Dr. Lloyd Weeks

And at this time, Shimmel's burial record tails off dramatically, but all of a sudden its settlement record takes off.

So we've got really good evidence for quite a substantial scale settlement at the site during the late Bronze Age.

And it's one of the few sites in the region which can tell us the story of how people were adapting to changing environments and intercultural interactions at this time period.

I would totally agree with Stefan on that one.

It really is sort of a mosaic.

And one thing, if we could take anything out of this discussion about collapse, is that there's no one uniform collapse which exists across this region.

It just doesn't work that way.

Although there is climate change at certain times, which may have affected societies in different ways.

They reacted, they showed resilience, they adapted in different ways.

And so at a period which is regarded as one of decline in Southeastern Arabia, where our number of known settlements shrinks, the size of the settlement shrinks, the evidence for international contacts is nevertheless maintained.

In other areas like Dilmun, populations seem to be growing and thriving at this period of so-called collapse.

If we look across the Gulf into Iran, again, it's a picture of difference.

In southeastern Iran, which was the home of a very large and complex civilization, which might map onto what the Mesopotamians knew as Maharshi in the third millennium, the evidence for settlement in that region after 2000 BC really almost disappears entirely.

It's just a few sites that are left.

And by 1500 BC, we know almost nothing.

But if we look further north, in Fars province or in Khuzestan, we see thriving societies in this period.

So there's no one picture of collapse.

Absolutely.

We can see these Iranian societies as tightly integrated into the broader exchange systems of what we might call the greater Gulf region.

They're connected with Southeastern Arabia.