I have come across a few different ideas as to the cause of the dark ages, ranging from the catholic church, to the fall of the roman empire, to volcanic eruptions. Of all of these theories, the one that seems to work best for me, is the volcanic eruption of Krakatau, believed to have occured around 535 AD. This in turn may have been the catalyst that caused the world to enter the dark ages.

Here is a link to the information on the eruption of Krakatau .

Here is a quote from the author Ken Wohletz from Were the Dark Ages Triggered by Volcano-Related Climate Changes in the 6th Century? , on what the condition of the atmosphere may have been after the eruption.

"Atmospheric Wonderings

Consider the large volume of the (10 – 80 million km3).

The earth’s tropopause surface area is ~5.2x108 km2.

Eruption plume could have produced a cloud layer from 20 to 150 m thick over the entire globe.

With the plume source near the equator, both north and south hemispheres would be affected.

Such a large magnitude volcanic plume has never been considered for CGMs, and its only analog might be the ejecta plume of the K-T impact.

Application of nuclear winter models (soot) for the K-T impact indicate such a burden of particles in the stratosphere would cause collapse of the troposphere.

In addition the large volume of water vapor may produce huge stratospheric ice clouds, leading to destruction of the ozone."

Let's discuss this theory, as well as the others. What caused the dark ages?

I am adding this to clarify that I know the "dark" in dark ages isn't a reference to it being literally dark. I am well aware that the term "dark" refers to the collapse of order.

Uhmanduh Dahlink!
I'm going to have to agree with you. The evidence from the link that you provided has given a great amount of creedence to the theory. It also helps to explain more about the other things that happened around 535 A.D. That's the time when the Nobles were returning from the "Holy Wars" in the middle east. Recorded days of darkness. The plague swept around the world 3 times in about 10 years. There was 7 years of crop failures. Nations changed their religious beliefs. Empires fell. Great drought destroyed land in some places, and in others, great floods caused chaos. Tree rings didn't show normal growth for 15 years. It's all quite interesting. Procopius says of 536 AD, that "The sun ... seems to have lost its wonted light, and appears of a bluish colour. We marvel to see no shadows of our bodies at noon, to feel the mighty vigour of the sun's heat wasted into feebleness, and the phenomena which accompany an eclipse prolonged through almost a whole year. We have had ... a summer without heat ... the crops have been chilled by north winds ... the rain is denied ..."

"The drinking water was so polluted at that time, wine and beer were consumed in large quantities. In fact, lead pipes were used to supply the basement vats to the upper dinning chambers in most great houses of Europe. Wine is acidic and leached the lead out, and into the bodies of the ruling class. They went crazy. "

dude I think your reading a bit too much into the term "dark ages" . It wasnt a period of darkness as such.
Basically the Roman Empire was collapsing, a lot of tribes from eastern Europe were heading west and burning and pillaging and trying to claim land in France and Britain and Italy. They asked what was left of the Empire for protection but as the Romans were hardpressed no legions could be spared to defend the fringes of the Empire.

from the perspective of most people at the time it was simply a time when foriegn buggers came from far away and tried to nick your cattle and rape your daughter. For those who had prospered under Roman rule, and grown used to the free income and the opportunity for intellectual pursuits this brought it was the begining of a period of comparative illiteracy and paganism.

The upper classes of the period and the middleages that followed rekoned theyd lost the light as it were...becouse the civilized world around them had collapsed into barbarians and pesants fighting for farm land.
The term dark ages was coined in the victorian period to describe a period where people hadnt kept much of a written record of anything...the Roman and Medieval periods either side were well documented and recorded becouse they lived in societys that could afford surplus and uneccessary people like historians, scribes etc... during the "dark ages"societys couldnt afford this kind of frivolity and so written records are scarce: hence the term "dark ages"

Nothing mysterious or supernatural at all. Its just one of those myths people seem to be born with, that somewhere in the past was some kind of Golden age. For people in the medival times this was the Roman Empire: for the Victorians it was the time of Arthur(which bizarrely was also the Darkages!) and for most Britons (especially older ones) now it was the high of the British Empire before the 2ww. funny really.

dude I think youve got the wrong Century...the crusades werent for another 500 years! plagues and crop failures are hardly distinctive, they happen every year somewhere! I can quite believe that a volcanic eruption would have seemed to blot out the sun for a while(in fact now you come to mention it I do remember something about it at uni), but thats not why is was the darkages! partly cos they were named hundreds of years before that was common knowledge....

LMAO!! whew....

I'm not implying anything about it being called "dark" because I believe a volcano erupted and contributed to a chaotic breakdown of structure! I most certainly realize that it's called the dark ages for that breakdown within society. I am just interested in other possible causes that may have aided in this. The darkening of the atmosphere caused by such an eruption is definitely not the point of my post, and I in no way implied that it is labeled the dark ages in a literal sense.

I'm with Torchwood.

The "Dark Ages" -- like most of history -- are the result of a combination of factors. Principally, as T. said, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and the political structure it provided the tribes that gave rise to modern nation-states (like the Angles or the Franks), compounded with attacks from more barbarous Eastern tribes like the Huns. Also thrown in there is the ascension of the Roman church over some of the more interesting Christian variants. And it's worth mentioning the Dark Ages only apply to Western Europe -- places like China, Japan, and Arabia had no problems continuing the functions of advanced society.


--Jaylemurph

WOW...DUDE,
It appears to me that you haven't really read what has been said thus far. First of all, we were merely stating that the dark ages started around 535 AD. No one ever said that it was actually dark, but it was recorded that there were days of total darkness. Uhmanduh is simply pointing out some factors other then the theories of the church or the fall of the roman empire in which caused people to pillage, and migrate. There is no actual proof as to what caused the dark ages, all theories are pure specutalion. Uhmanduh is simply asking for input from other's as to what they feel the cause of the dark ages was. But, I would like to know how you would explain (using the theory that the dark ages was caused by the fall of the Roman empire) why the floods and the droughts? Why the crop failures? Why the trees didn't have normal growth for 15 years?

Did anyone even go to my link? Here it is again just in case The Eruption of Krakatau in the 6th Century

And just in case no one wants to actually look at the link, here is another quote from it:

"Modern history has its origins in the tumultuous 6th and 7th centuries. During this period agricultural failures and the emergence of the plague contributed to: (1) the demise of ancient super cities, old Persia, Indonesian civilizations, the Nasca culture of South America, and southern Arabian civilizations; (2) the schism of the Roman Empire with the conception of many nation states and the re-birth of a united China; and (3) the origin and spread of Islam while Arian Christianity disappeared.

In his book, Catastrophe An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World, author David Keys explores history and archaeology to link all of these human upheavals to climate destabilization brought on by a natural catastrophe, with strong evidence from tree-ring and ice-core data that it occurred in 535 AD.

With no supporting evidence for an impact-related event, I worked with Keys to narrow down the possibilities for a volcanic eruption that could affect both hemispheres and bring about several decades of disrupted climate patterns, most notably colder and drier weather in Europe and Asia, where descriptions of months with diminished sun light, persistent cold, and anomalous summer snow falls are recorded in 6th-century written accounts.

Writings from China and Indonesia describe rare atmospheric phenomena that possibly point to a volcano in the Indonesian arc. Although radiocarbon dating of eruptions in that part of the world are spotty, there is strong bathymetric and volcanic evidence that Krakatau might have experienced a huge caldera eruption. Accordingly, I encouraged a scientific expedition to be led by Haraldur Sigurdsson to the area.

The expedition found a thick pyroclastic deposit, bracketed by appropriate radiometric dates, that suggests such a caldera collapse of a “Proto-Krakatau” did occur perhaps in the 6th century. Bathymetry indicates a caldera some 40 to 60 km in diameter that, with collapse below sea level, could have formed the Sunda Straits, separating Java from Sumatra, as suggested by ancient Javanese historical writings. Such a caldera collapse likely involved eruption of several hundred cubic kilometers of pyroclastic debris, several times larger than the 1815 eruption of Tambora.

This hypothetical eruption likely involved magma-seawater interaction, as past eruptions of Krakatau document, but on a tremendous scale. Computer simulations of the eruption indicate that the interaction could have produced a plume from 25 to >50 km high, carrying from 50 to 100 km3 of vaporized seawater into the atmosphere.

Although most of the vapor condenses and falls out from low altitudes, still large quantities are lofted into the stratosphere, forming ice clouds with super fine (<10 mm) hydrovolcanic ash. Discussions with global climate modelers at Los Alamos National Laboratory led me to preliminary calculations that such a plume of ash and ice crystals could form a significant cloud layer over much of the northern and southern hemispheres.

Orders of magnitude larger than previously studied volcanic plumes, its dissipation and impact upon global albedo, the tropopause height, and stratospheric ozone are unknown but certainly within possibilities for climate destabilization lasting years or perhaps several decades.

If this volcanic hypothesis is correct, the global, domino-like effects upon epidemics, agriculture, politics, economics, and religion are far-reaching, elevating the potential role of volcanism as a major climate control, and demonstrating the intimate link between human affairs and nature."
-Wohletz KH, 2000, Were the Dark Ages triggered by volcano-related climate changes in the 6th century? EOS Trans Amer Geophys Union 48(81), F1305

Maybe I did get slightly the wrong impression of what the OP meant.

the "dark ages" were obviously casued by a large number of factors...or rather the collapse of the Roman Empire , and then the "darkages" that followed it.
As I said Id forgotton about the volcano...its amazing how much you forget after leaving full time education! I do agree that it probably didnt help out and contributed to bad harvests/funny trees etc due to lack of sunlight etc. Im not sure how it would have caused floods, though maybe there was also a deteriorating climate anyway. But by that point the collapse of western society was well under way, the Roman Empire collapsing nearly a century earlier. I cant recall what started the migration west, possibly failed crops in the east, and looking it up has drawn a blank.. The Huns headed west, forcing the Vandals, Saxons etc to head west too, and they forced the Franks too head west..but the Gauls and Britons were right up against the Atlantic and head nowhere to run so the Romanised culture that had built up over the previous five centuries was overrun...but why did the huns head west? more research required!

The period between the collapse of Roman rule in Britain and the re-establishment of structured society is referred to as the "dark ages" because the events that took place during that period are entirely unrecorded. To put it simply the 'dark ages' are a blank period of history.

OK,
Then I must say, it's quite coincidental that when the first dark ages happend around 2200 BC, there was a large volcanic eruption that is believed to have caused the disintegration of the Akkadian empire, causing the first dark ages that went from Greece to Egypt, and probably beyond.

The second dark ages happened around 1200 BC, with the disappearance of the Hittite empire of Anatolia, in Greece, and around the same time Egypt went into a strong decline, and babylonia and Assyria were extremely weak. And interesting enough, there is also a large volcanic eruption recorded then.

While I'm sure your input is greatly appreciated, I'm sure you're missing the point of the thread. No one has asked what the dark ages ARE, the question was what are you thoughts on the cause of them.

your right I think that it is coincidental. I don’t think it helped, probably for all three. But consider how many volcanic eruptions there have been in the last 10000 years, even in last 2000, they didn’t all cause entire civilizations to collapse. I suspect If a volcano blows its top everyone runs for cover and the ships etc. But if your already in a period of unrest, strife, war, emigration, collapse of society around you AND the volcano you live next to blows its top then you’ve got the beginnings of an Armageddon/judgement day style myth. Its possibly the straw that broke the camels back, but Ive looked around and wracked my brains and I cant think of any society that’s collapsed just from a volcano.
I can imagine its impact though: your a farmer trying to persuade a bunch of Goths(probably with hoodies and asbos*!) to get out of your hen house with the aid of a pitchfork, some Vandals have already pinched your cows and daughter, and the local cops aint doing owt about it cos they’re on strike having not been paid by the Senate for a decade or so, and then suddenly its raining rocks and fire! You'd have to have one hell of a constitution not to get very depressed about that and go and invade France.

*Note for foreigners, Americans and aliens: An ASBO is this thing the British Authorities hand out to unruly kids, the ones that set fire to cars and rape old grannies etc. Its supposed to stop them from doing it again, but they tend to treat it as a sort of badge you might get in the Sea Scouts for tying knots....

Note to self: must learn to spell....

I think it would depend on the size of the volcanic eruption.

Absolutely my dear. The volcanic eruption in 2200 BC is figured to be the actual cause of the first dark ages.

Archaeological and soil-stratigraphic data define the origin, growth, and collapse of Subir, the third millennium rain-fed agriculture civilization of northern Mesopotamia on the Habur Plains of Syria. At 2200 B. C., a marked increase in aridity and wind circulation, subsequent to a volcanic eruption, induced a considerable degradation of land-use conditions. After four centuries of urban life, this abrupt climatic change evidently caused abandonment of Tell Leilan, regional desertion, and collapse of the Akkadian empire based in southern Mesopotamia. Synchronous collapse in adjacent regions suggests that the impact of the abrupt climatic change was extensive.

Negative.

My understanding of what "Dark Ages" means is that it is referring to a period of history of knowledge digression (i.e., flat earth beliefs).

Cause of knowledge digression is very complicated and involves a wide range of knowledge in the Bible and history and science. Its hard to find persons who have knowledge in all three disciplines.

pyramidial

When modern scholarly study of the Middle Ages arose in the 19th century, the term "Dark Ages" was at first kept, with all its critical overtones. Although it was never the more formal term (universities named their departments "medieval history", not "dark age history"), it was widely used, including in such classics as Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, where it expressed the author's contempt for "priest-ridden", superstitious, dark times. However the early 20th century saw a radical re-evaluation of the Middle Ages, and with it a calling into question of the terminology of darkness. A.T. Hatto, translator of many medieval works for the Penguin Classics series, exemplified this when he spoke ironically of "the lively centuries which we call dark". It became clear that serious scholars would either have to redefine the term or abandon it.

When the term "Dark Ages" is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" to us, due to the paucity of historical records compared with later times. The darkness is ours, not theirs. However, since there is no shortage of information on the High and Late Middle Ages this required a narrowing of the reference to the Early Middle Ages. Late 5th and 6th century Britain for instance, at the height of the Saxon invasions, might well be numbered among "the darkest of the Dark Ages," with the equivalent of a near-total news blackout, in terms of historical records, compared with either the Roman era before or the centuries that followed.

After century and century of stunned and retarded growth, it now finally appears this evolutionary being is maturing out of his past monkey state. [hey, we even landed on the moon, remember?] Where was Stupidtonia in the dark ages?

Ok ive tried to do a bit of fact finding on this, this period and this area havnt really featured in my study of history, Ive always been more interested in the happenings in Britain at this time...Anyway Ive found a bit about the "Dark ages" you refer to around 2200bc, (wiki and google to the rescue! Will have to find a library soon, books win) But not much about volcanos. As far as I can tell the Akkadian empire collapsed due to constant raiding from the Guti people of Mesopatamia, who like the Vandals etc werent very civilized and couldnt keep society rich and working, so in its education and literacy/recording its history and events etc it went backwards as people were left unguided and reverted to what they knew. Pretty much exactly as happened in Britain in the 5th and 6th century as weve already discussed. As I said a Volcano wouldnt have helped at all, but I doubt thats the only, or even main reason for the period of recession.

I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say.

LOL my dear....I didn't Wiki..I used google scholar

You just lifted most of that from wiki didnt you I know ive just been reading it! Thought it looked oddly familiar!

Anyway i was about to say that thats pretty much the first Archaeology lecture we had at uni: defining what the terms(dark ages, medieval, etc) meant, and my lecturer(A passionate sort of chap) went on about the dark ages and how they werent actually dark at some length!

Edit: and in light of your most recent post: HAHAHA! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages

LOL..YES..that one I wiki'd..LMAO...but the other information that I quoted was from google scholar.

Here is some information I found at science frontiers on tree ring data and Ice core samples.

"Now tree-ring data, published by Professor Mike Baillie of Queens University of Belfast, has brought catastrophes almost into modern times. The tree rings show that in the mid 530s -- just about the time civilisation on Earth suffered a sharp setback -- there was a sudden decline in the rate of tree growth which lasted about 15 years. Clearly, something dramatic had happened.
"There are two possibilities: a huge volcanic eruption or a collision between the Earth and a solid object: an asteroid or comet. Ice-cores drilled from Greenland show no evidence of large-scale volcanic activity at that time, so Professor Baillie and others now believe a cosmic impact is more likely. The result would have been to throw up a huge veil of dust and debris, cooling the Earth and producing widespread crop failures."

As you can see from the quotes, there are 2 possibilites, a huge volcanic eruption, or an asteroid or comet hitting the earth.

In the second quote, you can see that they believed a comet impact was more likely, however this was written in 1994 and I don't think that they have found any evidence of a cosmic impact since then. Also, they have found evidence in ice cores and I am attempting to find that right now. This snippet from a program I watched mentions both tree rings and ice cores.

This is from PBS, entitled Catastrophe! . This aired recently. Here is a quote from the transcript:

KEN WOHLETZ
I will start the simulation and show several phases of the eruption.


NARRATOR
Wohletz placed the eruption in the Sunda Straits between Java and Sumatra. By combining tree ring and ice core data with eyewitness accounts of the dimming of the sun it is possible to estimate how much material might have been thrown up into the earth's atmosphere. With that figure it is possible to calculate the scale and power of the explosion and its associated after effects.

NARRATOR
Wohletz's simulation was used to model Krakatoa's 535 AD big bang.


DAVID KEYS
A giant red hot fountain of molten rock and a vast cloud of ash would have towered over the countryside. A second crack let seawater in creating a thirty-mile high fountain of magma. Up to a thousand miles away ash would have rained down on forests and fields.


KEN WOHLETZ
The towering clouds of steam and gas and ash pierced and shot upwards and at times when it seemed it could go no higher it would continue to go high, eventually to the point where it started to block out the sun in all directions and this grey white cloud would then seem to sort of move laterally across the sky like a mushroom cloud.


DAVID KEYS
In a way it would have been a sort of natural equivalent of a nuclear winter.


NARRATOR
The effects would have been global and devastating.

Here is a link to the transcripts if anyone is interested PBS Catastrophe!

Ive just had a look thru some stuff on Google Scholar(cheers for that never knew it existed) It appears theres a bit of disagreement about the causes of the collapse of society: some reckon its enviromental, probably caused by volcanos.( One seems to think that this sort of thinking is a modern fad) but Im drawn to the following scenario: Vocano blows up making life very hard(bad harvests etc); Akkadians dont worry to much as they're in a good strong society thats seen worse times. unfortunatly the neighbours( The Guti or whoever) arent as wealthy, and dont have as strong and as resourceful a society(stockpiles of grain, a goverment to redistribute food etc) and have to resort to desperate measures to survive, like raiding the akkadians, who gradually get worn down by this dual assault and get taken over by the Guti. Sound about right?

Yes Torchwood. I'm just saying that it would have caused life to be difficult, which usually leads to strife between people.

yes my dear LOL....that's wonderful compromise, and mattshark told me about google scholar LOL. SO, my question then is, could the same sort of domino effect have caused the second and third dark ages?

to clearly ascertain the causes of the 'dark ages' it is absolutely necessary for the argument to define what a 'dark age' is. so cut the boy some slack. he is mostly correct in what he says, as im sure you know. the movements of peoples west began well before the erruption, and if you hold to Gibson's theory about the 'collapse' of the empire and the ensuing dark age then we can see that it was well underway by the date proposed, so cannot be considered a cause. No doubt the event (volcanic erruption)happened, the evidence for it is irrefutable, and it must have affected society deeply.
modern thought on the dark ages does question Gibson's theories however, and the validity of calling the dark ages dark at all. much literature stems from this time, albeit written by clergymen. engineering didnt take much of a backward step, in-fact it moved forward with the use of new ideas and application of materials in new forms. the writing of philosophy continued (within the new christian paradigm) so if you were to ask urban man from europe he might believe that he was living in rather enlightened times. I do not contest that book burnings, excommunications and other censorship excluded a wealth of philosophy and other writings as 'heretical'. but that amounts to State control. Consider Boethius' Consolidation of Philosophy, quite progressive text really.
so in short, an adequate definition of what is meant by 'dark ages' is entirely relevent to the thread, and necessary in consideration of the evidence provided (namely the volcanic eruption).

please be kind im only trying to help.

-and a bit slow at typing it seems....the argument moves on....i didnt use any online stuff, just my own work.

Sounds like a person with a theory in pursuit of justification. The period(s) historically recognised as dark ages had little or nothing to do with volcanic eruption. Large volanoes may have had catastrophic effects on local civilisations such as the minoan/cretan occurence( often attributed to the legend of Atlantis.) Really huge volcanic events did have minor and temporary effects on a wider scale. For example some years of famine in Europe during the 'Middle ages" have been attributed to a slightly cooler climate for a few years. Some people believe this may have been caused by a massive volcanic eruption, although no one has been able to find any evidence of such an event in that period. This does not mean it did not happen , just that it was in an uninhabited part of the world. However there are other possible reasons for the climate changes. In more modern times England experienced a winter so cold that people walked across the river Thames in London.
The "dark ages" is almost always a period of time in which living conditions decline. This is actually an unusual occurence, historically, where steady, if sometimes slow, advancement is the norm. Many different things can cause such a decline. After centuries of ruling the Mediterranean and having one of the most advanced and rich lifestyles in the world Venice went into a period of decline because European explorers had opened up a sea route to asia, removing the Venetian's monopoly on trade. At the same time the Turkish empire based on Byzantium/constantinople enjoyed a resurgence of wealth and living conditions, displacing the venetians as the primary sea power in the Med. As a history teacher it does not surprise me how little people know about so many elements of the human past. Without knowledge they are not able to make informed and rational decisions about many historical events. The withdrawal of roman rule with its huge scientific/technological and social/ legal advancements caused the classic dark age in huge parts of Europe. Beautiful villas with hot and cold running water and central heating were abandoned or destroyed for building material, because people thought they were inhabited by Evil spirits, and after a few generations did not even know who had built them, let alone how to maintain or rebuild them. However this withdrawal, and the dark ages began much earlier in parts of the empire, than the date given for the volcanic eruption. The eventual fall of the empire was caused by a complex mix of social, economic and other forces; as are all great historical changes. Ps Torchwood I like your "tag"

What caused the Dark Ages?
Answer: Human Ignorance.

hi mr walker, im afraid youre going to mark my work or want to see me after class...i agree with most of what you say here, some points i feel are not so clear cut. Most of history, at least the classical history we consider enlightened, was written by social elites, and so were the grand villas that were abandoned after the recall to rome. Also current theories about post roman britain entertain the thought that agriculture, trade, and society includin living conditions, in general in britain flourished unfetered by the confines of the centralised roman system until war dragged the society into a state of flux. its too late for me to be bothered with exact refs but i could provide them tomorrow if u like. the withdrawl of roman rule did not necessarily mean that technology went backwards, only that it was channeled into different areas than previously valued. Thinking primarily of the arch and the basilica-church evolution, but there are others. Many of the urban civil amenities were maintained, and many towns were not abandoned, even though the grand country estates were- eventually. infact many towns grew, as did their satilite settlements. Social roles changed. recent evidence from towns on the east coast of england (again will provide refs if necessary) indicate that the Saxon (using it as an umbrella term for all invader groups) invasion had a less devistating affect on urbanism than previously thought- some towns grew with saxon settlements incorporating earlier structures rather than destroying them and building over them. this didnt happen in an uniform manner, some conflict is evident. and that the wars happened is not under contention, but the extent of them is. we still dont know how much the situation was a changing of elites and structure at the top of society....the rest of us just moved along with the times, as we always have to. Farmers even benifited from the new techniqes introduced.
this is only one point of view i realise, more evidence, thankfully, is forthcomming about this period as interest grows. Im not neglecting the negative impact that war, famine, disease and periods of hardship have on society in all of this. as you say things are often less clear cut than statements which give generalised pictures lead us to believe.

Uhmanduh, as per my PM, I apologise if you took my comments personally. I guess i was disagreeing with your hypothesis, and i continue to do so, because i think that is fair comment. However, my comments about people's lack of knowledge about history, were not meant to be a reflection on you, or even on young people in general. It is not their fault that the education system devalues history and refuses to recognise the critical relevance of historical knowledge to current problems, among many other things. As I said in the PM , at least you are making an effort to research, and think about things, most people can't be bothered about. Your opinion on the issue is just as relevant and valuable as mine, even if I think it is wrong. And, lil gremlin, you also sound as if you know what you are talking about. Because there were few published records at the time it is hard to tell, but it does seem that britons, for example, suffered a rapid decline in lifestyle. This is logical. Towns and cities are good places to live if you have a food surplus, good sanitation and reasonable medical knowledge. Without these "Roman" advancements they could have become very unhealthy. Likewise, without a centralised authority and standing army, people would become tribalised and for example travel from place to place would have become difficult and dangerous. Take lebanon as a modern example. This is a logical deduction but may not be entirely true. However, it is clear that roman roads and buildings were not maintained for long at all after the romans left. THe road system may not have served a functional purpose without widespread travel and the need to move military forces, including heavy equipment quickly over long distances. Whether this was a rejection of their culture, an inability to maintain them with the technology and resources available, or the fact that they were not suited to the more village and tribal lifestyles of local people and the saxon invaders, may never be known. Modern theories and archaelogy may well support a greater integration of local britons with roman remnants and I would be interested to hear the historical/social evidence which would have allowed this to happen, given the differences in their technology and social systems. None the less as I pointed out, the dark ages has always been applied to the period of roman withdrawal Largely because "english" people wrote most of our history text books. There remains little, if any, evidence that volcanic eruptions had more than very marginal effect on societies , and then only on those already "in extremis." For example, the extinction of vIking setlements in green land may have been hastened by climate change but archaeological evidence shows they were already in critically poor shape.
lil gremlin, perhaps I should refrain from commenting on my background
(although in some subject areas on this site it helps people to take you seriously if they know your age and background Any way, I would give you a good mark for language skills, articulation and exposition of your argument. Iam not sure about your reference to the arch roman use eg aquduct and basilica. Do you mean the use of the arch was transferred to church buildings. There seems a huge time differential between roman arches and medieval churches although the arch was used on a small scale in buildings during this time. I think that 500-1000 years later the europeans had reinvented many of these skills and more importantly had the technology base, for the first time since the romans, to support the construction of large scale buildings. Nonetheless roman military, medical, and architectural inventions like the hypocaust were still not re- achieved for possibly another 500 years, at least in Europe. Possibly only the "discovery" of gunpowder brought European military technology to rival that of the romans.

G E R M A N S were indisputably the cause of the dark ages, and yes, they were indeed dark. The Roman world was incredibly like our own, libraries, theater, organized sporting events, schools, hospitals, etc.

But like America today the rich got out of paying taxes, and the middle class was destroyed because they paid all the taxes until they were bankrupt. And with the exticntion of the middle class, and its taxes, the armies collapsed for they could not be paid, and a destructive plague of germanic barbarians very nearly destroyed western civilization. At least 9/10s of the world's published books were destroyed.

It is hard to imagine how advanced the world would be today if the Romans had annihlated all of the Germans when they had the ablity, and thus, prevented the dark ages.

I recall an excavated library in Italy in a Roman city destroyed by the German barbarians. The beautiful mosaic floor had a trench cut across it, so the pig feces could flow out of the sty, for that is what this magnificent building had become under the "new management" - the book long since converted to toilete paper by those who had not other use for them.

Mr Walker,

Yes, I will agree with you when you say that there's no definitive evidence that there was a volcanic eruption in 535 AD, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence to support the theory. Below is a small excerpt from an article written by Ken Wohletz, and the article is on google scholar.

Modern history has its origins in the tumultuous 6th and 7th centuries. During this period agricultural failures and the emergence of the plague contributed to: (1) the demise of ancient super cities, old Persia, Indonesian civilizations, the Nasca culture of South America, and southern Arabian civilizations; (2) the schism of the Roman Empire with the conception of many nation states and the re-birth of a united China; and (3) the origin and spread of Islam while Arian Christianity disappeared. In his book, Catastrophe An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World, author David Keys explores history and archaeology to link all of these human upheavals to climate destabilization brought on by a natural catastrophe, with strong evidence from tree-ring and ice-core data that it occurred in 535 AD. With no supporting evidence for an impact-related event, I worked with Keys to narrow down the possibilities for a volcanic eruption that could affect both hemispheres and bring about several decades of disrupted climate patterns, most notably colder and drier weather in Europe and Asia, where descriptions of months with diminished sun light, persistent cold, and anomalous summer snow falls are recorded in 6th-century written accounts. Writings from China and Indonesia describe rare atmospheric phenomena that possibly point to a volcano in the Indonesian arc.


Google Scholar also has an extreme amount of evidence supporting that the first 2 dark ages also coinside with massive volcanic eruptions. I'm sure you're aware of this already, because we posted conversations about this earlier in this thread.

I suspect there is no simple explanation for the dark ages.

If there were it would probably be a concept or idea shared by most of
the population. It was probably much more population catching and ex-
ceeding the ability of technology to feed them. With lesser wealth there
were fewer artisans and cultural occupations.

It required new inventions in farming and the widespread availability of
new technology to again create the needed wealth. It should be remem-
bered that many things we take for granted were scarce in the distant
past. Even iron which lifted us out of the bronze age was of little practical
use unless formed into steel. This process was very labor intensive until
the 1850's with the invention of the bessemer furnace. Iron is brittle and
not suited to many tasks. Look at populations; there was relatively little
gain during these centuries. This implies that the species was under some
stress.


A modern steel mill contains far more steel than was produced worldwide
during the dark ages. In other words, all the steel in the world wouldn't
have been enough to make a steel mill.

Religion

edit: pardon me^

Germans? the Germans were great fans of the Roman world. Initially the German tribes wanted to live within the empire, serving the empire. They didnt want Rome to collapse. What happen is the product of desperate people fighting and running for theyr lives (Goths, Burgundians ect) , incompetent emperators (Valens, murder of Stilicho and Aetius ect ect), religious fanatism (christianity, murder of Hypathia destruction of books ect ect) perhaps natural disasters (volcanoes or meteorites....).

The Goths when the established their kingdom in Italy, they actually did what they could to preserve the Roman culture, infrastructure they even rebuilded roman monuments....

Germans? Really... just Germans? Sounds a bit Fawlty Towers to me, mate.

The Huns weren't German were they? Came from Eastern Europe or the Steppes, as I seem to recall.
I mean, I agree with virtually everything you say Drac (and very evocative, too, this library. I must remember it!), but as I said above and must repeat, it wasn't just one thing that lead to the Dark Ages. It was the confluence of several events, and it certainly sounds like volcanic activity was a part of it. Cheers to this thread for being the most interesting in ages!

--Jaylemurph

I was thinking over some more aspects of this last night after I logged off and went to bed. Now its clear from what Ive read that something did happen around the time of the 1st dark age in 2200 and the 3rd(?) in 535, something that changed the climate(these were the only two events I read in any detail). A volcano is likley IMO though it may have been a meteor: though if the deccan traps/chicxulub crater(dinosaur extinction) are anything to go by it could have been both. Anyway for both it seems there was a sudden decreace in temperature for a few years and along with that you get bad weather and bad harvests. Now with the 5thcentury events the dark ages had already begun: Britain had already come under invasion, so had Gaul, Rome was under attack and the only piece of civilization remaining was under a chair in Constantinople! (where people, funnily, reckoned the "Dark ages" was their Golden age! Aint history daft at times?) But Im not so sure the Akkadian Empire had begun to collapse before the eruption C2200bc.
Sombody else in this thread has pointed out that how much a civilization is impacted by a Volcano depends on the size of the Eruption: this sounds about right to me so if we compare the evidence for 2200bc and 535ad it looks like the effects were a lot wider spread and more severe, 2200bc seemingly resulting in a worldwide temperature drop, whereas in 535ad it was limited to northern Europe and America.
So my hyothesis: I would say that in 2200BC the volcanic eruption/meteor was enough to start a sequence of events that caused the collapse of a major empire (the 1st Empire no less). It couldnt do this by itself, but it set a series of other events in motion, like failed crops, low temps, caused a large number of people to have to move around to try and find food and work, probably caused strife as people fought for what they could get whether it was a sice of the richness the people of the empire had once known or just raiding for food and supplies. When you've got more important things to like fight for survival unimportant stuff like reading and writing can take a back burner for a couple of centuries: sombody somewhere will remember how its done and when youve got some fre time and resources to spare you can send the kids to recieve an eductaion but for now they can learn to fight and grow crops in bad soil!
As Ive pointed out it can have worked like this for the 3rd darkages C535ad, theywere already in progress. Attila the Huns desire to rule the world and steal everyones cows was pushing everyone around, very much a domino effect: he invaded the land of the saxons, jutes, franks and goths etc, they all decided not to hand around and head west were the weather was nicer and you didnt get thousands of horsemen on very small horses joyriding around your village and leaving beer cans in the municipal flower beds. now suddenly were in a situation where people aren't able to work the land properly becouse theyve been dragged off to fight some heathens theyve never heard of, or evryones moved out and left the crops to fertalise themselves. Several years of this kind of upheaval is going to be a test of the resourcefulness even of mighty Rome, to whom most people in the west looked for protection. You can imagine the frustration of the rulers in Rome when theres messages requesting help coming in from all over the Empire, half the legions are cut off, the other half destroyed and deserted, the ctiys granaries are nearly empty cos every man and his dog has abandoned the fields looking for saftey amongst the ruling elite, and theres a hoard of barbarians banging on the gates demanding a drink. Then a volcano errupts, and suddenly the demand on suuplies goes through the roof as all the crops fail, it gets harder for a few years so those few people who are lef tin central europe either head west looking for farmland thats still workable and might yeild a harvest next year, or east to the relative saftey of the Eastern Roman Empire. In this second case it seems like the cliamte chages just exacerbated an already troublesome period.


I would propose that it takes a lot to cause your average empire to collapse into anarchy: Most civilizations at some time go through a period of social upheaval but they tend to survive, a few plebs might get crushed by the cavalry charges but hey, theyre only peseants! plenty more where they came from! And most civilizations will be hit by a catastrophic event that changes the very climate itself. But again it will survive if its smart, a few farmers might get washed away by the storm, a few crops might fail, but the nation can adapt. A recent event should be added as an example: When hurricane Katrina hit the USA seemed to struggle to get itself back on its feet, thousands suffered and their homes and work places were destroyed. but the USA survived, and is rebuilding. Now imagine what could have happened if this was 1930 and it was the hight of the great depression! Or when the Tsunami hit the coast of SE Asia a few years ago, most countries came through ok eventually, the whole world rallied around to help, but what if one had been fighting a civil war? I dont think either social upheaval or climate change can be soley responsible for the collapse of an empire and the begining of a period of relative darkness, but both together can change the world.

Read your history guy. The Romans DID defeat the Huns though it was costly, and further weakened them to the point of being unable to resist the coupe de grace leveled by the Germans.

If Rome, and the rest of the major cities of western civilization HAD been destroyed by volcanoes, as truly as what happened to Thera, and the destruction of the Cretan civilization,in an earlier Europen "dark age", I would say yes, this theory has some merit. But in truth, none of these places were destroyed by volcanoes, it is a historical fact they were destroyed by German Barbarians.

Maybe the Germans liked Roman culture, but the fact they left it in ruins and burnt rather than read the books suggest otherwise. It is more likely that they simply prefered building their pig stys in the shade of a library, theater, or temple they wantonly destroyed, rather than in cold, foggy Germany. I know, I have lived there. Italy has a nicer climate. Millions of Germans still "invade" Italy every year, becasue of that nicer climate, only now they are more civilized and destroy surprisingly very little, save for WWII, when wanton German destructivness again raised its ugly head, and destroyed many cultural treasures for absolutely no other reason than "it's a German thing".

No Fawlty Towers, just historical facts.

Obviously, a geological event that caused crop failure would have a huge impact on agrarian civilizations. The thing that seems wrong to me about saying that Krakatau "caused" the dark ages is that the dark ages had already been happening for more than 100 years before the eruption.

For example, there was another important weather event in 408 AD when a very cold winter caused the Danube to freeze over. The Romans had been using the river as a strategic military boundry and when it iced over the Visigoths could walk across it en mass and lay siege to Rome.

The fact that Rome could be sacked implies that something had been drastically wrong back in the third and fourth centuries. I've read that one of Constantine's main motivations for assembling the First Council of Nicea in 325 AD was that he could already see that the empire was falling apart, and he hoped that a standardized Christian doctrine would work as a unifying force. Clovis Meroving was born around 470, sixty-something years before the eruption, and he was definitely a dark age figure. He died well before the eruption in 511. The historical figures who appear in the Arthurian tradition (Vertigorn, Ambrosius, etc.) supposedly lived around the same time as Clovis.

It seems like the explosion of Krakatau would have intensified an already chaotic situation by introducing an extra famine element, thus motivating even more "land grabbing".

Sometimes I wonder if the average people living in (for example) England experienced the fall of the Roman Empire as a big change. How Romanized were the non-Romans who lived in 200 AD? When people write about how advanced England was under the Romans, it seems like they're referring to the occupying forces rather than the indigenous population.

If a modern country sent troops to a remote "third world" area it would be misleading to say that the literacy rate in that area plummeted when our troops withdrew. Because the "before" statistic would include the literacy of the troops themselves and the "after" statistic would count people who'd been illiterate all along. From the point of view of the indigenous population, the only change would be not having to deal with an occupation any more.

I think most of your first post, Siara,you are reitterating points i think evryone at least partly agrees on so far, though as i expressed in my last post each dark age had slighty different causes, whats true once in history isnt always the case next time around.

I dunno, I studied history , and now live, in Chester so Romans are a large part of it! But from what Ive read Im under the impression that the brits werent far behind the Romans anyway (traders had brought large parts of their culture over anyway), and the Romans were pretty much invited in, in order to spend their money and bring all the wonderful modern conveniences. With in a few hundred years all but the most remote and rural of Britons would have considered themselves as Roman as the next man: they spoke the same langauge, worshipped the same(but constantly changing) pantheon of Gods, had similar houses and fashions and styles etc. Some of them even tried to claim the Imperial throne! Certainly anyone living in a town would have considered themselves Roman. The Romans didnt to much extent move in and drop their own infrastructure on top of the brits who were then just surely peasants being told what to do by a bunch of sandle wearing foriegners: They did improve the existing infrastructure, most of the orginal rulers were allowed to retain their offices(albeit in the name of the Roman empire) but were now backed up by official buildings, armies of scribes, a unifying language and written record keeping etc.
They werent occupied in the same way the Allies occupied Germany after WW2, just better run I suppose!

Certainly they would have noticed when the romans left! Im not convinced that instantly the roads and buildings would have instantly fallen into disrepair when the romans left: The legions might have marched away and taken a lot romans with them, but everyone thought theyd be back, and it wasnt the legions that had created the houses roads and bridges etc: they might have been Roman architecture but they were built by British hands! The main reason why they did fall into disrepair is becouse the Romans called a lot of auxillary troops off the land to defend Rome, and the Britons had to call a lot of their remaining man power up when they were told to organise their own defense against the saxon invasions. As the Britons were pushed west into cumbria, wales and cornwall(areas the Roman influence doesnt seem to have penetrated as much) their romanesque towns and cities were overrun by the saxons, who don't seem to have liked the idea of towns and built their own settlements away from them: thus with the towns empty and the saxons lacking the skills the Brits ahd already picked up from the Romans the roads and bridges and structures would have been used but nobody there who could repair them!
Thats a prety big change for the Brits and it was probably the same for the Gauls as well.

Collapse of the Roman Empire due to the over stretching or resources, to simply put it they expanded to fast.
This is why most empires over history have collapsed besides massive wars, social problems, disease, drought, over consumption of natural resources etc. All of these variables contributed to the collapse of the Roman Empire, this is what resulted in the Dark Ages.

Irregardless of the many theories the Romans kept historical records that documented it's collapse.

were there even really dark ages or anthing at all what we think we know now. its a trip to time travel.

luve always
muddpuppy

We don't think we know, we do know that the dark ages happened it's historically documented.

I stand corrected.
To be fair, this part of history isn't my forte. And I should have known better than to open my mouth.

--Jaylemurph

Is that even english??? Who knows.

Props out to dragon chronicler - on point as always. Big up.

Really, my penitence ought to be to buy his book!

--Jaylemurph

the Dark Ages were the lack of historical writings. The general move away from science and towards religious fever and backwards thinking. Hopefully we are smarter and less gullable of this power hungry bunch .

Kinda in a way we are now under bush. the religious right wants control and to supress science or deem it wrong if it doesn't fall into line with doctrine.