1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Eric Cline, PhD)
1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Eric Cline, PhD) on HackerTube: recommended by 5 Hacker News commenters across 4 separate months, 2017–2025.
Archaeologist Eric Cline lectures on the Late Bronze Age collapse around 1177 BC, when interconnected Mediterranean empires fell in rapid succession. He discusses the Sea Peoples and the combined causes of the collapse.
What HN commenters said
10 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
itcrowdDec 2019Strongly recommends
Not a talk from 2019, but discovered it this year: "1177 BC, the year civilization collapsed (Eric Cline, PhD)" ▶ this video Excellent informative and hilarious talk about his (at-the-time) new scientific hypothesis to explain the end of the Bronze Age ca. 1200 BC. Multiple civilizations collapsed within a few decades of each other with the ability to read, write and make high buildings being lost all across the Eastern Mediterranean simultaneously . The Bronze Age is magical and interesting of itself, the talk gives a great introduction as to why we know much more about it than we think.. definitely recommended. Duration ~1 hour (feels like 20 minutes)
in “Ask HN: Best Talks of 2019?” · View on HN
meseznikJul 2017Strongly recommends
I recently stumbled upon this lecture, definitely recommended it (Sea Peoples introduced @ 08:20): ▶ this video -1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Eric Cline, PhD)
in “Sea Peoples” · View on HN
DavidPiperSep 2021Recommends
There is also ▶ this video by Eric Cline, an (alternative) accompaniment to his book "1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed". - I do recommend the book, but for most folks the YouTube lecture is probably enough detail :)
in “A Tunguska size burst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, Bronze Age city in Jordan Valley” · View on HN
qq4Jan 2021Recommends
Wow haha, only on HN would I read a sea peoples joke. Did you also watch that informative YouTube lecture [0] or did you find out about them elsewhere? [0] ▶ this video
in “'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded” · View on HN
flukusJul 2017Recommends
If your interested then here is a good talk on the various contributing factors: ▶ this video . Looks like youtube has quite a few more as well.
in “Sea Peoples” · View on HN
lucyjojoOct 2025Cites it
[link] yay cannibalism! also famine mixed with other stuff resulting in multi-civilizational collapse ▶ this video food is not web-scale. you people are not scared enough.
in “Climate goals go up in smoke as US datacenters turn to coal” · View on HN
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beefmanAug 2021Cites it
My family watched Miracle on 34th Street a couple years ago. Aside from being generally impressed with how well it's aged, I was particularly impressed with the office technology on display (pneumatic tubes etc). In Victorian London, mail could be posted up to 12 times per day.[1] That's about as often as e-mail can be turned around. Bronze Age merchants exchanged clay tablets with remarkable throughput.[2] On the consumer side... I live in Silicon Valley. My grandparents had better access to services than I do — fresh milk delivery, an MD that came to their bedside, and an electric trolley — in the 1930s in a town of 12k ppl. My grandfather was a driver for a laundry service, my grandmother taught piano. [3] But maybe the most fundamental issue here is that productivity is 'measured' by dividing GDP by hours worked. But work seems better characterized as a mechanism that distributes, rather than creates, GDP.[4] [1] [link] [2] ▶ this video [3] [link] [4] [link]
in “Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?” · View on HN
sergeykishSep 2020Cites it
As armchair academic I kind of understand you. People live in all sort of horrible conditions today - famine, malaria, diseases. As living person I ask myself what if my home was destroyed by flood? What if there is no water to grow food? What if person from the country which caused most of CO2 emissions [1] expects me to be contempt? Shouldn't I blow them up? Maybe all I need to commit is a good preacher. Last mass migration caused by ISIS. COVID caused reduced oil consumption is enough to make a trouble for oil exporters. Global warming is worse - drought, flood, fires. World is extremely fragile, resources supplied from another part of the world, even today cobalt mining is horrible, what would be then? I've heard of another civilization and broken supply chains [2]. [1] [link] [2] 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Eric Cline, PhD) ▶ this video
in “Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval” · View on HN
Cactus2018Jul 2020Cites it
One of the author's hour long lectures on youtube 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Eric Cline, PhD) ▶ this video
in “Ancient trash heaps reveal the Plague of Justinian’s economic toll” · View on HN
1wdJan 2020Cites it
From a 2016 talk: "Possible some came from Cornwall though I rather doubt they went up there more than once in a blue moon. There are some tin mines in southern Turkey but not enough. The vast majority came from Afghanistan. Specifically the Badakhshan region of Afghanistan." ▶ this video
in “Tin Found in Israel from 3k Years Ago Comes from Cornwall” · View on HN