How does JA Tainter define collapse?

He defines the terms in the following way: Collapse = A society can be said to collapse when it undergoes a rapid and substantial loss of an established level of socio-political complexity. This, according to Tainter, is always a political process.

What is the systems collapse theory?

General systems collapse theory, pioneered by Joseph Tainter, proposes that societal collapse results from an increase in social complexity beyond a sustainable level, leading people to revert to simpler ways of life.

What was the major cause of the collapse of these civilizations?

From the collapse of ancient Rome to the fall of the Mayan empire, evidence from archaeology suggests that five factors have almost invariably been involved in the loss of civilizations: uncontrollable population movements; new epidemic diseases; failing states leading to increased warfare; collapse of trade routes …

What are the stages of societal collapse?

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross defined the five stages of coming to terms with grief and tragedy as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, and applied it quite successfully to various forms of catastrophic personal loss, such as death of a loved one, sudden end to one’s career, and so forth.

What happens when a complex society collapses?

Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of socioeconomic complexity, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence.

Who survived the Bronze Age collapse?

The Assyrians and the Egyptians were largely unaffected, while others showed resilience and either transformed or redefined themselves. One example is the rise of iron as the new metal of choice.

What caused the decline of Mesopotamia?

Fossil coral records provide new evidence that frequent winter shamals, or dust storms, and a prolonged cold winter season contributed to the collapse of the ancient Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.

What was the first civilization to collapse?

By then, the Akkadian kingdom of Sargon and Naram-Sin — the world’s first empire — was long lost in the dust, apparently also the first empire to collapse as a result of catastrophic climate change.

How long would it take for a civilization to collapse?

about 250 years
Gradual disintegration, not sudden catastrophic collapse, is the way civilizations end.” Greer estimates that it takes, on average, about 250 years for civilizations to decline and fall, and he finds no reason why modern civilization shouldn’t follow this “usual timeline.”

What is Tainter’s theory of collapse?

Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses.

What is Tainter’s theory?

Dr. Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses.

What is Joseph Tainter’s collapse of complex societies?

He also shows Originally published in 1988, Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies remains, nearly thirty years later, one of the definitive works on the collapse of civilisation. It’s often cited in conjunction with Jared Diamond’s more succinctly-titled Collapse.

What is Tainter’s criticism of the collapse of the Roman Empire?

Tainter’s criticism is that a recurrent event, collapse, is here being explained by a random variable. The overthrow of a dominant state by a weaker people is not an explanation. If it does occur, it is a phenomenon which needs in itself to be explained. Tainter also points out that there is remarkably little archaeological evidence.