Relational Dynamics and Differentiated Outcomes in the Late Bronze Age Transition
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The Late Bronze Age transition involved differentiated changes to political authority, production, communities, and relationships rather than a single synchronized collapse. This study tests whether the Concentric Resilience Mechanism and Hexagonal Governance Architecture (CRM–HGA) can reconstruct how interacting actors generated relational value, how changing conditions altered their capabilities and obligations, and why different functions persisted, transformed, or ended. Evidence includes Hatti–Ugarit grain and protective relationships, Ahhiyawa–Hatti and Babylonian diplomacy, the Uluburun cargo, central Anatolian climate records, Egypt’s Deir el-Medina ration dispute, Middle Assyrian institutional change, and selected Aegean and Iron Age continuities. An evidence-controlled source-to-edge audit distinguishes observation (O), supported reconstruction (R), candidate mechanism (H), and unresolved relationship (U). Its relational-temporal method separates physical conditions affecting an actor’s capacity from decisions and obligations transmitting consequences to others, preserving the distinct dates and uncertainties of each record. Uluburun illustrates earlier distributed capabilities for procuring, processing, assembling, and transporting materials; the Ugaritic record documents cumulative pressures affecting specified political, protective, and productive functions. The Failure-Boundary Model and Convergence-Risk Map distinguish function-specific Strain and Degradation from terminal outcomes and consider countervailing adaptation. Later archaeological and demographic evidence constrains interpretations of continuity, transformation, and discontinuity without requiring restoration of the previous political order. The application supports a bounded relational interpretation, not a unique cause of collapse, numerical ancient thresholds, a measured region-wide loss of cargo capacity, or independently established superiority over existing historical methods. It identifies reproducible questions for subsequent historical and contemporary-domain studies.
Author: Franklin, Anthony
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology (arts and humanities)
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225820192