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  DOI Prefix   10.20431


 

International Journal of Research in Sociology and Anthropology
Volume 5, Issue 3, 2019, Page No: 20-28

Unsustainable Mining Development and the Collapse of Some Ancient Societies: Economic Reasons

Clement Tisdell1, Serge Svizzero2*

1. School of Economics, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 4072, Queensland, Australia.
2.Faculte de Droit et d'Economie, Universite de La Reunion, 15 Avenue Rene Cassin. CS 9003, 97400 Saint Denis, France .

Citation : Clement Tisdell, Serge Svizzero, Unsustainable Mining Development and the Collapse of Some Ancient Societies: Economic Reasons International Journal of Research in Sociology and Anthropology 2019, 5(3) : 20-28.

Abstract

The literature explaining social collapse mainly focuses on factors such as wars, climate change or disease, as exemplified by numerous examples of collapses which have occurred during the Late Bronze Age in the Near East and in the South-eastern Mediterranean region. This paper aims at demonstrating that collapse can also have economic reasons. Indeed, collapse may be the outcome of an economic growth process which is inherently unsustainable. More precisely, we claim that several ancient societies collapsed because their form of economic development eventually proved to be unable to sustain their standard of living. It is believed that the Unetice societies (which existed in the central European Early Bronze Age) were among those that collapsed for that reason. Two different simple models are presented to demonstrate how agricultural economies of this type which introduced bronze mining and metallurgy were unable to sustain their economic development.


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