Eco-ruin 'felled early society' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

One of Western Europe's earliest known urban societies may have sown the seeds of its own downfall, a study suggests.

Mystery surrounded the fall of the Bronze Age Argaric people in south-east Spain - Europe's driest area.

Data suggests the early civilisation exhausted precious natural resources, helping bring about its own ruin.

The study provides early evidence for cultural collapse caused - at least in part - by humans meddling with the environment, say researchers.
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The findings were based on pollen preserved in a peat deposit located in the mountains of eastern Andalucia, Spain.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7093685.stm

[Squeech]

1. Easter Island

There used to be trees, which the inhabitants would make dugout canoes out of. They got too greedy and chopped down the trees faster than they grew back. When they could no longer make the canoes, their economy utterly failed and they starved.

But they left behind those magnificent heads. Go figure.

Anyway, there's no failsafe for ecologies. We learn to live within our environmental means or we die.

[gulfcoastliberal]

2. Gee, wonder how our resources are holding up?

Glad I do not have offspring.

[losthills]

3. The Anasazi...

The Maya...

Toward the end, you can look forward to a resurgence of canabalism.....