Guy Middleton (University of Newcastle upon Tyne): Understanding collapse in archaeology – theories and explanations

Český egyptologický ústav FF UK srdečně zve na přednášku archeologa z University of Newcastle upon Tyne Guye Middletona.

In this second lecture, the aim is to take a critical look at how archaeologists and others have defined collapse, described it, and have sought to explain it. Taking a long perspective across the twentieth century up to the present day, we shall encounter the ideas of many scholars, from Spengler and Toynbee to Tainter and Yoffee and Cowgill’s books of 1988 – the ‘annus mirabilis’ for collapse studies – and from the rise of the environmental narratives, to Jared Diamond’s bestselling Collapse and the reactions to it, and finally into 2017, in which at least five new books on collapse, all quite different in aims and scope, are being published. ‘Collapsology’ is emphasized as an increasingly developed sub-field of archaeology and history, with a vast literature, and as valid a focus as archaeological work on colonialism, gender, imperialism, state formation, or other areas.