The case studies presented above, although by necessity short on detail, do illustrate some of the key characteristics of collapse. They also outline some of the more popular theories that have been used to explain the fall of early states. As the reader may have noted, the author avoided commenting on the validity of these various collapse models in the discussions of the three case studies. This was purposeful. In truth, each model likely has some legitimacy. The author’s feeling is, however, that they gain their greatest efficacy when they are combined as part of a series of case-specific, multicausal interpretations. After all, collapses were complex phenomenon, and they therefore call for equally complex explanations.
The case studies also reaffirm the fact that we need to be precise in our language when we discuss individual examples of collapse. In particular, what is deemed to have collapsed must be clearly specified in each instance. For example, in returning to the three case studies presented above, it is notable that the Akkadian collapse is primarily related to the breakup of a hegemonic empire, and the return to a landscape of competing city-states. In contrast, the Indus and Maya case studies involve the collapse of multiple city-states over a wide area, and the concomitant disappearance of some previously widely shared cultural characteristics. The latter two collapses therefore differ markedly from the former.
Not surprisingly, the case studies also demonstrate that each collapse sequence has its own unique qualities. Although many of the causal factors may be the same - or at least similar - they will manifest themselves differently, and to varying degrees, based on the specific set of circumstances. To reiterate, ‘collapses’ are historically contingent. Nevertheless, when different collapse sequences are viewed cross-culturally, similarities do become evident. This suggests that it may be possible to formulate a general model for collapse that might be applicable in most cases, if only in a general sense. Three components of such a model, each of which emphasizes a different aspect of collapse, are discussed below.
Declining Marginal Returns and the Collapse of Early States
Some collapse specialists have suggested that as states become more complex, they inevitably develop more expensive economic and administrative structures. This forces them to increasingly turn to more costly productive, tributary, and taxation systems, which puts further strains on the state’s natural and human resources. Eventually, costs can begin to outpace income, and the state enters a period of declining marginal returns. When this occurs, the problem cannot be solved by simply moving to even more costly methods of energy acquisition, because this will only exacerbate the problem of diminishing marginal returns. New technologies and new forms of energy are therefore required to stimulate growth. If these do not emerge, the best option, or only option, is disintegration and the conscious or unconscious breakdown of the system to less complex structures where the cost to marginal return ratio is better. This pattern is noted in many examples of collapse, including the case studies presented herein.
Pyramid Schemes and the Collapse of Early States
Other writers have argued that civilizations are like pyramid sales schemes - they only flourish when they are expanding. This is one reason why most early states appear to have collapsed at the moment of their greatest achievements. It is at this time that states are manipulating their natural and human resources to the greatest degree, and making the greatest expenditures on monumental architecture, prestige goods, ceremonies, and mortuary rituals. If the state apparatus is working at maximum capacity, and no new forms of energy and/or technology emerge, the state will enter a period of diminishing marginal returns, and the system as a whole will become susceptible to the deleterious affects of fluctuations in climate and other natural elements. If droughts, famines, erosion, crop failures, diseases, etc., take hold, the state apparatus will break down, sometimes very quickly, at other times in a more prolonged, drawn-out process. Once again, these elements figure prominently in many of the collapse sequences archaeologists have examined.
The Revenge of the Traditional Power-Brokers and the Collapse of Early States
Once a state has entered a period of diminishing marginal returns, and stopped expanding (i. e., the pyramid scheme model), the rulers are inevitably forced to enter into negotiations with local leaders in order to shore up their crumbling economic and political organizations. The end result of these negotiations is invariably some type of power-sharing. That is, greater powers are dispersed to the local leaders, who now begin to control more of the land, and more of the surplus. They also start to figure more prominently in the state’s decision-making processes. Eventually, because these local leaders employ their economic and political capital quite effectively, they begin to develop greater levels of independence from the state. This, in turn, adds to the miseries of the state, because the king is unable to compete with the revitalized power-bases of the local leaders - the latter being more firmly grounded in long-standing, and hence more ‘traditional’, economic, social, and political relationships.
For many of these local leaders, who themselves are members of the nobility, a collapse is actually quite beneficial, because more natural and human resources now revert to them. In fact, those with the most political acumen may foresee the fall of the state, and the benefits that this will have for them, and they therefore actively work to hasten the demise of the state. As such, the end result of a collapse rarely coincides with the complete depopulation of a region. Rather, collapse involves political truncation, and the devolution of powers to a myriad of more traditional power-brokers who normally outlive the state. In some cases, however, the local leaders only survive for a short time after the demise of the state apparatus. If these traditional power-brokers also meet with troubles, it is likely because the environment is too damaged, and/or the climatic change too extreme, to support even traditional levels of sociopolitical complexity. Once again, the reemergence of local power-brokers on the eve of collapse has been documented in numerous studies, including those discussed herein.
World History
