Towards a New History of Early Athens: Late Bronze Age Climate Change in Context

During my tenure at the Center for Hellenic Studies, I carried out research related to a book project exploring the impacts of rapid climate change ( sensu Holmes et al. 2011) on Athens during the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age transition (ca. 1300–700 BCE). The resources of the CHS library allowed me to make significant progress on producing the catalogue of my main source material, finds from the Mycenaean Fountain, as well as writing the main interpretative chapters. I was able to present my research at Bryn Mawr College, the Center for Hellenic Studies, the New York Aegean Colloquium, and the University of Victoria (Canada), and I benefited greatly from discussing my ideas through informal conversations with my cohort of fellows and researchers in the DC metropolitan area. These opportunities provided me with crucial feedback during the formative writing phase and directed me towards fruitful avenues for further exploration. Lastly, I was able to complete and submit for consideration a substantial article on previously unpublished Mycenaean (ca. 1650–1100 BCE) finds from the Athenian Agora Excavations that complement my monograph project and provide further evidence for the impacts of rapid climate change on the shape of the ancient urban core of Athens.

Although climate change has long been considered as a possible primary factor in the collapse of the Late Bronze Age societies of the eastern Mediterranean region (e.g., Carpenter 1966; Weiss 1982; Shrimpton 1987; Drews 1993:77–84; Drake 2012; Cline 2021:152–166), the lack of high resolution calendrical dating of drought events has prevented a clear picture of their impact on ancient societies from emerging. As a result, multi-causal explanations postulating a ‘perfect storm’ of crises have dominated scholarly narratives of the Late Bronze Age collapse (e.g., Middleton 2010; Knapp and Manning 2016; Cline 2021:134–166). Over the last decade, however, the publication of new climate models that can be linked to near-annular calendrical dates from Greece, Türkiye, and Syria have demonstrated with increasing certainty that climate played an outsized role in the process of collapse and, if it was not the direct cause of the collapse of the Late Bronze Age societies, climate change certainly prolonged or prevented the recovery of societies in the regions impacted most severely (e.g., Finné et al. 2017; Kaniewski et al. 2019; Bonnier 2023; Manning et al. 2023).

Since 2017, I have been reinvestigating the finds from the so-called Mycenaean Fountain, a deep water source located on the north slope of the Acropolis, accessed from the summit of the Acropolis by eight successive flights of zig-zagging stairs constructed within a narrow cavern. This marvel of Mycenaean engineering was first excavated by a team of scholars directed by Oscar Broneer in the 1930s and later restudied by Walter Gauβ, who was the first to document the extensive quantity of unpublished material that remained in the collection of the Athenian Agora Archives (see Broneer 1939; Gauβ 2000, 2003). My research has built on these foundational studies by clarifying our understanding of the stratigraphy of the original excavation, refining the date of the abandonment of the Mycenaean Fountain, and documenting subsequent transformations in the use of space on the Acropolis at the end of the Late Bronze Age (Van Damme 2023, forthcoming a, forthcoming b).

A major question arising from my research is the cause for the abandonment of the Mycenaean Fountain, perhaps less than 50 years after its construction around 1250 BCE. Wells are not abandoned easily; barring major disruptions in urban life such as military conflict or drought, wells were regularly cleaned and maintained whenever possible (e.g., Shear 1994:384–387). In the course of my research, I have documented a continuous increase in the depth of wells cut on the north slope from the Neolithic to Early Iron Age, accelerating in the Late Bronze Age. Whereas the earliest Neolithic wells averaged 3.00–4.00 m deep and could hit water at even shallower depths (Immerwahr 1971:1–2; Camp 1977:185), the final well cut near the Klepsydra Fountain, originally cut at some point in the 12th century BCE, was dug 14.00 m deep (Well U 26:4: see Camp 1977:189; Smithson 1982). Furthermore, after its abandonment in the early 11th century BCE, no new wells were cut on the north slope until the 6th century BCE (Broneer 1938; Roebuck 1940; Camp 1977:45; Glowacki 1991). This correlates with an extended period of cool and arid conditions that impacted southern Greece from the 12th to 8th centuries BCE and encourages further exploration of the potential impacts of climate change on the shaping of early Athens (for extended dry period and population decline, see Weiberg, Bonnier, and Finné 2021).

It is critical that we avoid seeing past societies as passive agents that did nothing in the face of climate change (Molloy 2023:378). Archaeological finds from Athens and elsewhere demonstrate that, once they knew what they were up against, human actors were remarkably successful in adapting to the new climate reality of the Early Iron Age. Human actors applied innovative solutions to tackle the new climate reality ranging from where they lived to what god(s) they believed in.

First and foremost, we must consider migration. One of the most effective ways for humans to tackle the risks associated with climate change was to migrate to areas where their way of life could be maintained. It is unsurprising therefore that the collapse of complex societies across the eastern Mediterranean led to a period of increased mobility, which almost certainly of limited-scale and short duration resulted in the exchange of new ideas, technologies, and even livestock that would shape the re-emergence of complex societies in Greece (e.g., Meiri et al. 2017; Middleton 2018; Feldman et al. 2019). In Athens, evidence for the movement of new people has long been seen in the introduction of new mortuary customs and ceramic styles (e.g., Desborough 1972:106–111; Dimitriadou 2019:19–79; Ruppenstein 2020), although positive confirmation in the form of DNA evidence remains a desideratum.

Secondly, we can consider changes in agricultural and animal husbandry that reshaped the economic basis of Athens and Attica. This includes a shift away from rain fed cereal agriculture and towards olive cultivation as documented through palynological studies of sediments accumulated in Brauron Bay during the Early Iron Age (Triantaphyllou et al. 2010), evidence for intensively irrigated plots of land in the countryside surrounding the polis of Athens (Dimitriadou 2019:382–383, fig. 33), and the emergence of the SOS amphora (Pratt 2015). Similarly, recent research has documented a notable shift in Athens away from raising sheep and pigs in favour of more drought tolerant goats (Dibble and Finné 2021). Both of these strategies may be seen as risk mitigating strategies in an environment where extended periods of dry or drought conditions were a regular occurrence.

Lastly, we should not underestimate how shifts in political and religious ideologies might reflect a deliberate choice on the part of human actors, one that was intended to mitigate risk to the community. While we know very little about the political developments in Athens during the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age transition, Aristotle’s account of a shift from a hereditary monarchy to an oligarchy with term-limited positions (Arist. Ath. Pol. 3.1–3) is likely to be placed in the Early Iron Age and may reflect a rejection of divine kingship (and perhaps a prudent decision on the part of the newly minted elite to share in power and in blame during times of strife). Alongside these developments, we might also note the establishment of the cult of Zeus Ombrios (‘the rainy one’) on Mount Hymettos, perhaps as early as the 12th century BCE, but certainly intensifying in the 11th century BCE (Langdon 1976). In this cult, we might observe a dual strategy: on the one hand, a desire to improve rainfall outcomes from the most powerful storm god, and on the other hand, a desire to separate the most important cult from the political center of Athens.

We will probably never identify the cause(s) of Mycenaean palatial collapse with certainty. As recently articulated by Joseph Maran, however, the cause of the collapse may be less important than understanding why the catastrophe proved impossible to recover from without substantial societal transformations. Focusing on the ‘why’ rather than ‘how’ has the advantage of allowing us to compare and contrast the material records of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Greece and draw historical inferences about human decision-making that led to societal transformations. The advantage of such an approach is that we focus our attention not on the failure of human societies but rather on the successful strategies for mitigating and adapting to rapid climate change. Such strategies will be of critical importance for our own societies in the coming years and decades, and archaeologists are uniquely positioned to make an important contribution to the public discourse surrounding our collective response (Burke et al. 2025). Ultimately, I hope that the findings of my own research will make a small contribution towards this emerging dialogue.