Roll the Bones

While digging tunnels in London, workers came across 25 skeletons from the time of the Black Death. I wouldn't say that I'm a 'Doomsday Prepper' type by any means. I don't hoard food, I haven't turned my home into a defacto fortress. That isn't to say that I haven't educated myself for various disaster scenarios. (Bear with me, this will come full circle by the end, you know me). One nugget I found in this article was the mention of the varying conditions of bones in the different layers of burial. The earliest bones showed signs of malnutrition, attributed to the "Great Famine" that preceded the first round of the Black Death (which eventually claimed 75 million lives in Europe). Earlier today I had read an article about a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia in the 12th Century. It's credited with being the cause of a Little Ice Age at the time, as well as being one of the precipitating factors of the dark ages, and the 'Great Famine'. Disease, climate change affecting global economic stability, all created a 'perfect storm' of cirucmstances bringing about the collapse of civillization at the time. Bones found from a later period, after the famine, when the plague had been in full swing testified to this: "The later skeletons, however, show more signs of upper-body injuries, consistent with a period of lawlessness and social breakdown." A study conducted by NASA last week addressed perfect storms such as this, stating that the utter collapse of civilization is likely in our lifetime. It said "The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent." You can read the entire article here. We tend to be quite arrogant about our level of civilization, considering ourselves considerably more evolved than our ancestors 700 years ago. I realized just how untrue this was watching the news this week. One needs look no further than side by side pics of modern riot police and Roman centurions to see just how alike we are. RIOT POLICE IN KIEV 2013

A TYPICAL ROMAN CENTURION FORMATION

Now for the full circle. While some might view this article about some old skeletons uncovered in an excavation as scholarly and thought provoking, I find it to be more of a warning. The NASA article mentions nearly half a dozen advanced and sophisticated civillizations that collapsed under a perfect storm of circumstances. It points out that it is a "recurrent cycle", and just such a perfect storm is brewing now. These tunnel laborers uncovering the bones of their 13th century brethren's short brutal live, may just find themselves the next layer in the dirt.