Norwegian kings by expanding southward to Europe. By the year 984, they had been raiding the coasts of medieval Europe and terrorizing its inhabitants for the past 191 years, and would continue to do so for another 82 years (until 1,066 C.E.). During this whole period, however, they would inter-marry and assimilate themselves into the culture of their victims. Their raids would stop, and the Vikings would be almost completely assimilated into the local population by 1,066 C.E., when William the Conqueror (William of Normandy), would lead French-speaking assimilated descendants of Vikings to victory against King Harold, in the Battle of Hastings, on England=s southeastern coast. The language of the Vikings, Old Norse, would slowly fall into disuse and die as a living idiom.

The Norse: The Norse are Vikings who, instead of turning south to escape the kings, have turned westward. By the year 984, they have occupied Iceland and other islands.

The Greenland Norse: In 984, a fleet of 25 ships continues the journey west to Greenland. They are the AGreenland Norse@ (Greenland Scandinavians). They are literate, and speak Old Norse. Their outpost in Greenland is 1,500 miles from Norway, and would be, for the next 466 years (984-1,450 C.E.), the most remote outpost of European society.

The Land: The land on which the Norse settle, is unoccupied in the south, and only occupied in the far north by the Dorset people, Native American predecessors of the Inuit (Eskimos).

The Climate: The weather is cold. Greenland has an ice cap second only to that of Antarctica. The west coast is bathed by the cold West Greenland Current which flows from the Arctic. The Island is uninhabitable except for deep inside two long, narrow fjords on the southwestern coast. There, deep into the interior of the fjords, the mean summer temperature is 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius), the terrain is flat and pastures luxuriant. In these two fjords, 300 miles apart, one to the south (the AEastern Settlement@) and one to the north (the AWestern Settlement@), the colons settle and begin life as farmers.

The climate in the fjords is sufficiently mild to grow hay and put animals to pasture. The settlers aspire to be a European pastoral society, and they are intent on raising cows, even though hay production fluctuates widely from year to year, and in poor years, shortages of hay threaten survival.

995 C.E.:

Eleven years after the Norse=s arrival in Greenland, King Olaf I of Norway, officially converts to Christianity and declares that he will not trade with pagans. The Greenland Norse depend on Norwegian shipping for trade. Within four years (999 C.E.), they declare themselves to be Christians.

European Christians: Christianity=s claim of exclusivity (proclaiming itself the sole true religion), means that the Norse have to abandon their pagan traditions. They are intent on remaining European, and now take on an identity as European Christians B henceforth outdoing mainlanders in their Christian zeal. They would build churches and a cathedral (in Gadar) equal in size to those of mainland Scandinavia. They would build a monastery and even a nunnery. They would pay (in walrus tusks and polar bear hides) an annual tithe to Rome, and also the additional tithes for the Crusades (1095-1204 C.E.) levied on all Christians.

All bishops appointed to Greenland would be from the mainland, and the Church would become a major vehicle for the introduction of the latest European ideas. The settlers follow the Christian ban on eating horses. Outdoing Christianity, they develop a taboo on eating fish and stop all fishing activities. They write in Latin as well as in Old Norse. They keep in step with mainland changes in clothing fashions, hair combs, church architecture, burial customs, and units of measurement (going from the international Roman foot to the shorter Greek foot). They import European bronze candlesticks, glass buttons and gold rings.

The shared identity of the Greenland Norse as European Christians provides societal cohesion in hard times, but later, when their survival would be at stake, this same identity also would prevent them from copying the Inuit=s ways and survive. They would never learn from the Inuit how to hunt ringed seals or hunt whales in open water. They would never trade or inter-marry with the Inuits. They would continue to use their heavy wooden rowboats, even in the face of the Inuit=s much faster and maneuverable light, skin boats (kayaks). When wood would become unavailable for building, they would never build igloos out of snow for winter housing. When wood would become unavailable for heating and illuminating houses, they would never, like the Inuit, burn whale or seal blubber for fuel and lighting. The whole of the Norse annals would include only three brief references to the Inuit.

Iron: The Norse have iron which each individual farm extracts from bog (iron sediments with as little as one percent iron oxide). They heat the iron to a pliable state with the use of charcoal fires (which are hotter than wood fires). It takes four pounds of wood to make one pound of charcoal, so that iron availability depends on wood availability. Iron implements include heavy agricultural tools (plows, shovels, axes, and sickles), small household tools (knives, scissors, sewing needles), construction hardware (nails, rivets), and military tools (spears, swords, battle-axes, armor).

1,300 C.E.:

Around 1,300, the temperature in the North Atlantic gets colder and its yearly variations are amplified. Within 125 years (1,425 C.E.), the Little Ice Age would set in.

The Greenland Norse population has grown to 5,000 (4,000 in the southern fjord, and 1,000 in the northern fjord). The Norse have given up trying to raise dairy cows because feeding them for nine months out of the year is too labor-intensive. They eat mostly goats, supplemented by caribou and seals, which they hunt. The seal which they hunt are of three types B the common (harbor) seal, the migratory harp seal, and the hooded seal. Hunting is with a spear, lance, bow-and-arrow, or club. The Norse supplement their diet with cabbage, beets, rhubarb, lettuce and flax seeds from their small gardens. The weather is too cold to grow either wheat or barley, which are grown on the mainland.

The society is:

* Communal: There is an average of 20 people per farm, and an average of 20 farms centered on each of 14 churches (a total of 5,600 inhabitants). Cooperation among people of the same farm and community is essential for hunts.

* Hierarchical and tightly controlled: A few rich chiefs control the rest of the population. The society is not organized as a state bur rather as a loose federation of chiefdoms operating under feudal conditions. It initially includes slaves (captured in raids).

* Violent: Quarrels, murders and domestic abuse are frequent.

* Conservative: Compared to their mainland counterparts, during the 466 years their existence (984-1,450), the Greenland Norse make little change in tool or carving styles. They would never reconsider their taboo on eating fish, even though it meant not eating locally common foods B and starve as a result.

* Eurocentric: European ships reach Greenland from one every few years to one every six months.

Imports consist of:

. Necessities: Iron, lumber and tar (as a lubricant and wood preservative).

. Church Items: Bronze church bells, stained glass windows, bronze candlesticks, communion wine, linen, silk, silver, churchmen=s robes and churchmen=s jewelry.

. Secular Luxuries for Chiefs: Pewter, pottery, glass beads and glass buttons.

Exports consist of:

. Items from around the Fjords: Animal skins (goat, cattle and seal), and wool cloth (valued for its water-repellent quality).

. Products derived from Arctic Animals: Walrus tusks (almost the only source of ivory for medieval Europe after 650, when the Moors gained control of the eastern Mediterranean, and the only source after 750, when the Moors gained control of nearly all of Spain).

Arctic products also include walrus hide (for ropes), live polar bears (a status symbol), narwhal tusks (narwhal is a small whale), and live gyrfalcons (the world=s largest falcon).

1,350 C.E.:

Environmental Degradation: The Norse have depleted the environmental resources on which they depend. They have deforested their land by both burning trees to clear land for pasture, and felling them for lumber. They no longer have trees which are sufficiently large to be made into house beams, boats, sledges, barrels, wall panels or beds. They no longer have firewood. Because they have no wood to make charcoal, and charcoal is necessary to produce iron from bog, they no longer have iron.

As well as denuding the land of trees, the Norse have stripped its turf and shrubs to make buildings (to replace the no longer available timber) and burn as fuel (to replace the no longer available firewood). They have let the land be over-grazed.

The resulting soil erosion has made much of the land useless for pasture. This has reduced the efficiency of the economy, and has caused the loss of the Norse=s military advantage over the Inuit. Like the Inuit, the Norse now fight with lances, and bow-and-arrows. They no longer have spears, swords, battle-axes or armor.

Abandonment by Europe:

1. Half of Norway=s population dies in the 1349-1350 Black Death epidemic. The focus in Europe is on survival, not sending ships to Greenland.

2. The demand by European carvers for walrus ivory, Greenland=s principal export, has declined ever since the Crusaders (1095-1204) have re-opened Europe=s access to elephant ivory from Asia and East Africa. The decline is more extreme after 1,325, when the Christians regain control of the Eastern Mediterranean, and is precipitous after 1,350, when the Christians regain control of all of Spain, except the kingdom of Granada.

1,397 C.E.:

Norway, Sweden and Denmark become three provinces under one king, and he would neglect Norway, the poorest of the three.

1,400 C.E.:

Ivory carving, whether from walruses or elephants, is out of fashion in Europe.

1,420 C.E.:

The Little Ice Age settles in. It would last until 1825.

Hay is increasingly difficult to grow. The shipping lanes between Norway, Iceland and Greenland are clogged with sea ice even during the summer. Ship communication between the Greenland Norse and the outside world has ended. The Norse continue to invest in churches and still refuse to either trade or inter-marry with the Inuit. They do not copy the Inuits= way of hunting ringed seals. They still do not eat fish. Fights with the Inuits are increasingly frequent.

1,450 C.E.:

Farmers kill their last cows, eating even the hoofs. They eat their dogs and scrounge for birds and rabbits. People starve and freeze to death in the spring of the year. The smaller, northern settlement vanishes.

In the southern settlement, people overrun chiefs and church officials, and slaughter the last cattle and sheep. The settlement disappears.

The Norse colony is extinct. The Norse have starved in the presence of abundant un-utilized food resources. They have never fished nor hunted ringed seals or whales.

Factors in the Collapse: All of the factors which precipitated the collapse of the Greenland Norse either developed gradually or operated over long periods of time. Such trends are difficult to apprehend and counteract in time. The trends include:

1. Environmental Degradation: Deforestation, the stripping of turf, over-grazing, and soil erosion.

2. Climate Change: The setting in of the Little Ice Age.

3. The End of Trade with Norway: Three factors combined to end trade with Norway:

a. The Black Death epidemic in Norway.

b. The neglect of Norway by Scandinavia=s new king.

c. Decreased demand by Europe for walrus ivory.

4. Fighting with Enemies: An increase in hostile contact with the Inuit.

5. Isolation: The outpost was remote. The wish of the colons to continue to feel part of Scandinavian society, played a role in their inability to adapt to a climate even colder than when they arrived on the Island.

6. The Inattention of Leaders: The conservative outlook of the Norse and of the Church helped leaders to focus on amassing wealth rather than anticipating the death of the colony.

Very approximately, the settlement lasted 466 years.

[Pp. 178-276; particularly pp. 12, 179, 185, 189-193 (not 194-210), 211-214, 219-222, 227, 240-247, 249-253, 255-256, 265, 267 and 269-276. Hourani 1991, pp. 23, 41 and 84-86. Encarta Encyclopedia undated ASpain,@ p. 5. Wikipedia 2007 ABattle of Tours (Poitiers),@ pp. 1 and 3. Pfeiffer Part II, 2004, pp. 8-9. See the present document under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates].

Table No. 1 (Partial No. 9): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Mycenaean Greek (Greece) (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	-	Yes
Moche (Peru) (1- 600 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Flooding	-	-	-	Yes
Maya, Mesoamerica (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Tiwanaku (Bolivia) (200 B.C.E.-1,100 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Anasazi (Southwestern U.S.) (600-1,175 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier Colder	Yes	-	-	Yes
Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Colder	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

1,436 Jan van Eyck, The Annunciation. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The painting represents the story recounted in the Gospel of Luke (1:26-38) (Stokstad 2005, p. 593).

Gabriel has interrupted Mary=s reading B that is, thought, a pursuit of the ego.

1,460 Rogier van der Weyden, Portrait of a Lady. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Stokstad 2005, p. 598).

1,476 Hugo van der Goes, Portinari Altarpiece. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy (Stokstad 2005, p. 601).

1,498 Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, wall painting, Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy (Stokstad 2005, pp. xl and 649).

1,500 C.E. B Present: The High Egoic Level

This stage in the evolution of consciousness achieves the differentiation of the three truth domains in all existence B Art (the AI@ sphere, the subjective-individual), Morality (the AWe@ sphere, the subjective-collective), and Science (the empirical sphere, both in the singular, AIt,@ and the plural, AIts@). In art, this means the beginning of portraiture, such as that by Jan van Eyck (c.1395-1441).

1,503 Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa. Musee du Louvre, Paris (Stokstad 2005, p. 650).

1,550 Leone Leoni, Charles V triumphing over Fury, without Armor. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Stokstad 2005, pp. xxxiv, xxxv and 680).

The muscular nakedness of the statue embodies the idea of triumphant authoritarian rule (Stokstad 2005, p. xxxv).

As Holy Roman Emperor (1519-1558), Charles V had a vast empire, which included the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Artois, Franche-Comte (Free County of Burgundy), Aragon, Navarre, Granada, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Spanish America, Castile, and the Hapsburg lands in Austria. As Charles I, he was king of Spain (1516-1556). Charles V was the last German emperor to be crowned by the pope.

At the time this sculpture was cast, Charles V was fighting Protestant forces in Germany (1546-1555). Defeated in 1555, he was forced to accommodate the Protestant Reformation within his empire, the terms of the Augsburg Treaty dictating that local rulers would henceforth select the religion of their subjects (Stokstad 2005, p. 680).

1,565 Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Return of the Hunters. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (Stokstad 2005, p. 712).

1,586 El Greco, Burial of Count Orgaz, Church of Santo Tome, Toledo, Spain. An angel lifts Orgaz=s tiny, ghostly soul along the central axis, through the heavenly hosts toward the enthroned Christ (Stokstad 2005, pp. 705-706).

1,600 The Enlightenment (in the West). The increased consciousness soon leads to industrialization and rationality. The approach to knowledge is representational B the ANewtonian,@ ACartesian,@ Amechanistic,@ Amirror of nature,@ Areflection@ paradigm. This paradigm leaves out the Amap-maker@ B the self who is making the maps of the world. The view assumes that the thought process is so basically different from the real world, that it can either reflect the world accurately and holistically, or inaccurately and atomistically.

1,600 C.E. The Collapse of the Mangareva, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands Cultures:

900 C.E.:

Mangareva: In their expansion eastward, Polynesians settle on Mangareva, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands. The islands are outliers, even considering the enormous remoteness of the whole eastern half of Polynesia. Mangareva, the most western of the trio, and hence the closest to already settled Polynesia, is 1000 miles beyond the nearest large, high islands B the Societies (including Tahiti) to the West, and the Marquesas to the Northwest.

Mangareva Island has a land area of 10 square miles. It consists of a lagoon 15 miles in diameter, which is teeming with fish and shellfish. It is forested, has plenty of fresh water, and enough flat land for agriculture. Its most significant lack is high-quality stone for making sharp tools, such as adzes (used to shape wood). Its settler population would eventually reach around 6000. Except for stone, they would be largely self-sufficient.

Pitcairn: Pitcairn Island has a land area of 2 2 square miles, and is 300 miles southeast of Mangareva. It has what Mangareva lacks B volcanic glass and fine-grained basalt suitable for making sharp tools, such as adzes. The Island has a tree cover and fresh water. The area suitable for agriculture, however, is very small, and the Island lacks a reef, the sea bottom surrounding it falling off steeply. The population of the Island would eventually reach about 100.

Henderson: Henderson Island has a land area of 14 square miles, and is, therefore, the largest of the trio. It is also the most remote B 100 miles northeast of Pitcairn, and 400 miles east of Mangareva. In contrast to its sister islands, Henderson is not volcanic. It consists essentially of a coral reef which has been thrust up 100 feet above sea level by geological processes. It has no reliable source of fresh water, and lacks basalt and other rocks suitable for making sharp tools. The tallest trees are only about 50 feet in height, too small to fashion into canoe hulls. Of the three islands, however, Henderson has the largest colony of seabirds and the only beach where sea turtles nest. The population of Henderson would eventually reach a few dozen people.

Trade: Trade among the three islands begins as soon as they are settled. Mangareva would become dependent on Pitcairn for stone, and more generally on Pitcairn and Henderson for luxuries. Pitcairn would become dependent on Mangareva for agricultural products, technology, oyster shell (for making tools) and the exchange of marriage partners. Henderson would become dependent on Mangareva for agricultural products, technology, oyster shell, and the exchange of marriage partners, and it would become dependent on Pitcairn for stone and the exchange of marriage partners. The trade would not be symmetrical. Mangareva would depend on the other two islands for its standard of living. The other two islands would depend on Mangareva for survival.

1,200 C.E.:

Inter-island trade reaches its peak

1,450 C.E.:

Inter-island trade continues.

1,500 C.E.;

Inter-island trade stops.

1,600 C.E.:

The population of Mangareva has deforested the island and now has no canoes, only rafts. Without canoes, there is no fishing, and hence no deep-sea food. Habitat damage is extreme. The Island descends into social and political chaos. The population survives, but at the price of chronic warfare and a drastically lowered standard of living. Without the trade with Mangareva on which they depend, the inhabitants of Pitcairn and Henderson cannot survive. Both populations cease to exist. When the mutineers of the H.M.S. Bounty flee to Pitcairn in 1790, they find the Island uninhabited.

Factors in the Collapses:

All three Islands: The inhabitants of Mangareva, Henderson and Pitcairn all inflicted massive damage to their environment. On all three islands, the destruction of resources considerably reduced the island=s human population carrying capacity.

Mangareva: The environmental degradation on Mangareva was extreme B deforestation, habitat destruction, erosion, the felling of all trees sufficiently large to make canoes for fishing. The population size was such, however, that Mangarevans survived as a society, albeit under chronically terrifying conditions and with a drastically reduced standard of living.

Pitcairn: Pitcairn inhabitants were dependent on imports from Mangareva for survival. Without this trade, their umbilical cord was cut off. They ceased to exist.

Henderson: Henderson inhabitants were dependent on Mangareva and Pitcairn for survival. When canoes from the two islands stopped arriving, they could not survive on their remote, raised limestone reef. They were trapped in isolation. The society of few dozen survived for several generations, and then ceased to exist.

There is no evidence that a change in climate or outside enemies precipitated the collapses. Isolation was a factor which made the collapses more likely. Leaders did not anticipate the collapses, or if they did, did not take action.

Very approximately, the Island settlements lasted 700 years.

(Pp. 120-135. Diamond 2005a, pp. 2-4. See the present document under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates).

Table No. 1 (Partial No. 10): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Mycenaean Greek (Greece) (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	-	Yes
Moche (Peru) (1- 600 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Flooding	-	-	-	Yes
Maya, Mesoamerica (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Tiwanaku (Bolivia) (200 B.C.E.-1,100 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Anasazi (Southwestern U.S.) (600-1,175 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier Colder	Yes	-	-	Yes
Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Colder	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mangareva, Pitcairn, Henderson (900-1,600 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	Yes	-	Yes	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

1,635 Diego Velazquez, The Surrender at Breda (The Lances). Museo del Prado, Madrid (Stokstad 2005, p. 753).

Anthony Van Dyck, Charles I at the Hunt. Musee du Louvre, Paris (Stokstad 2005, p. 762).

1,645 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Saint Teresa of Avila in Ecstacy. Cornaro Chapel, Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome (Stokstad 2005, p. 729).

The sculpture depicts a vision which Saint Teresa recounted, in which an angel pierced her body repeatedly with an arrow, causing her to be transported into to a state of religious ecstasy, a sense of oneness with God (Stokstad 2005, p. 728).

1,656 Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor). Museo del Prado, Madrid (Stokstad 2005, p. 754).

This is any example of a level of consciousness more advanced than the average at the time. It anticipates the post-modern view in which various perspectives are taken into account at the same time, with a recognition that none has a monopoly on truth. The perceiver (the artist) is part of, and inseparable from, the perceived. The world is not just a perception, it is also an interpretation.

1,659 Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait. National Galley of Art, Washington, D.C. (Stokstad 2005, p. 770).

1,700 The Age of Reason (in the West). Reason B the formal operational stage of consciousness development B emerges as the basic organizing principle of society. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) defines autonomy as the courage to think for oneself and not rely on socially given rules and dogmas.

1,700 C.E. The Collapse of the Easter Island Culture:

900 C.E.:

Humans settle on Easter Island. They are non-literate Polynesians who have sailed from West to East B that is, in a direction opposite to that of the prevailing winds and currents. The Island is 66 square miles, 1,300 miles from Pitcairn Island to the West, and 2,300 miles from Chile to the East. Its climate is mild and, due to the Island=s recent volcanic origin, its soil is fertile. The Island=s supply of fresh water is somewhat limited (pp. 79, 82-83, 86-87, 89, 106, 114 and 213)

1,500 C.E.:

The population of the Island reaches a peak of 15,000 to 25,000. Inhabitants invest much energy in building giant stones statues (moai) and stone platforms (ahu). The statues are stylized, long-eared, legless human male torsos, most being 15-20 feet in height, but the largest reaching 70 feet. They weigh from 10 to 270 tons. Without the availability of cranes, wheels, metal tools, machines or draft animals, no means other than human muscle power, Easter Islanders transport these statues from Rano Raraku volcanic crater where they have carved them, to all along the coast of the Island where they raise them (pp. 80, 90, 95 and 97).

Easter Islanders= cult consists of a pantheon of gods.

Easter Islanders have no writing. Their famous Arongo-rongo@ writing system would be invented only after their contact with writing either during the Spanish landing of 1770, or even later. The existence of the system is first mentioned in 1864 by a resident Catholic missionary (pp. 104, 106-107, 110-111, 113-114 and 118).

1,700 C.E.:

Deforestation of the Island is complete. The whole forest cover is gone. All of the native tree species and all of the native land bird species are extinct. All wild fruits are gone. Sea bird species have been reduced from 25 to 9, and those no longer breed on Easter Island itself. They breed on a few rocky islets off the Island=s coast. Only a few, small-sized snails and shellfish remain. Without being able to build sea-going canoes from trees, the Islanders= principal sources of protein (porpoises, tuna and pelagic fish), are inaccessible. Rats are the only wild food source with unchanged availability. The population has plummeted by 70 percent B to around 6,000 (pp. 90-91 and 109).

Factors in the Collapse: Easter Island is the clearest example of a society which destroyed itself by over-exploiting its own resources. There is no evidence that the climate changed during the relevant period B 900-1,700. The Island=s isolation forecloses other possible causes of population collapse, such as loss of trade, loss of support from neighboring friendly societies, or attacks by neighboring enemy societies.

As elsewhere in Polynesia, Easter Island society was divided into chiefs and commoners. Inter-clan rivalry seems to have demanded that chiefs focus on statue construction for prestige and power rather than on the on-going destruction of the environment. Other outlets, such as inter-island trading, raiding, exploration, colonization and emigration were foreclosed due to the Island=s isolation.

Very approximately, the Island culture lasted 800 years (pp. 93, 98-99, 104 and 106-109. See the present document under Summary of Causes of Collapse, Graph No. 1, The eleven Societies analyzed, Summary of Dates).

Table No. 1 (Partial No. 11): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Mycenaean Greek (Greece) (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	-	Yes
Moche (Peru) (1- 600 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Flooding	-	-	-	Yes
Maya, Mesoamerica (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Tiwanaku (Bolivia) (200 B.C.E.-1,100 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Anasazi (Southwestern U.S.) (600-1,175 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier Colder	Yes	-	-	Yes
Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Colder	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mangareva, Pitcairn, Henderson (900-1,600 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	Yes	-	Yes	Yes
Easter Island (900-1,700 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	Yes	Yes

^(a) See references in the text.

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

1,739 Jean-Simeon Chardin, The Governess. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (Stokstad 2005, p. 905).

With his portrayals of young mothers, governesses and kitchen maids, Chardin is one of the first French artists to honor the dignity of women=s work, and treat the lives of women and children with sympathy (Stokstad 2005, p. 905).

1,798 Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason produces Monsters, From Los Caprichos (The Caprices). Hispanic Society of America, New York (Stokstad 2005, p. 954).

In 1793, Charles IV, king of Spain, fought in France, against the French revolutionaries. Two years later, however (in 1795), Charles IV made peace with France, and a year later (in 1796), entered a war against England as an ally of France.

Between 1796 and 1798, Goya assembled a folio of 80 etchings, ALos Caprichos,@ which depicted what he considered to be the specific follies of the Spanish life. The Sleep of Reason is one of these follies (Stokstad 2005, p. 954).

1,800 The Industrial Revolution B Modernity. The industrial revolution renders the casting of iron technically useful.

The idea of history as evolution, a growth toward God, slowly replaces the idea of history as devolution B a fall from God. The Aneo-perennial philosophy@ still has the One, timeless and absolute Spirit of which the entire universe is but a manifestation, but that world of manifestation is now evolving toward Spirit. God lies in our collective future. The Garden of Eden is tomorrow. The humanistic-scientific-rational stage is one of the stages of the return of Spirit, as Spirit, to Spirit.

1,815 Francisco Goya, Third of May, 1808. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain (Stokstad 2005, p. 955).

The painting portrays the faceless, mechanical forces of war blindly destroying defenseless humanity (Stokstad 2005, p. 954).

Spain, under Charles IV (see The Sleep of Reason, 1798), suffered a major defeat in its war against England, at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). In his own country, Charles IV increasingly reinstituted the Inquisition, reversing most of the reforms which the French Revolution had inspired, and even halting the entry of French books into Spain. In March 1808, French troops marched into Madrid. A popular uprising forced Charles IV to abdicate in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII. However, Napoleon captured both Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, and enthroned his own brother, Joseph Bonarpate, as king of Spain. On May 2, 1808, a rumor spread through Madrid that the French planned to kill the royal family, held captive in France. The people rose up. A day of bloody street fighting ensued during which hundreds of unarmed Spanish were herded into a convent, and executed by a French firing squad in the pre-dawn hours of the next morning. This painting is Goya=s reaction to the event (Stokstad 2005, p. 954).

1,863* Edouard Manet, Le dejeuner sur l=herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass). Musee d=Orsay, Paris (Stokstad 2005, p. 981).

* This may depict a more advanced level of consciousness than the average one at the time. Post-modernity, which begins around 1,950, recognizes that nothing is pre-given. The world is not just perception, it is also an interpretation. In this painting, the figures fail to connect psychologically. What is obvious to us B the nudity of the woman B does not enter the consciousness of either of the two men at her side (Stokstad 2005, pp. 980-981).

1,874 Edgar Degas, The Rehearsal on Stage. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Stokstad 2005, p. 987).

1,876 Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Moulin de la Galette. Musee d=Orsay, Paris (Stokstad 2005, p. 986).

1,882 Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. Institute of Art Gallery, London (Stokstad 2005, p. 990).

1,936 John Heartfield, Have no Fear B He=s a Vegetarian. Paris. Stiftung Archiv der Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Germany (Stokstad 2005, p. 1061).

1,937 Pablo Picasso, Guernica. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain (Stokstad 2005, p. 1019).

In 1937, German legionnaires in the service of Spain, bombed Guernica, a town of 6,000 inhabitants, clinging to the mountainside of northern Spain, the capital of the Basque people. Guernica became the first European city ever to know death from the air. The painting is Picasso=s reaction to the event (Lindqvist 2000/2001, pp. 5 and 72-74. See also Francoise Hall 2001, Poem, AWestern Civilization B A short History of its aerial Bombardments@).

1,950 The Age of Informatiion B Post-modernity. Post-modernity recognizes evolution B the unfolding of the Great Chain of Being in evolutionary time.

Post-modernity also recognizes that nothing is pre-given. Humans are co-creators of their own evolution, their own history, their own world spaces. Reality is not just a perception, it is also an interpretation.

During Modernity, the war machine spins out of control. The sacred or semi-sacred restraints are either gone or perverted into Aholy wars.@ Wars are increasingly fought over ideas rather than simple property or goods, and hence, the sheer destruction of all people, property and goods becomes acceptable. Abstractions are now the object of war. The world is split into several large and heavily armed camps of finite creatures, glutted in overkill, and bent on mutual destruction.

The new power of the ego, accompanied by its new inherent terrors, results in new, wildly exaggerated substitute gratifications (such as hedonistic over-indulgence), and new, wildly exaggerated substitute sacrifices (such as mass homicide, oppressive exploitation, massive slavery, class alienation, and violent inequality) B all of which cripple the levels of exchange both in one=s own self and in those who happen to fall under one=s influence or power. Thus are the ego=s attempts at token cosmo-centrism and symbolic immortality.

1,962 Diane Arbus, Child with Toy Hand Grenade. The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Stokstad 2005, p. 1111).

1,983 Maya Ying Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Mall, Washington, D.C. (Stokstad 2005, p. 1144).

1,993 Mel Chin, Revival Field: Pig=s Eye Landfill. St. Paul Minnesota. The Revival Fields series serves the practical purpose of reclaiming a hazardous waste site through the use or plants which absorb toxic metals from the soil (Stokstad 2005, p. 1147).

SUMMARY B CAUSES OF COLLAPSE

Table 1 (Complete) summarizes factors which played an important role in the eleven societies analyzed.

Table No. 1 (Complete): Some Causes of Societal Collapse ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Resource Depletion	Environ- mental Degra- dation	Climate ^(b)	Decline in Trade	Enemies	Isola- tion	Leaders Obli- vious
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Colder	-	-	-	Yes
Mycenaean Greek (Greece) (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	-	Yes
Moche (Peru) (1- 600 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier Flooding	-	-	-	Yes
Maya, Mesoamerica (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Tiwanaku (Bolivia) (200 B.C.E.-1,100 C.E.)	Increased	-	Drier	-	-	-	Yes
Anasazi (Southwestern U.S.) (600-1,175 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Drier Colder	Yes	-	-	Yes
Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	Colder	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mangareva, Pitcairn, Henderson (900-1,600 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	Yes	-	Yes	Yes
Easter Island (900-1,700 C.E.)	Increased	Yes	-	-	-	Yes	Yes

^(a) See references in the text. This table is the same as Table No. 1 (Partial No. 11).

^(b) Underlining refers to the fact that there is evidence the dry period was due to changes in solar radiation.

Table 2 summarizes some estimated population sizes in or of the eleven societies analyzed.

Table 2: Estimate of Population Sizes ^(a)

Civilization/Culture (In the order of the date of collapse)	Site	Estimated Population Size
Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.)	Agade (the capital, under King Sargon). The army under King Naram-Sin	36,000 360.000
Indus Valley (Pakistan) (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.)	Lothal (one of the most prominent cities, important archaeologically but probably smaller than Harappa or Mohenjo Daro, the Atwin capital cities.@	15,000
Minoan Crete (Crete) (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.)	Knossos (the capital city).	12,000
Mycenaean Greek (Greece) (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.)	129 Mycenaean settlements.	20,000
Moche (Peru) (1- 600 C.E.)	Moche (Phase IV) State.	650,000
Maya, Mesoamerica (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.)	The southern lowlands B the most densely populated part of the Maya area.	3,000,000- 13,000,000
Tiwanaku (Bolivia) (200 B.C.E.-1,100 C.E.)	Tiwanaku City. Tiwanaku region.	40,000 800,000
Anasazi (Southwestern U.S.) (600-1,175 C.E.)	Chaco Canyon.	5,000
Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.)	The AEastern@ and AWestern@ settlements.	5,000
Mangareva, Pitcairn, Henderson (900-1,600 C.E.)	Mangareva Island. Pitcairn Island. Henderson Island.	6,000 100 Less than 100
Easter Island (900-1,700 C.E.)	Easter Island.	15,000- 25,000

Notes to Table 2:

^(a) Agade: Chase-Dunn et al 2004, p. 3.

Lothal: Wikipedia 2007 ALothal,@ p. 7.

Knossos: Wiener 1989, pp. 128-161.

Mycenaean Greece: Carothers and McDonald 1979, pp. 433-454 (JSTOR, p. 1).

Moche: Weiss and Bradley 2001, p. 4.

Maya Lowlands: Haug et al 2003, pp. 1731-1735. Diamond 2005a, p. 2.

Tiwanaku: Wikipedia 2007, ATiwanaku,@ pp. 1-3.

Chaco Canyon Anasazi: Diamond 2005b, pp. 148-149.

AEastern@and AWestern@ Settlements: Diamond 2005b, p. 222.

Mangareva, Pitcairn and Henderson: Diamond 2005b, pp. 123 and 125. Diamond 2005a, p. 4.

Easter Island: Diamond 2005b, pp. 90-91.

_________________________________

Summary of Dates: Graph No.1, on the next page, summarizes the dates of flourishing for the eleven societies analyzed.

FACTORS NOT DISCUSSED

The Energy Hypothesis: Numerous factors have been proposed as contributing to the collapse of civilizations. A very fundamental one is the idea of a decrease in the ability of a society to capture energy. The concept was proposed in 1998, by archaeologist Joseph Tainter, after his analysis of 17 civilizations which have collapsed, among which were four of the eleven analyzed in the present document (Indus Valley (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.), Minoan Crete (2,700-c.1,600), Maya (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.), and Anasazi (600-1,175 C.E.).

Energy capture is the ability to appropriate a share larger than one=s own present share, of the limited amount of energy (all of it originally from the Sun) available to sustain life on Earth. Humans have done this by means of technology B from taking over land for agriculture, to burning trees, to domesticating animals, to using ever-more sophisticated tools (including weapons to take over other societies and exploiting them or using them as slaves), to drawing down nature=s stocks of non-renewable energy, such as coal, oil, natural gas and uranium.

Tainter arrived at the conclusion that the collapse of complex societies is due to the law of diminishing return for energy capture. Beyond a certain level of complexity, benefits from further investments in complexity (building a second road between two points where one road already exists), gradually diminish (each additional road yielding a diminishing return), and eventually become negative (any more roads will cost rather than help capture energy). At that point the society becomes vulnerable to collapse. It collapses from internal decomposition and/or invasion by another society which still enjoys higher rates of return on its investments in energy capture (Tainter 1996 and 1998, summarized in Heinberg 2003, in turn summarized in Hall 2004, p. 1. Hall 2005d, pp. 18-20).

The seven factors analyzed here (resource depletion, environmental degradation, climate change, a decline in trade, the presence of enemies, isolation, and the obliviousness of leaders) seem prior to the ability to capture energy. For instance, a lack of food (because of environmental degradation or climate change) will prevent a society from capturing energy (building even one road). When the society is weakened, enemies then invade.

In my opinion, Tainter=s analysis does not contradict the present one. It focuses on energy whereas the present analysis focuses on conditions which are prior to and essential for energy capture. If a person is hungry or lacks water, this person ceases to be able to capture even a sufficient amount of energy to survive. Thus, conditions such as drought, floods, climate change, and even rigidity in one=s own identity (as the case of the Greenland Norse), are all prior to the ability or incentive to capture energy.

PARALLELS WITH THE GLOBAL SITUATION TODAY

RESOURCE DEPLETION

PREVIOUS SOCIETIES: As they Aflourished,@ all of the societies analyzed here increased their impact on the environment B either through population growth or an increase in standard of living, or both. Where resources were ample, this impact was not, or was only a minimal factor in their collapse. An example is Minoan Crete (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.), destroyed by an extremely rapid change in climate.

Where resources were already marginal or lacked one or more essential ingredients, the increased impact of the society on its environment, did play a major role. It led to environmental degradation, shortage of the essential ingredient(s), and eventually the society=s demise. Examples are Mycenaean Greece (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.), the Maya (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.), the Anasazi (600-1,175 C.E.), the Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.), Mangareva, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands (900-1,600 C.E.), and Easter Island (900-1,700 C.E.).

TODAY=S EARTH:

Our Increasing Awareness of Overshoot: The idea that an overshoot of resources by the human population might precipitate a collapse, has been recognized at least since 1925, when Alfred Lotka (1880-1949), mathematical biologist, warned:

AThe human species, considered in broad perspective, as a unit, including its economic and industrial accessories, has swiftly and radically changed its character during the epoch in which our life has been laid. In this sense, we are far removed from equilibrium B a fact that is of the highest practical significance, since it implies that a period of adjustment to equilibrium conditions lies before us, and he would be an extreme optimist who should expect that such adjustment can be reached without labor and travail.@

AWhile such sudden decline might, from a detached standpoint, appear as in accord with the eternal equities, since previous gains would in cold terms balance the losses, yet it would be felt as a superlative catastrophe. Our descendants, if such as this should be their fate, will see poor compensation for their ills in the fact that we did live in abundance and luxury.@

Over the years, Lotka=s warning of overshoot and collapse has been B increasingly stridently B reinforced by many:

1950: Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), mathematician, founder of the field of cybernetics, writes:

A[Our] increased mastery of nature . . . , on a limited planet like the earth, may prove in the long run to be an increased slavery to nature.@

1956: King Hubbert, researcher at Shell Oil Corporation, predicts a probable peak in United States oil production between 1966 and 1971. (The actual peak occurred in 1970).

1964: Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), astronomer, warns:

AWith coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species, however competent, can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology.@

1971: Jay Forrester (1918-), pioneer computer engineer and systems theorist, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), predicts a decline in material standard of living from the 1990=s through 2100.

1972: Donnella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William Behrens, also at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), publish The limits to growth, in which they predict a decline in per capita industrial output from 2013 through 2100.

1989: Richard Duncan, petroleum engineer and director of the Institute on Energy and Man, Seattle, WA, predicts an impending decline in industrial economies due to the exhaustion of non-renewable resources, and the continuing deterioration of the natural environment B The Olduvai theory of human history.

The Olduvai Gorge is a steep, 90-meter deep by 48,000-meter long gorge in northern Tanzania. It is part of the East African Rift Valley. It contains fossils of at least three hominid species, Australopithecus and homo habilis (both living 1,800,000 years ago), and homo erectus (living 1,500,000 years ago). It also contains artifacts from the two earliest stone tool traditions, one of which is the Oldowan (dating from 600,000 years ago) (Hall 2006b, p. 55. See also below, under Our present Impact on Resources, No. 11, Energy).

1992: Donnella Meadows, Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Randers publish Beyond the limits, in which they predict a decline in per capita industrial output from 2014 through 2100.

The team concludes:

AOvershoot [can] no longer be avoided through wise policy. It [is] already a reality.@

1999: David Pimentel, at Cornell University, Department of Ecology, estimates that it would require at least three times the earth=s entire resources and physical area to provide the world population with the material and energy consumed by an average North American.

2002 Mathis Wackernagel, who, in 1996, with William Rees, developed the concept of Aecological footprint,@ warns:

AHumanity=s ecological footprint exceeds the Earth=s biological capacity by about 20 percent.@

The ecological footprint is the biologically productive land or sea area required to produce a yield sufficient to support a human population and absorb the corresponding carbon dioxide emissions.

2004: Donnella Meadows, Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Randers publish The limits to growth B the 30-year update. They conclude:

AWe are much more pessimistic about the global future than we were in 1972. It is a sad fact that humanity has largely squandered the last 30 years in futile debates and well-intentioned, but half-hearted responses to the global ecological challenge.@

(Hall 2006b, pp. 3-6)

Our Present Impact on Resources:

1. Population Growth: In 2006, the world population was growing at the rate of 1.18 percent annually. Based on a total population of 6,5000,000,000, this meant that humans were adding to their numbers 76,700,000 persons yearly. Every four years, humanity is adding to itself a number of people equal to the present population of the United States (300,000,000) (Hall 2006b, p. 64).

2. Humanity=s ecological Footprint: As of 2003, humanity=s ecological footprint (its use of renewable resources) was 1.25 planet earths B that is, the rate at which we use resources is yearly, one and a quarter times the total biological productive capacity of the Earth (Hall 2006b, p. 32).

(Resource Depletion, Today=s Earth, Our present Impact on Resources, continued)

3. Inadequate Services for even the present Population: Humanity is at present not taking care of its own:

Table No. 3: Level of Poverty B Present World Population ^(a)

Year	Number of People	Quality of Life Indicator Number of people who were:
1999	2,800,000,000	Living on less than $2 per day.
2000	2,400,000,000	Without access to improved sanitation.
2000	2,000,000,000	Without electricity
2001	1,700,000,000	Living in countries facing water stress.
1999	1,560,000,000	Living in countries where more than half the population had no sustainable access to affordable essential drugs.
2003	1,100,000,000	Without access to safe water
2001	924,000,000	Living in urban slums.
2004	800,000,000	Hungry on any given day.
2002	641,000,000	Living in countries in which life expectancy had decreased from 62 to 46 years during the past 20 years.
2001	467,300,000	Living in countries where development, as measured by the United Nations human development index (HDI), had decreased during the past 10 years.
2001	354,300,000	Living in countries in which the international debt was 25 percent of exports or more.
2003	135,000,000	Threatened by desertification.
2002	55,000,000	Either infected with HIV or were AIDS orphans
2001	40,000,000	Displaced from their homes.
Late 1990=s	27,000,000	Slaves.

^(a) Hall 2005c, p. 8.

(Resource Depletion, Today=s Earth, Our present Impact on Resources, continued)

4. Estimates of sustainable Population Sizes: The following are two estimates of the size of the world population which could be maintained, were solar the sole source of energy.

Assumptions:

* An immediate stop to all land erosion.

* Reservation of an area of cropland equal to 5,000 square meters per capita. This is the area needed to provide one person with a diverse, nutritious diet of plant and animal products.

* Preservation of an area of natural vegetation equal to 30 percent of the total area of the terrestrial ecosystem. This is the minimum natural biological diversity required to ensure an environment both able to provide essential functions (crop pollination, manure recycling, water and soil purification), and adequately serve as a vital reservoir of genetic material.

Estimates:

a. A Population of 3,000,000,000: A population of 3 billion could be sustained, with an energy consumption of 11.5 barrels of oil equivalents per year per capita. This is 19 percent of the 1995 per capita energy consumption of the United States (60.0 barrels of oil equivalents per capita), and is equal to the 1994 average per capita energy consumption of the world as a whole (11.4 barrels of oil equivalents per capita).

b. A Population of 1,500,000,000: A population of one and a half billion could be sustained, with an energy consumption of 30.0 barrels of oil equivalents per year per capita. This is half the 1995 per capita energy consumption of the United States (60.0 barrels of oil equivalents per capita), and is 2.6 times the 1994 average per capita energy consumption of the world as a whole (11.4 barrels of oil equivalents per capita) (Hall 2006b, pp. 69-72).

(Resource Depletion, Today=s Earth, Our present Impact on Resources, continued)

5. Cropland Area:

a. During the 40-year period 1955-1995, nearly a third of the world=s cropland was abandoned because of erosion. This is a loss of 0.83 percent of the world=s cropland annually. Under agricultural conditions, it takes 500 years to form 2.5 centimeters of soil (Hall 2006b, p. 10).

b. The area needed to provide a diverse, nutritious diet of plant and animal products is 5,000 square meters of cropland per capita. In 2006, the world average was 2,131 square meters per capita. As a point of comparison, in 2005, the United States had 5,900 square meters of cropland per capita (Hall 2006, p. 69).

6. Grain Reserves:

a. From 1998 to 2005, the world reserves of grain decreased by 33 percent B from 120 to 80 days of consumption.

b. In 2001, 66 percent of the 2000 world=s cereal stocks were consumed. In 2007, it is predicted that 80 percent of the 2006 world=s cereal stocks will be consumed.

(Resource Depletion, Today=s Earth, Our present Impact on Resources, continued)

7. Fish:

a. During the 51-year period 1950-2001, the average depth of the world fish catches increased from 170 meters to 290 meters, an increase of 71 percent.

b. During the 50-year period 1950-2000, the trophic level (position in the food chain) of all marine fish caught, declined from 3.4 to 3.3. The scale has five points B from high-economic value Top Carnivores at 5, down to Carnivores at 4, to Predators at 3, to Herbivores at 2, and Primary Producers at 1. The decline in the trophic level of fish catch was largely due to the over-harvesting of fish at higher tropic levels.

c. During the 48-year period 1955-2003, the population of all large fish (tuna, swordfish) and ground fish (cod, hake, flounder) decreased by 90 percent.

d. During the eight-year period 1995-2003, the world wild fish catch decreased by nine percent (Hall 2006b, pp. 15-17).

(Resource Depletion, Today=s Earth, Our present Impact on Resources, continued)

8. Forest Cover:

a. All Forests: From 2000 to 2005, the world=s gross deforestation rate was 130 billion square meters annually. This was partially compensated by the planting and the natural regeneration of 56 billion square meters of forest annually. The net decrease in forest cover, therefore, was (130-56) = 74 billion square meters (0.19 percent) annually.

New growth is, of course, not ecologically equivalent to old growth. It is less diverse, more vulnerable to fire, and cannot replace the richness of habitats present in old growth.

b. Primary Forests: Primary forests, defined as natural forests showing no visible sign of past or present human activities, are the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet. In 2005, the world still had 14,000 billion square meters of primary forest. Of this total, 60 billion square meters (0.43%) were either being lost or degraded annually (Hall 2006b, pp. 18-21).

(Resource Depletion, Today=s Earth, Our present Impact on Resources, continued)

10. Water: In 1999, humans were appropriating for themselves 24,980 billion cubic meters per year of the earth=s terrestrial, replenishable fresh water (water falling on dry land in the form of rain and snow). On a per capita basis, this represented 4,200 cubic meters per person per year. The minimum human requirement for water is approximately 1,000 cubic meters per person per year.

Run-off: Run-off is the flow of fresh water back to the oceans through rivers, streams and underground aquifers. It is the source of all human withdrawals for irrigation, industry, municipalities, dilution, hydropower, navigation, and the maintenance of aquatic life (including fisheries). It provides human diversion.

Assumptions:

* If, by 2025, humans have been able to increase the amount of run-off which is accessible to them from the present 12,500 billion cubic meters per year (31 percent) to 13,700 billion cubic meters per year (34 percent), an increase of 10 percent,

and,

* If they have been able to increase their appropriation of this accessible run-off from the present 6,780 billion cubic meters per year (54 percent) to 9,590 billion cubic meters per year (70 percent), an increase of 30 percent,

* and if

World population by 2025 has grown to 8 billion, as it is projected to do, then,

Estimate:

In that year (2025), the fresh water humans would have available from run-off would be 1,129 cubic meters per person per year, instead of the present 1,190 cubic meters per person per year B a decrease of 5.1 percent (Table 9). (Hall 2006b, pp. 22-27).

(Resource Depletion, Today=s Earth, Our present Impact on Resources, continued)

Water Scarcity: Assuming an increase in water demand due only to a population increase, it is projected that by 2025, the following countries will have less than 1,000 cubic meters per person per year (that is, they will have water Ascarcity@):

Africa: Algeria, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lybia, Morocco, Rwanda, Tunisia.

Middle East and Southeast Asia: Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen (Hall 2006b, pp. 28-29).

11. Energy: Oil is the major primary source of energy for what we call Aindustrial civilization.@ Other primary sources are natural gas, coal, nuclear power and hydropower. Both the per capita world oil production and the per capita world energy production peaked in 1979, the former at 5.50 barrels of oil, the latter at 11.15 barrels of oil equivalents.

The per capita world energy production underwent a slow decline during the period 1979-1999. It is projected to decline more steeply during the period 2000-2012, and then decline precipitously during the period 2012-2030. (This is Richard Duncan=s AOlduvai theory@ which predicts the end of industrial civilization by about the 2030. The theory incorporates the synergistic effects of the end of oil, an unsustainable ecological footprint, and rapid environmental degradation) (Hall 2006b, pp. 54-63. See also above, under Our increasing Awareness of Overshoot, 1989, Richard Duncan).

ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION

PREVIOUS SOCIETIES: Environmental degradation was a factor in the collapse of six of the eleven societies analyzed B Mycenaean Greece (1,600-1,100 B.C.E.), the Maya (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.), the Anasazi (600-1,175 C.E.), the Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.), Mangareva, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands (900-1,600 C.E.), and Easter Island (900-1,700 C.E.).

TODAY=S EARTH:

Our Increasing Awareness of Environmental Degradation: The realization of the detrimental effects of increasing industrialization on nature, has pervaded the consciousness of the Western World for half a century. Some of the major steps reinforcing this realization and steps to remedy the situation are as follows:

1962: Rachel Carson publishes Silent spring, which sparks the beginning of the environmental movement in the United States (Hall 2006a, p. 5).

1972: The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm, Sweden, is the first international forum to address global environmental challenges. It results in the establishment of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), to be based in Nairobi, Kenya (Hall 2006a, p. 7).

1997: The First World Water Forum is held, in Marrakech, Morocco. The Marrakech Declaration declares the need:

A . . . to recognize the basic human need to have access to clean water and sanitation, to establish an effective mechanism for management of shared waters, to support and preserve ecosystems, to encourage the efficient use of water . . .@

(Hall 2006a, p. 15)

1999:

a. Sandra Postel, of the Global Water Policy Project, Amherst, MA, estimates that of the global harvest, 10 percent are produced using water supplies that are not being replenished (Hall 2006a, p. 16).

b. David Pimentel, at Cornell University, Department of Ecology makes the following estimates:

i. The world=s productive land is 1.2 hectare per capita. A Arich-world@ lifestyle needs 10 hectares (7-12 hectares) of productive land per capita to sustain it.

ii. The world=s cropland is 0.27 hectare per capita. This compares to 0.5 hectare in 1960.

iii. It would require at least three times the earth=s entire resources and physical area to provide the world population with the material and energy consumed by an average North American citizen (Hall 2006a, p. 17. See also under Resource Depletion, Today=s Earth, Our increasing Awareness of Overshoot, 1999).

2002: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 75 percent of the world=s fisheries are being fished at or beyond sustainability, some to the point of collapse (Hall 2006a, p. 23).

2005: The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, published by the World Bank and the United Nations University, Institute of Advanced Studies, concludes:

A[The study] reveals that approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth B such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests B are being degraded or used unsustainably. Scientists warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years.@

(Hall 2006a, p. 34)

Present environmental Degradation:

1. The Extinction of Species:

a. In the distant past (fossil records), the rate of species extinction was less than one species per 1,000 species per 1,000 years. In the recent past (1950-2000), it has been 100 extinctions per 1,000 species per 1,000 years (an increase of 20,000 percent). By 2050, the rate is expected to be 5,000 extinctions per 1,000 species per 1,000 years (a further increase of 5,000 percent, and an increase from the distant past (fossil records) of 1,000,000 percent) (Hall 2006b, p. 30. Hall 2007c, pp. 3-4).

b. The Extinction of Terrestrial Mammals: In 2005, the first worldwide analysis of land mammals revealed that 25 percent of terrestrial mammal species were at risk of extinction.

The total land area of the Earth is 150,000 billion square meters. In order to preserve at least 10 percent of the geographic ranges of terrestrial mammals, approximately 11 percent of this total area (16,500 billion square meters) would need to be managed with a focus on conservation. For purposes of comparison, the total world cropland, in 2005, was 13,853 billion square meters. The world area managed for conservation, therefore, would have to be 19 percent larger than the present world cropland area (Hall 2006b, p. 30).

c. Time for Recovery: After each of the five previous greatest extinctions spasms which the biosphere has sustained (440,000,000, 365,000,000, 245,000,000, 210,000,000 and 65,000,000 years ago), it has taken evolution an average of about 35,000,000 years to restore pre-disaster levels of diversity (Hall 2006b, p. 80).

(Environmental Degradation, Today=s Earth, Present Environmental Degradation, continued)

2. Eliminating Biodiversity: Biodiversity is being reduced by:

a. Synthetic Chemicals: The synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides used in agriculture kill all forms of life without short-term economic value.

b. Genetically-engineered Organisms: Genetically-engineered (GE) organisms put native species at risk. During the nine year period 1996-2005, even as the world=s total cropland area decreased by 7.7 percent, the area planted with genetically-engineered (GE) crops increased from 0.1 to 6.5 percent of the total cropland area B an increase of more than 5,000 percent (Hall 2006b, pp. 10-12).

c. Alien Species: Invasive species are species which have the ability to thrive and spread aggressively outside their natural range. Organisms which are naturally aggressive may be especially invasive when introduced into new habitats whose ecology does not include natural checks on proliferation, such as predators and disease vectors. The new organisms then colonize the new habitat unimpeded and dramatically decrease the native biodiversity (Meyer 2007, summarized in Hall 2007c, p. 21).

d. Nano-scale artificial organisms:

i. Bio-robots: Bio-robots are human-synthesized, self-replicating organisms which consist of both biological and artificial components. They are autonomous robots, the size of a virus or a cell, and are able to perform a specific task for industry.

ii. New Life-forms: New organisms are human-synthesized, self-replicating Aorganisms@ which consist of only biological components. They are biological machines useful for industry, and come in the form of either viruses or bacteria. They may or may not be pathogenic to native organisms (including humans), and may or may not overwhelm and replace native organisms (Hall 2006b, pp. 52-53).

(Environmental Degradation, Today=s Earth, Present Environmental Degradation, continued)

3. Nuclear Radiation: As of around the year 2000, humans had released radiation equivalent to 821,679 Hiroshima bombs into the atmosphere. All of this radiation had been emitted through the use of Adepleted@ uranium (DU).

As of around that same time (2000), humans had available for their use, a total amount of radiation equivalent to 187,321,367 Hiroshima bombs. Again almost all of this radiation (99 percent) was in the form of radiation from depleted uranium. The half-life of depleted uranium is the age of the earth (4.5 billion years).

Accidents are normal: Accidents are inscribed into the design of all our technological endeavors, and nuclear power plants are no exception. Accidents are part of their specifications, their function. When the safety of a design is given as AThe reactor is expected to operate within design expectations x times out of 100, for y hours of operations,@ the contrary is also the case. To speak of a safety probability is also to speak of the probability of failure (Hall 2006b, pp. 45-49 and 80).

4. Chemical Pollution: Yearly, humans use more than 70,000 different chemical compounds B of which more than 1,000 are toxic to living organisms. No corner of the globe is exempt from the long-range atmospheric transport of emissions from the industrial and urban areas of the temperate regions.

For example, in the Inuit Hamlet of Sanikiluaq, on the Belcher Islands, in southeastern Hudson Bay, Canada, the ingestion of lead has increased as follows:

1970 60,000 nanograms per person per day.

1980 162,000 nanograms per person per day.

1990 702,000 nanograms per person per day.

In 1999, the World Health Organization established a provisional tolerable daily intake of 214,000 nanograms per person B less than a third of the 1990 value at Sanikiluaq. The high intake results from eating aquatic, marine and terrestrial organisms which have absorbed the metal from the atmosphere.

Lead poisoning affects all organ systems, but most particularly a child=s developing brain. Effects include mental retardation, learning disabilities, and possibly violent behavior (Conkin 2007, p. 107. Hermanson and Brozowski 2005, pp. 1-15. Marcus 2007, p. 3. Wikipedia 2007 ALead Poisoning,@ p. 3).

CLIMATE CHANGE

PREVIOUS SOCIETIES: Change toward a less hospitable climate than when the society first flourished, was a major factor in the collapse of eight out of the eleven societies analyzed B the Akkadian Empire (2,340-2,170 B.C.E.), the Indus Valley (2,500-1,700 B.C.E.), Minoan Crete (2,700-c.1,600 B.C.E.), the Moche (1-600 C.E.), the Maya (250 B.C.E.-910 C.E.), the Tiwanaku (200 B.C.E.-1,100 C.E.), the Anasazi (600-1,175 C.E.), and the Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.).

TODAY=S EARTH:

Our Increasing Awareness of Climate Change: During the past 20 years, scientists have been able to narrow markedly the range of uncertainty in their data. They have sounded an increasingly loud alarm at the gathering momentum of climate instability.

1988: The United Nations (specifically the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program) establish the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), to be based in Geneva, Switzerland. The Panel consists of a group of international scientists, and would have a major influence in apprizing the world of the impact of global warming (Hall 2006a, p. 10).

1992: The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, AThe Earth Summit@), is held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It produces the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Treaty (UNFCCC), which has as its objective:

ATo achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a low enough level to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system@ (Hall 2006a, p. 12).

1995: The British Meteorological Organization, Hadley Center, reports that:

a. The global average temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius.

b. The global average temperature is likely to increase by up to 8.8 degrees Centigrade before 2100.

c. Within 30 years (by 2025), rising temperatures will have become sufficient to switch the main sinks of carbon dioxide and methane (forests, ocean and soil) into sources. Should this occur, the chain-reaction of increasing temperatures would be unstoppable. The vicious cycle would be additionally intensified by a heat-driven massive release of methane, now present (Acaptured@) as methane hydrates in ocean sediments (Hall 2006a, p. 13).

1996: Peter Bunyard, freelance author and environmentalist, warns that industrial agriculture (fertilizers, destruction of tropical forests, methane from animals) is responsible for 25 percent of the world=s carbon dioxide emissions, 60 percent of methane gas emissions and 80 percent of nitrous oxide emissions, all of which are powerful greenhouse gases (Hall 2006a, p. 14).

1997: The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) assigns each signatory nation mandatory targets to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. Ratifying nations commit to either reduce their own emissions, or engage in Aemissions trading@ in order to meet the required level of reduction (Hall 2006a, p. 15).

1999: Peter Bunyard, freelance author and environmentalist, reports that the secondary Antarctic and Greenland ice-shields are melting far more quickly than the rate predicted by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1995. The reduced salinity of the ocean which the melting will produce, will weaken, if not divert, the Gulf Stream B precipitating a freezing of Northern Europe (Hall 2006a, p. 17).

2001: The United Nations Inter-governmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), issues its Third assessment report B climate change, which predicts that the increased global temperature will cause:

a. An increase in heat-waves, cyclones, storms and floods.

b. The spread of human and crop diseases from the tropics to temperate areas.

c. A rise in sea level of up to 0.88 meters before 2100. This is likely to affect 30 percent of the world=s agricultural lands (Hall 2006a, p. 21).

2004: The earth=s atmosphere is 375 parts per million carbon dioxide, up from 270 parts per million in 1800 (Hall 2006a, p. 29).

If humans were to stop immediately the burning of all fossil fuels, the planet would continue to warm up for at least 150 years (until 2154), and the oceans would continue to warm for at least 1000 years (until 3000).

Edward Goldsmith, founder, in 1969, of The Ecologist magazine, writes:

AAll we can do is to take measures B dramatic ones B to limit damage and slow down the warming trend, so that when our climate eventually stabilizes, our planet will remain partly habitable@ (Hall 2006a, p. 29).

The Present Global Warming Trend:

1. Global Temperature: During the past century, global temperature has risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius, most of this rise (0.5 degrees) having occurred from 1975 to 2000.

Scientists predict an increase in global temperature of 3.2 degrees Celsius (range 2.4 - 5.4 degrees) during the present century (Hall 2006b, p. 33).

2. Global Temperatures and Greenhouse Gases Emissions: A global temperature increment of two degrees above pre-industrial level is a critical threshold. It is the point at which major human impacts and critical positive feedbacks are expected to begin. Large ecosystems collapse, and begin releasing rather than absorbing carbon dioxide. Self-reinforcing feedback loops accelerate warming, and the climate escapes any possible human control.

The question is, therefore, whether the global temperature rise can be held to no more than another 1.2 degrees during the present century.

Assumption:

* If by 2030, the atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gases concentration is 400 parts per million (that is, 50 ppm below the present level),

Estimate:

* The chances of temperature stabilization at 2 degrees or below pre-industrial levels, are 90 percent.

Assumption:

* If by 2030, the atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gases concentration is 450 ppm (that is, the present level),

Estimate:

* The chances of stabilization at 2 degrees or below pre-industrial levels, are 67 percent.

Assumption:

* If by 2030, the atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gases concentration is 550 ppm,

Estimate:

* The chances of stabilization at 2 degrees or below pre-industrial levels, are 10-20 percent (Monbiot 2007, summarized in Hall 2007b, p. 4).

3. Time to Stabilization:

Assumption:

* If the carbon dioxide emissions of humanity peak in 2050, and thereafter diminish, reaching a negligible level by the year 2,200, then

Estimates:

* The atmospheric carbon dioxide would stabilize to a new, higher level around the year 2,250.

* The global temperature would stabilize to a new, higher level around the year 2,750.

* The sea level would stabilize at a new, higher level around the year 6,050 (Hall 2006b, pp. 33-34)

4. The Impact of Emissions at high Altitude: In order to have a 90 percent chance of stabilizing global temperature at no more than two degrees above its pre-industrial level, then by 2030, the maximum human pollution entitlement should be 1.2 tons of carbon dioxide per world citizen per year.

A return trip New York-London causes the emission of 3.24 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per person B that is, three times the average per capita allowance for humanity in 2030, in order to have a 90 percent chance of stabilizing global temperature at a maximum of two degrees above its pre-industrial level (Hall 2007b, pp. 4, 6 and 17).

DECLINE IN TRADE, ENEMIES, ISOLATION

PREVIOUS SOCIETIES:

Trade: A decline in trade played a role in the collapse of three societies analyzed.

* The Anasazi (600-1,175 C.E.): The Anasazi were dependent on satellite settlements for food when they were faced with their longest drought in memory.

* The Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.): The Greenland Norse were abandoned by Norway, and more generally by Europe.

* Mangareva, Pitcairn and Henderson (900-1,600 C.E.): The inhabitants of Mangareva, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands could no longer exchange the necessities which sustained them.

Enemies: Enemies played a role in only one of the societies analyzed.

* The Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.): The Greenland Norse had inimical relationships with the Inuit. Fighting increased when the climate became colder and food was scarce.

Isolation: Isolation played a role in the demise of three societies analyzed.

* The Greenland Norse (984-1,450 C.E.): The Greenland Norse were 1,500 miles from Norway. They had no friends on their island, only Aenemies@ B the Inuit.

* Mangareva, Pitcairn and Henderson (900-1,600 C.E.): The inhabitants of Mangareva, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands were 1,000 miles from the Societies and Marquesas Islands, and 100 miles or more from each other. Without sea-faring canoes, they were trapped on their respective islands.

* Easter Island (900-1,700 C.E.): Easter Islanders were 1,300 miles from Pitcairn Island to the West, and 2,300 miles from Chile to the East. Without canoes, even for fishing, they starved on their Island.

TODAY=S EARTH: In terms of its isolation, today=s Earth is most like Easter Island. It is completely isolated in a universe which, as far as we know, contains no other center of life. There is no backup. When in difficulties, we have no one with whom we can trade, no friend who will take us in, no enemies who will give us a final blow, and perhaps use our civilization as a foundation for theirs. No one outside of survivor earthlings will know about the fate of the Earth B and perhaps not even they will fully understand what happened (p. 119).

THE OBLIVIOUSNESS OF LEADERS

PREVIOUS SOCIETIES: In all the societies analyzed, leaders either did not anticipate, or if they did anticipate, did not take action to avert disaster.

TODAY=S EARTH:

If leaders have not heeded warnings of our over-use of resources, our environmental degradation, and the dire effects to be expected from the global warming trend, it is not because the documentation is not available.

Some actions have been taken, but their impact has not at all been commensurate with the severity, rapidity and ominous implications of losing the foundational components of life on earth.

The world at present has no global institution with the responsibility of monitoring and acting on trends which are of concern to humanity as a whole. Our highest body, the United Nations, is still an inter-national organization in which nations compete with each other. It is not a global institution assigned responsibility for taking action on global problems. On a regional basis, the European parliament is our only supra-national body.

FACTORS SET TO PLAY A ROLE IN HUMANITY=S COLLAPSE

1. Characteristics of the Threats: As a whole, taken together, present-day threats to life on Earth have characteristics which are so horrendous and at the same time so abstract, that they make denial an all-too-readily available defense.

Modern threats are likely to:

a. Have a high number of victims, in the millions, perhaps the billions.

b. Inflict an intense degree of suffering.

c. Be of long-term, mostly indeterminate duration.

d. Be mostly non-containable or very hard to contain.

e. Be mostly non-reversible.

f. Be trans-generational.

g. Be trans-national.

h. Be artificial, in the sense of human-made, not Anatural.@

i. Be invisible to ordinary people (non-experts, non-scientists).

j. Involve two deaths B the individual death and the death of the ecological world as we know it today.

k. Be non-localizable within a victim/perpetrator model because of the difficulty they present in the ability to prove the cause of the harm beyond reasonable doubt.

l. Be non-calculable B that is, lacking the necessary circumscription which makes calculations of risk and possible compensation meaningful.

m. Be insufficiently traumatic to move the powerful into action.

n. Be synergistic with one another.

o. Converge toward a point of chaos and extreme suffering (van Wyck 2005, summarized in Hall 2005a, pp. 2-7. Card 2002, summarized in Hall 2005b, p. 11).

2. Our own Characteristics: With many outstanding exceptions, generally, as a global society, we have the following characteristics:

a. We are uncaring about those of a radically different culture or even of a different country. For many, it may be difficult to so much as recognize that we are one, completely isolated global society. We are not yet able to see humanity as a unit in which commonality surpasses differences by many orders of magnitude. We often confuse the quantity of energy used B that is, Adevelopment,@ Aindustrialization,@ with the quality of the human being using this energy. We must remember that the Buddha did not have a cell phone . . .

b. We are rigid in wanting either to keep (if we have it), or strive for (if we do not have it) the level of Aindustrialization@ of the presently wealthy nations. This brings to mind the rigidity of the Greenland Norse who refused to change their identity from European Christians, even as they were starving. We do not see ourselves as a world civilization with a rapidly diminishing resiliency, hence vulnerable to collapse. The rich countries do not suggest rationing as a way to manage fairly with the future shortage of energy. The subject of population control remains unresolved.

c. We are looking for technological quick-fixes. We hope that in spite of the fact that our high level of technology has put us in this predicament, it will nevertheless come to our rescue. Surely, just one more technological advance will ward off our demise.

d. We are narrowly focused on competing with each other, rather than seeing the debacle which hangs over our head. We continue to see enemies among ourselves, rather than in the global forces we have engendered. In 2006, official world military expenditures were more than two trillion dollars, a sum sufficient to give $714 each, to the 2.8 billion people living on less than $2 a day B for them, an increase in their standard of living of [[(714+2) - 2] / 2] x 100 = 35,700 percent (Hall 2007b, p. 39. Clark 2005, summarized in Hall 2007a, p. 2).

e. We are led by politicians who are more concerned with short-term goals for their own self and their constituency, rather than long-term goals for the benefit of our descendants. The push from the public is insufficient to force leaders to take decisive, and predictably unpopular measures.

f. We lack the category in which to conceptualize, and lack even a word to describe the future we are manufacturing for ourselves B a combination of homicide, ecocide and suicide. The scale and the inertia of the forces are beyond our capacity to conceptualize them.

g. Despite having a higher level of consciousness, and being more advantaged in innumerable ways than our predecessors, we still may not use our advantages for the benefit of life on earth. We can think rationally, logically, scientifically. We know the past and can predict the future, and we have actually seen our isolated blue globe float in space. And yet, to date, all these advantages have proved insufficient to cause us to change our course as radically as global trends warrant it, in order to keep our global civilization thriving (See the present document White Pages for the evolution of human consciousness).

h. We are highly divorced from a sense of depth, inner life, or spirituality which could help us see the trajectory of evolution B in particular, the evolution of consciousness. The ultimate destination of evolution remains elusive, most of us being quite satisfied in our state of being the highest form of life ever to have occupied the Planet.

CONCLUSION

The sample of the 11 societies analyzed was not taken at random. It focused on societies which have undergone a full-fledged collapse, not just a minor decline. The parallels between the factors operating in their collapse and present world trends are daunting (Diamond 2005, pp. 3, 20 and 174).

It is unlikely that we will be able to prevent the extraordinary amount of suffering which lies ahead of us. Its magnitude is almost incomprehensible. But we must do all we can to soften the landing. We can buy time to minimize the chaos which is likely to accompany the upcoming adjustment. We must strive to diminish the impact of our past behavior, even while knowing that our success is likely to be only partial.

The only possible ethical stand is to recognize and try to alleviate to our utmost the suffering we have imposed on our descendants.

As Alfred Lotka said, in 1925:

Our descendants . . . will see poor compensation for their ills in the fact that we did live in abundance and luxury.@

REFERENCES

WHITE PAGES

White pages are presented as a timeline reference only. Colored pages form the body of this document.

White pages are a duplicate of Francoise Hall, 2006. AThe History of Western Art B A pictorial Representation of the Evolution of Consciousness.@ March 25 (103 pages, unpublished). See this document for illustrations referred to in White Pages.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS:

In the original version of AThe History of Western Art,@ the information on levels of consciousness was summarized from seven books by Ken Wilber, with all references meticulously annotated. I have erased these references in the present to make lighter reading.

The seven books by Ken Wilber are as follows. The first five, identified with ^(a), are summarized in Francoise Hall, 2005. AA transpersonal View of War B War as a Substitute for Cosmo-centrism and Immortality during the egoic Stage in the Development of Consciousness.@ November 5 (103 pages, unpublished).

Wilber, Ken.

1981/1996. Up from Eden B a transpersonal view of human evolution. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books. ^(a)

1983/2005. A sociable God B (1983 subtitles: a brief introduction to a transcendental sociology), 2005 subtitle: toward a new understanding of religion. Boston, MA: Shambhala. ^(a)

1995/2000. Sex, ecology, spirituality B the spirit of evolution. 2^nd Edition, Revised. Boston, MA: Shambhala. ^(a)

1996. A brief history of everything. Boston, MA: Shambhala. ^(a)

2000/2001. The eye of spirit B an integral vision for the world gone slightly mad. Boston, MA: Shambhala. ^(a)

2000. One taste B daily reflections on integral spirituality. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

2001. A theory of everything B an integral vision for business, politics, science and spirituality. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Summarized in Francoise Hall, 2006. AAn Integral Vision.@ March 12 (21 pages, unpublished).

ART REPRESENTATIONS (WHITE PAGES):

Stokstad, Marilyn. 2005. Art history. 2^nd Edition, Revised. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Summarized in Francoise Hall, 2006. AThe History of Western Art B A pictorial Representation of the Evolution of Consciousness.@ March 25 (103 pages, unpublished).

OTHER REFERENCES (WHITE PAGES):

Columbia Encyclopedia. 2000. Sixth Edition. New York: Columbia University/Gale Group.

Enheduanna, c.2,300 B.C.E. ALament to the Spirit of War,@ in Daniela Gioseffi, Ed., 2003. Women on war B An international anthology of writings from antiquity to the present, 2^nd Edition. New York: The Feminist Press, City University of New York.

See also Francoise Hall, 2003. Poem, ATo Enheduanna.@ August 10. (14 pages, unpublished).

Lindqvist, Sven. 2000 (in Sweden) / 2001 (English Translation). A history of bombing, Linda Rugg, Translator. New York: The New Press.

See also Francoise Hall, 2001. Poem, AWestern Civilization B A short History of its aerial Bombardments.@ November 12. (5 pages, unpublished).

COLORED PAGES

Colored pages form the body of this document. White pages are presented as a timeline reference only.

ALL UNIDENTIFIED PAGE NUMBERS REFER TO:

Diamond, Jared. 2005b. Collapse B how societies choose to fail or succeed. New York. N.Y.: Penguin.

ART REPRESENTATIONS (COLORED PAGES):

In the order of the date of their collapse:

Akkadian Art:

Head of an Akkadian Ruler, Nineveh: Kleiner, Fred and Christin Mamiya, AGardner=s Art through the Ages,@ Online Study Guide.

http://wadsworth.com/art_d/templates/student_resources. Accessed September 6, 2007.

Stele of Naram-Sin: from Sippar, present-day Iraq. Musee du Louvre, Paris, France.

Disk of Enheduanna: From Ur, Sumer, present-day Iraq. Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

Cylinder Seal with a Battle of the Gods: Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.

http://www/metmuseum.org/toah/hd/akka. Accessed September 7, 2007.

Cylinder Seal with kneeling nude Heroes: Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.

http://www/metmuseum.org/toah/hd/akka. Accessed September 7, 2007.

Votive Statue of Gudea: From Lagash, present-day Iraq. Musee du Louvre, Paris, France.

Indus Valley Art:

Dancing Girl of Mohenjo Daro: Wikipedia, 2007. AIndus Valley Art.@

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization. Updated August 19, 2007. Accessed August 24, 2007.

Minoan Crete Art:

Woman or Goddess with Snakes: Stokstad, Marilyn. 2005. Art history. 2^nd Edition, Revised. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Figure 4-9, p. 98.

Bull Leaping: Stokstad, Marilyn. 2005. Art history. 2^nd Edition, Revised. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Figure 4-15, p. 103.

Mycenaean Art:

Mask of Agamemnon: Stokstad, Marilyn. 2005. Art history. 2^nd Edition, Revised. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Figure 4-19, p. 106.

Two Women with a Child: Stokstad, Marilyn. 2005. Art history. 2^nd Edition, Revised. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Figure 4-26, p. 110.

Moche (Phase IV) Art:

Portrait Head Moche IV: Tribal Arts

http://www.tribalarts.com/feature/peru/peru12.html. Accessed September 6, 2007.

Portrait Head Bottle, Peru; Moche: Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.

http://www/metmuseum.org/toah/Images/hb. Accessed September 7, 2007.

Maya Art:

Costumed Figure, Mexico; Maya: Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.

http://www/metmuseum.org/toah/ho/06. Accessed September 8, 2007.

Censer Support, Mexico; Maya: Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.

http://www/metmuseum.org/toah/images/hb Accessed September 8, 2007.

Palenque Glyphs, Mexico; Maya: Wikipedia, 2007. AMaya Glyphs.@

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Palenque_glyphs. Accessed September 6, 2007.

Tiwanaku Art:

Figure holding ceremonial Objects, Bolivia; Tiwanaku: Timeline of Arrt History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.

http://www/metmuseum.org/toah/images.hb. Accessed September 7, 2007.

Anasazi Art:

Anasazi Rock Art: Anasazi Places B Ruins and Rock Art, A photography Journey through some Anasazi Sites.

http://raysweb.net/anasazi-images/index.html. Accessed September 6, 2007.

Greenland Norse: Architecture and Climate:

Hvalsey Stone Church, Eastern Settlement: Diamond, Jared. 2005. Collapse B how societies choose to fail or succeed. New York. N.Y.: Penguin. Plate 15.

Timeline of Temperatures over Greenland: Alley, Richard. 2000/2002. The two-mile time machine. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University. Reproduced in Dale Pfeiffer, 2004. AGlobal Climate Change and peak Oil, Part II.@ Energy Bulletin. This article in turn reprinted from From the Wilderness Publications, May 4.

http://energybulletin.net/1394.html+moche+civilization+population+peak. Accessed September 10, 2007.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com.

Mangareva Art:

Figure of the God Tu: Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.

http://www/metmuseum.org/toahOAH/images/h2 Accessed September 6, 2007.

Figure of the God Rao: Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.

http://www/metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2 Accessed September 6, 2007.

Easter Island Art:

Stone Statues and Platforms: Diamond, Jared. 2005. Collapse B how societies choose to fail or succeed. New York. N.Y.: Penguin. Plates 5 and 8.

OTHER REFERENCES (COLORED PAGES):

Card, Claudia. 2002. The atrocity paradigm B a theory of evil. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University.

Summarized in Francoise Hall, 2005b. APrioritizing present Threats to Life on Earth.@ May 28. (21 pages, unpublished).

Carothers, Joan and William McDonald, 1979. Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Winter). Available through the Academic Journal Storage (JSTOR).

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0093-4690(197924). Accessed September 9, 2007.

Chase-Dunn, Christopher, Alexis Alvarez and Daniel Pasciuti.2004. APower and Size.@ Chapter V, in Urbanization and empire formation in world systems since the bronze age. Riverside, CA: University of California (Institute for Research on World Systems), Riverside.

http://www/irows.ucr.edu/research/citemp/isa02/isa02.htm. Accessed September 9, 2007.

Clark, William. 2005. Petro-dollar warfare B oil, Iraq and the future of the dollar. Gabriola Island, B.C., Canada: New Society.

Summarized in Francoise Hall, 2007a. AMacro-economics B the Euro and the Dollar.@ February 3. (7 pages, unpublished).

Columbia Encyclopedia. 2000. Sixth Edition. New York: Columbia University/Gale Group.

Conkin, Paul. 2007. The state of the earth B environmental challenges on the road to 2100. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky.

Diamond, Jared, 2005a. AThe Ends of the World as we know them.@ The New York Times. Editorial. January 1. Available at:

http://healthandenergy.com/ends of civilizations. htm. Accessed September 10, 2007.

Encarta Encyclopedia, undated.

ANative Americans of Middle and South America.@

http://www.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia. Accessed September 10, 2007.

ASpain.@

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761575057_10/Spain.html.

Enheduanna, c.2,300 B.C.E. ALament to the Spirit of War,@ in Daniela Gioseffi, Ed., 2003. Women on war B An international anthology of writings from antiquity to the present, 2^nd Edition. New York: The Feminist Press, City University of New York.

See also Francoise Hall, 2003. Poem, ATo Enheduanna.@ August 10 (14 pages, unpublished).

Hall, Francoise,

2003. Poem, ATo Enheduanna.@ August 10 (14 pages, unpublished).

2004. AEnergy today.@ July 10. (20 pages, unpublished).

2005a. AA psychoanalytic Approach to contemporary ecological Threats.@ May 21. (16 pages, unpublished).

2005b. APrioritizing present Threats to Life on Earth.@ May 28. (21 pages, unpublished).

2005c. AGlobal Trends B predictable Atrocities.@ June 4. (29 pages, unpublished).

2005d. AThe Causes of War B A Sample of Western Views.@ August 13 (88 pages, unpublished).

2006a. AThe brief and disastrous Reign of Homo petrolatum.@ September 30. (61 pages (unpublished).

2006b. AOur physical Environment, our Capacity to understand, our Morality ad our Spirituality.@ November 24. (95 pages, unpublished).

2007a. AMacro-economics B the Euro and the Dollar.@ February 3. (7 pages, unpublished).

2007b. AGlobal Warming B an Assessment of possible Solutions.@ May 26 (64 pages, unpublished).

2007c. AThe End of the Wild.@ June 23 (66 pages, unpublished).

Haug, Gerald, Detlef Gunther, Larry Peterson, Daniel Sigman, Konrad Hughen, and Beat Aeschlimann, 2003. AClimate and the Collapse of Maya Civilization.@ Science, Vol. 299, No. 5613. March 14.

http://www.sicencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/5613/1731. Accessed August 23, 2007.

Hermanson, Mark and James Brozowski, 2005. AHistory of Inuit Community Exposure to Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury in Sewage Lake Sediments.@ Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 113 No. 10, pp. 1308-1312. October.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artic=1281271. Accessed September 8, 2007.

Hourani, Albert.1991. A history of the Arab peoples. New York, N.Y.: Warner Books.

Marcus, Steven, 2007. AToxicity, Lead.@ e-medicine.

http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic293.htm. Updated May 21. Accessed September 8, 2007.

Meyer, Stephen. 2007. The end of the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Somerville, MA: Boston Review.

Summarized in Francoise Hall, 2007c. AThe End of the Wild.@ June 23. (66 pages, unpublished).

Monbiot, George. 2007. Heat B how to stop the planet from burning. Cambridge, MA: South End.

Summarized in Francoise Hall, 2007b. AGlobal Warming B an Assessment of possible Solutions.@ May 26. (64 pages, unpublished).

Pfeiffer, Dale, 2004. AGlobal Climate Change and peak Oil, Part II.@ Energy Bulletin. Reprinted from From the Wilderness Publications, May 4.

http://energybulletin.net/1394.html+moche+civilization+population+peak. Accessed September 10, 2007.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com.

Tainter, Joseph.

1996, AComplexity, Problem Solving and Sustainable Societies,@ in Robert Costanza et al, Editors, Getting down to earth B practical applications of ecological economics. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

http://dieoff.com/page134.htm.

1998. The collapse of complex societies. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University.

Both of the above summarized in Heinberg, Richard. 2003. The party=s over B oil, war and the fate of industrial societies. Gabriola Island, B.C., Canada: New Society.

Summarized in Francoise Hall, 2004. AEnergy today.@ July 10. (20 pages, unpublished).

van Wyck, Peter. 2005. Signs of danger B waste, trauma and nuclear threat (Theory out of Bounds, Volume 26). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.

Summarized in Francoise Hall, 2005a. AA psychoanalytic Approach to contemporary ecological Threats.@ May 21. (16 pages, unpublished).

Wiener, M.H.. 1989. AArchaeology.@ In Thera and the Aegean World III. D.A.Hardy, Editor. Vol. 1: Proceedings of the Third International Congress, Santorini, Greece, September 3-9. London, England: The Thera Foundation.

http://www/therafoundation.org/articles/economysociety/theislesofcretethe min. Accessed September 9, 2007.

Weiss, Harvey and Raymond Bradley, 2001. AWhat drives societal Collapse B Early Civilizations Casualties of rapid Climate Change.@ Science. January 26.

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers. Accessed September 10, 2007.

Wikipedia, 2007.

AAkkad.@

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkad. August 21. Accessed August 24, 2007.

ABattle of Tours.@

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours. August 17. Accessed August 23, 2007.

AHistory of Greece.@

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greece. August 24. Accessed August 24, 2007.

AIndus Valley Civilization.@

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization. August 19. Accessed August 24, 2007.

ALead poisoning.@

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning. September 6. Accessed September 8, 2007.

ALothal.@

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothal+Indus+Valley+civilization. May 10. Accessed September 9, 2007.

AMinoan Civilization.@

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_Civilization. August 24. Accessed August 24, 2007.

APre-Columbian.@

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian. August 23. Accessed August 23, 2007.

ATiwanaku.@

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwanaku. August 21. Accessed August 24, 2007.

***

ADDENDUM

DEMOGRAPHIC COLLAPSES B LESSONS FOR TODAY *

ILLUSTRATIONS WHICH REFER TO THE WHITE PAGES

* These illustrations, are presented as a timeline reference only.

Colored pages form the body of the document

to which this is an addendum.

For the full document from which these illustrations originate, refer to

Hall, Francoise, 2006. AThe History of Western Art B

A pictorial Representation of the Evolution of Consciousness.@

March 25 (103 pages, unpublished).

August 17, 2007