Late Bronze Age collapse

The Late Bronze Age collapse was a period of societal collapse in the Mediterranean basin during the 12th century BC. It is thought to have affected much of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East, in particular Egypt, Anatolia, the Aegean, eastern Libya, and the Balkans. The collapse was sudden, violent, and culturally disruptive for many Bronze Age civilizations, creating a sharp material decline for the region's previously existing powers.

The palace economy of Mycenaean Greece, the Aegean region, and Anatolia that characterized the Late Bronze Age disintegrated, transforming into the small isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages, which lasted from c. 1100 to c. 750 BC, and were followed by the better-known Archaic Age. The Hittite Empire spanning Anatolia and the Levant collapsed, while states such as the Middle Assyrian Empire in Mesopotamia and the New Kingdom of Egypt survived in weakened forms. Other cultures, such as the Phoenicians, enjoyed increased autonomy and power with the waning military presence of Egypt and Assyria in West Asia.

Competing theories of the cause of the Late Bronze Age collapse have been proposed since the 19th century, with most involving the violent destruction of cities and towns. These include climate change, volcanic eruptions, droughts, disease, invasions by the Sea Peoples, economic disruptions due to increased ironworking, and changes in military technology and strategy that brought the decline of chariot warfare. Following the collapse, gradual changes in metallurgic technology led to the subsequent Iron Age across Europe, Asia, and Africa during the 1st millennium BC. Scholarship in the late 20th and early 21st century introduced views that the collapse was more limited in scale and scope than previously thought.