So the Sea Peoples... There are all kinds of theories about just who they were or where they came from. Is there any particular theory that you find to be most plausible? Are there any active theories out there that you think we just need to stop giving credence to?

In 1177 you seem to be drawing analogies between the complex internationalized elites of the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean and todays globalized 1%. To what degree did the existence of these elites contribute to the ultimate fragility of the system, via, e.g., all foreign trade being nominally structured as an exchange of kingly gifts?

Two questions about trade, both coming out of reading Braudel's The Mediterranean in the Ancient World:

First, at the risk of asking an excessively broad question, what do we know about the volumes of trade in the bronze age world? How significant were they for societies?

Second, Braudel talks about bronze age regimes collapsing because of the interruption of trade. What were the actual mechanisms by which these interruptions destabilised regimes or societies? (Assuming you agree that they did.)

Most Ancient history starts with the Greeks but having read Barry Cunlife's Europe Between the Oceans it opened my eyes to how much European history is known, even northern European, going back thousands of years before the Greeks, some of it fairly advanced. Why do we embrace the Greeks as a foundation of Western culture but ignore European history elsewhere? Or do the Greeks rightly deserve this reputation?

What a wonderful opportunity, thank you for doing this! I have a few questions:

• One of most interesting examples to me of the "internationalization" of the LBA are the Minoan style frescoes in Tel el-Daba in Egypt. How do you explain this striking display of foreignness, particularly from the artistically conservative Egyptians, who seemingly wouldn't want foreign style art?

• My area of study is Imperial Rome, and when we talk about "ancient empires" we tend to begin with the Neo-Assyrians, finding the Bronze Age empires too different in their structure to be easily comparable. Do you think this is fair? How much continuity or discontinuity do you see with the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Bronze Age precursors? Sorry, that's a bit of a big question!

• For your own experiences, 1177 seems to be geared to be accessible to a wider audience than a standard work on Near Eastern archaeology. What has your experience been with that?

• For more artefact focused, do you think the so-called "Mask of Agamemnon" is an authentic Mycenaean burial mask?

• And just for fun, what was your first great find?

Ah! Someone who has an interest in Cyprus! I have a personal question and an academic question.

Personal question: Have you met Stuart Swiny? He taught Cypriot archaeology at SUNY Albany when I attended for my undergraduate degree. He almost convinced me to do Cypriot archaeology instead of Mesoamerican.

Academic: How likely do you think Cyprus is the location of Alashiya mentioned in other texts around the Eastern Mediterranean?

I have ALL the questions!

I've been kind of working off of Dimitri Nakassis's research from the examination of the names on the tablets at Pylos, and his suggestion of essentally, a Mycenaean Middle Class, and I've been wondering about some elements of the relationship between the Palace and the local, surrounding elites, and how it might meld with the ideas presented of the heroes of myth who might have lived in the bronze age, such as: if the local elites were landowners, it seems likely they would have also lived outside of the protection of the palace walls, but would the palace have offered them shelter during invasion? Would they have retreated behind its fortifications as part of the social/political contract which granted their support to the local king/wanax? Could the local elites also have had significant wealth in the form of precious metals and raided goods/animals? The myths suggest that the great heroes of old(e) were as much pirates as kings, and I guess I'm wondering whether you think, considering the evidence of significant fortification, if it's likely some of these people could have been supplementing their wealth through raiding, or even if raiding might have been a primary source of "income" for a few--particularly if it's possible that the more central authority (king/palace) might have been the primary landowner of the surrounding area. Might the local elites then, have exerted influence by remaining IN the palace, creating a court-like atmosphere? I wonder, too, if the king might have culled a raiding party from the local elites -- being the most able to outfit themselves for such, in the way of arms and ships -- and set out, promising a share of whatever booty in exchange? (I'm still trying to wrap my head around how these guys loaded cattle onto their ships after a raid, but that element, at least, I can just... skip over, and pick up again with the victorious homecoming.)

In regard to burial practices, because I'm writing a book which also leads into the mythology surrounding Helen of Troy and the Trojan War, I'm wondering if I might reconcile the cremation/inhumation divide between the Homeric account and the archaeological record by reason of expediency of disposal in times of war -- certainly in foreign soil with limited means this seems like it might make sense, since the Greek heroes wouldn't have the time or the resources, necessarily, to build any significant tombs at Troy, but would it be possible in the generation preceding the Trojan War (and the heroes involved) that someone like Pirithous in Thessaly (my hero in this particular story!), having seen a large number of his people slaughtered in a sudden attack and anticipating a second more disastrous battle, might have built funeral pyres for the dead in order to address disposal more efficiently? It seems to me that the tombs that might have existed wouldn't necessarily be able to accommodate a sudden and large influx of the dead via inhumation. Or am I totally off-base? (From the articles I've read so far, I don't see any mention of any kind of mass grave in mainland Greece or Thessaly specifically outside of the standard Mycenaean (family?) tombs, but this was an age of huge walled fortifications, which implies some kind of larger scale conflict -- there had to be SOME kind of system in place for death on the scale of battles/raids/war.)

I'm a bronze age historical fiction author (my novel on Helen of Sparta -- her life before she went to Troy -- just released), and I do my research but there's always MORE to learn, and sometimes it's difficult to find the right search terms to get the answers I'm looking for. Your book is on my to-buy list (I'm dying to read it!) but if you have any thoughts on the above I'd really be thrilled to hear them!

Thanks so much for your time!

What exactly happened with the Hittites? Why were they seemingly much less influential on future cultures (as opposed to, say, the Egyptians, Phoenicians and Minoans) despite being a large and powerful group themselves?

Can you tell me a bit about pre-Judaic society around Jerusalem?

I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to time periods like bronze age,iron age etc....So,when exactly was the bronze age and what exactly is it's significance?

Thank you for taking the time to address us!

I'm mostly interested in the extent to which metal and stone tools co-existed and their usage overlapped. Is there anything of interest you could share about how metal tool usage spread through Europe, and whether there were there any notable holdouts which preferred to maintain the use of stone tools despite gaining access to metals (Either at the regional scale or in some specific types of usage)?

First of all, thanks for writing "1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed" - I own a Kindle edition of the book and have enjoyed reading it.

One thing I learned from the book is that it is currently being thought that the Dorian invasion of Greece is a myth. As someone who learned about the Dorian invasion at school in 1980's, I'd like to know when the current view prevailed, and who introduced it in the first place.

There seems to be a lot of debate in scholarship regarding just what the historical Trojan War was, not to mention whether or not there even is a conflict that we can point to as being somewhat analogous. I recall reading previously that you come down somewhat on the "pro" side, so I was hoping that you could expand a little on what evidence you believe supports the idea of an historical Trojan War, and also perhaps explain a little as to how recognizable the conflict in the historical record would be to someone familiar with the Homeric Epic.

Is there any archaeological evidence to support the idea that there was a large amount of contact between Cyprus and Mycenaean Greece?

Hi Mr Cline! This is your daughter's friend!

Near Chepstow, England, in Wales, there is a plaque claiming that at that location bronze was first created/discovered. Is this true?

Thanks!

10 years from today what do you think will be looked at as the biggest advance in our understanding of the Bronze Age?

Similarly, what was the biggest discovery of the previous decade?

To your knowledge, how available was bronze to the average person living in Mesopotamia/Egypt/Anatolia/Greece during the late Bronze age? As tin had to be imported from elsewhere did this dramatically reduce the availability of bronze for tools and weapons in these regions? As a follow up, to what extent did people "make do" with copper alone for making equipment?

I actually just finished reading your book 1177 BC last week and I really enjoyed it!

One question I still had about the Bronze Age Collapse after reading it was the effect of these events on Assyria and Babylon. My impression is that there's less widespread evidence of destruction in Mesopotamian sites in the era; if this is correct, why might that be? The Middle Assyrian Empire had significant trade links to Anatolia and the Levant, so how were they affected by the instability in the 11th century? Was Assyria's declining area of control related to the "Sea People"?

Thanks for doing this AMA!

Thank you for doing this.

My question is about the military tactics and techniques during the Trojan War. So if The Iliad doesn't represent a good example of LBA warfarw, then what elements in Homer do seem authentic, and what can we assume the historical battles would have looked like?

Not a question about the history as such - more about the profession of Archaeology.

Is the distinction between academic archaeology and "field" archaeology as prominent as I might think it is? Is a degree that would naturally be necessary to teach and research archaeology with a university and in academic setting also be a requirement for working on a dig site and working in that area of the field?

Also concerning "field" archaeology: what do many archaeologists who work seasonally (as do many in the Mediterranean) do when they don't dig? Do they usually do academic work?

I was reading the page you linked for the Kabri dig site, and this in particular stuck out for me:

Kabri represents one of the only possible opportunities available today in the Eastern Mediterranean to test some of the anthropological theories about the rise of archaic states and the nature of various political economies in the Aegean and the Near East.

It sounds like this is a pretty revolutionary site for our understanding of the period, so I was hoping you could expand a little on just what those theories are, and either how Kabri has been able to support (or disprove!) them, or what you hope it would be able to show after further excavations. Thank you!

About Sea Peoples. Which could be the importance of influence of Central Europe Urnfield Culture, in the genesis of Sea Peoples ?

I have a rather mundane question but you might be just the person who can point me in the right direction.

I've been playing around with a backyard furnace with the ultimate goal of making replicas of bronze weapons and armor. The tricky bit is that I don't have access to any actual artifacts and I can't seem to find meaningful dimensions and measurements. Are there are any good resources for this kind of thing you could point me to?

If possible, where would you attempt to identify the 'start' of the bronze age? Was there a general time frame around the world? I would imagine the technology to create something of mixed alloys would have been something developed convergently.

On the flip side of that main question, when would you consider the 'end' of the bronze age to be? And did the iron age follow it? Or was there something else in between.

I am under the general impression that copper tools were still in use when iron was just beginning to take root; would they not have been phased out in favor of bronze in general?

Did people fighting in Bronze Age Greece use some form of phalanx, or was that a later innovation? I don't really know much about the Bronze Age, is there a good introductory book you'd recommend?

Eric, I just wanted to thank you publicly (or, I suppose, as public as this gets with these sorts of things) for what you've done for my mentor and dear friend Chris Rollston. Can't tell you how happy I am that he's there working with you.

I misread the title as "Bronze Age Astronomy". Oh well. Anything surprisingly advanced about the astronomy of the era?

What evidence is there for the continued presence of Mycenaeans outside the Aegean (i.e. Southern Italy) after the LBA? Has there been any work relating this to later Greek colonial settlements?

What do we know about the ethnic and linguistic groups in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age? What were the languages and gods of the people living in your study sites? Was it the same as places a bit further South and East, into what is today Jordan?

Were the linguistic groups in the area at the time essentially the Northwestern Semitic groups that populated the area into Roman times, or were there substantial linguistica changes that are comparable to the decline of Hittite or Akkadian in the Early Iron Age? Please feel free to correct any misconceptions or mischaracterizations that I may have unintentionall expressed.

What is the most likely explanation for the Late Bronze Age Collapse?

Do you see any parallels between the collapse of the Early and Late Bronze Ages in the eastern Mediterranean?

I realise this may not be exactly your field, but I'm interested in your views as to the historicity of the Davidic Kingdom, and whether your digs at Megiddo and Tel Kabri could impact on the old "Low Chronology"/Copenhagen School debate.

I understand Israel Finkelstein is your fellow Co-Director at Megidddo, so I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but I would greatly value your learned opinion.

I enjoyed reading 1177 BC a lot and it got me really interested in the ancient near east. Except for your other books, which I will certainly check out, do you have any other book recommendations? I am both interested in widening the scope (e.g. to the early/middle bronze age and the early iron age) and in deepening my understanding of the LBA.

Could you explain the ethnic history of the ancient Near East? I have heard before that Southern Europeans today are more related to ancient Middle Eastern farmers than they are to ancient Europeans. Is there merit to this claim? Lastly, what ethnic group today would be most related to the people of the ancient Near East?

Do historians have any information about the interactions between the proto greeks and pre greek populations in the bronze age? Be they linguistic, cultural, military etc.

Apologies if you're not still answering-I just have one question about Hittite visual culture on the frontier of the empire. Do we see an identifiably "provincial Hittite" style or conversely the incorporation of Hittite visual culture into local art?

How did the populations of Bronze Age Mesopotamia and Central Europe compare to their Iron age counterparts respectively?

Do you know of any incredibly underrated historical figures? Like someone who did something ruthless/amazing/awful/funny that people just aren't told about.

After reading your book there was one thing I was really confused about; why was the Minoan sword so significant? Thank you very much for doing this AMA!

Do you have any advice for a senior in High School looking to become an archaeologist?