The 4.2 kiloyear event
A megadrought hits three continents, and the first empires fall.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 300 years
- Known to
- ± 100 years
- Era
- Bronze Age, Holocene
Around 2200 BCE a severe and prolonged drought is recorded across West Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and parts of South and East Asia. It coincides with the collapse of the Akkadian Empire, the fall of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, the end of Liangzhu in China and disruption in the Indus. The causal link is argued rather than proven — states fail for many reasons — but the temporal coincidence across so many regions is hard to dismiss. It now defines the start of the Meghalayan Age.