I recently came across this news item on Science AAAS. I have no doubt that it is an interesting and important study of tree rings and the conclusions can help us understand many things in human and environmental history. However, some of the suggestions drawn from the results are rather far fetched, to say the least, and are in fact typical of an ailment common to many natural scientist that turn their attention to the evolution of human societies, an ailment called environmental determinism (it occasionally affects historians and archaeologist as well). This is the general attitude or tendency to seek environmental causes for most important developments in human history. Usually it is supposed to have something to do with climate (understandable given the modern preoccupation with global warming).

Fortunately, not all natural scientists that take an interest in human society suffer from this affliction and the names of D.S Wilson and P. Turchin come readily to mind. Both of them have studied human society in a most sensible manner, not as something that is simply subject to the vagaries of the natural world but rather as something that is actually a part of the natural world and subject to the same general principles. By studying human societies in this way we will actually discover that our societies are not just a normal part of nature but rather an interesting and new development in the evolution of life on earth. And this new development is actually something that profoundly contradicts the basic premise of environmental determinism.

The problem with environmental determinism is that it underestimates human society in two different but connected ways. On the one hand it underestimates the complexity of human society and history and on the other it underestimates the adaptability of human societies.

Human societies are the most complex phenomena known to us. This should warn against adopting simplistic explanations for historical processes that are intrinsically complex. Human societies evolve on their own terms and they do not necessarily react in a simplistic or even predictable way to environmental stimuli. This is not to say that environmental fluctuations do not matter but rather that how societies react to them is not always straight forward.

Furthermore, because of the extreme variety and complexity of human societies there is always a lot of things going on. If we compare some environmental variable (like climate) to what we know of history we can always find something that seems to match. Take for example the 'Little Ice Age'. It is often asserted, in a environmental deterministic fashion, that this cold period that lasted approximately 1600-1900 AD (actual estimates vary) was a primary cause of the 'decline' of Icelandic society (which in turn is highly problematic - but let's not get into that). The period of 'decline' is approximately the same as the Little Ice Age so it all seems to fit. However, a simple correlation does not necessarily indicate a causal link. When we are dealing with a very complex and variable reality, correlations often appear at random and the environmental determinist should consider that the Little Ice Age was not confined to Iceland. It was a cold period all over the world, not least in Europe which, at that time, developed the modern state, industrialization, unprecedented population growth, democracy and modern medicine. Did these things have anything to do with the Little Ice Age. Probably not much and at least not in any predictable, simplistic way.

Another example can be taken directly from the news item mentioned at the beginning where is says: "Around 1300 C.E. [...] a cold snap combined with wetter summers coincides with widespread famines and plague that wiped out nearly half of Europe's population by 1347." Actually the plague only started in 1347 and certainly didn't manage to kill nearly half of Europe's population until several years later. But never mind that. It is suggested that the plague was somehow the result of climate change and this is apparently based on nothing but the rather incidental correlation in time. How are we to assume that the colder and wetter climate caused plague bacteria to travel from Central Asia (where they were endemic) to Europe? Where they just tired of the dry continental climate and longed for some rain?!

This was not the first time the plague bacterium appeared in Europe. The Plague of Justinian that started in Constantinople in 541 AD was probably the same disease (the bubonic plague) and was most likely just as devastating. Just like the 14^th century plague, it reoccurred over a period of about 150 years, severely reducing population and recovery didn't star in earnest until around 700 AD. Was this plague also the result of a colder and wetter climate? The news item doesn't say. I am quite sure that we could find some kind of climatic variation around 541 if we look hard enough but I seriously doubt that it had much to do with the Plague of Justinian.

The second and even more serious problem with environmental determinism is that it underestimates the adaptability of human societies. This adaptability is actually closely linked to the complexity of human societies and it has made them the most adaptable phenomena that we know of and by a very large margin. The basic reason for this adaptability is that the emergence of culture has largely replaced genes as the blueprint for behaviour in our societies. Culture and genes are in many ways similar, they both determine behaviour, however culture evolves at a much faster rate than genes do and, consequently, cultural evolution and cultural adaptation works on an entirely different timescale from genetic evolution. In this, humans are a unique species on this earth. Other animals may have evolved some tiny spores of culture but only humans have turned it into its major survival tool and had it replace genes as the basic adaptive mechanism. This is why humans are not as vulnerable to environmental changes as other animals are. Through their culture, they can actually adapt in real time as the changes are happening, usually without major catastrophes. What constitutes a major catastrophe is of course relative and famines are familiar occurrences in human history but most of them are mere peanuts compared to what other species have to endure.

Not all human societies are equally adaptable and generally speaking they have become more so as they have grown more complex. The most complex societies have actually done away with famines for good. The invention of farming (first about 10-12 thousand years ago) was a major step in increasing human adaptability. With a variety of farming methods to choose from, a slight shift in climate (as have often occurred) was not an insurmountable problem. One could replace wheat with barley, turn some cornfields into hayfields or shift emphasis from cattle to sheep all as the circumstances called for. Therefore, people were usually not just some helpless victims when faced with environmental changes. They could adjust their survival strategy and survive with relative ease.

Of course I do not mean to suggest that human societies are immune to environmental changes. Far from it. But the human-environmental relationship is far more complex and dynamic than environmental determinists imagine. Human societies have occasionally suffered from catastrophic environmental changes and been devastated by them. But most changes are relatively minor and human societies have been able to handle them without much difficulty. They do not one-sidedly determine human history, rather they are stimuli that can often affect societies in subtle and unpredictable ways but only rarely do they directly cause major upheavals.

There are two main theories, both of them with ancient proponents and modern defenders. Some say they came from Asia Minor, others consider them indigenous to their homeland in Etruria.

There is a third possibility that is seldom mentioned. In late prehistory, much of northern Italy was characterized by the Villanovan culture and since there is no discernable break in the archaeological record and the territorial correlation is almost perfect, it seems most reasonable to assume that people speaking early Etruscan were prominent within this culture; an argument often made by the proponents of the indigenous theory.

However, the origins of the Villanovan culture are linked with the Urnfield migrations (ca. 1300-1100 BC, see Axel Kristinsson, 2010, chapter 2) when strong influences from the eastern Alpine region appeared in northern Italy. Most scholars seem to think that the carriers of the Villanovan culture were Italic speaking newcomers from Central Europe and that the Etruscans either came later (from Asia Minor) or were the indigenous population who's language eventually prevailed. Neither solution explains the remarkable correlation between the territories of the Villanovan culture and the Etruscan language and it is far simpler to assume that the Etruscans themselves brought the Villanovan culture to Italy.

Just because the Etruscans didn't speak an Indo-European language doesn't mean that they couldn't have migrated from Central Europe. In fact, the poorly documented Raetian language of the eastern Alps, still surviving in Roman times, may have been closely related to Etruscan and would represent a residual population close to, or in the region where the Etruscans came from.

Distibution of Tyrrhenian languages

Many scholars accept a Tyrrhenian (or Tyrsenian) language family including Etruscan, Raetian and Lemnian. The latter was spoken on the Greek island of Lemnos in the Aegean and was clearly related to Etruscan. Thucydides (IV, 109) mentions other small pockets of Tyrrhenians in the Aegean (in Attica and Acte) and the Greeks also applied this name to the Etruscans although some authorities believe that the term was used indiscriminately for non-Greek speakers.

These Tyrrhenians in the Aegean may be a residue from the great Urnfield migrations (above). This was a time of catastrophic collapse in Greece and Anatolia and of widespread troubles in the Near East. The root cause was probably an expansion cycle coming out of the Carpathian Basin (Axel Kristinsson, 2010). This expansion may have involved several peoples speaking diverse languages and manifested itself in the spread of the Urnfield culture in Central Europe. It probably also brought speakers of Phrygian to Anatolia and Dorians to Greece.

This was also the time of the Sea Peoples who ravaged the eastern Mediterranean. Their origins are mysterious but they included several named ethnicities such as the Teresh who some have suggested were of Tyrrhenian (Tyrsenian) stock.

We can perhaps reconstruct the chain of events something like the following. Prior to the Urnfield expansion, which started around 1300 BC, a Tyrrhenian speaking population lived in the eastern Alpine region and some western parts of the Carpathian Basin. The expansion cycle caused large numbers of them to migrate. Most of the migrants would have gone to Italy where they created the Villanovan culture and introduced the Etruscan language but those that stayed close to home were later known as the Raetians. Some would have taken to the sea in the Adriatic and become part of the Sea Peoples and as such wrecked havoc in Greece and the Levant. The Aegean Tyrrhenians may be a residue from such maritime migrations although it also seems possible that they came overland, through the Balkans, and only took to the see as they entered the Aegean.

If the Tyrrhenians originally came from the Carpathian Basin and the Alpine region they might very well be the descendents of the first farming culture in Central Europe the Linear Pottery culture (and its successors Lengyel, Baden etc.).

The languages of early Italy

Once in Italy, the Tyrrhenians interacted with Italic speakers. A linguistic map of Italy prior to Roman expansions shows the distribution of the two main groups of Italic languages: the Latino-Faliscan and the Osco-Umbrian. It is poorly understood how the Italic languages were brought to Italy from Central Europe but the distribution and the two different branches might suggest that they came in two waves. The first wave may have come to Italy several centuries before the Urnfield expansion and brought with it the dialects that were to form the Latino-Faliscan branch. During the Urnfield expansion, the Etruscans came and settled large parts of northern Italy. Finally, the second wave of Italic speaking migrants descended upon Italy, probably also during the Urnfield migrations. These spoke dialects of the Osco-Umbrian branch and pushed the Etruscans to the west and absorbed most of the earlier Italic speakers. Only those Latino-Faliscan speakers living on the southern border of the Etruscans survived, presumably because here, they were sheltered from the full force of the invasion.

Later on the Venetic speakers entered the extreme northeast of Italy and the Etruscans, in their own expansion cycle (Axel Kristinsson, 2010, pp. 112-114), spread out in the Po valley and elsewhere.

The Neanderthals were certainly stronger and more robust than most of us moderns but this is not necessarily an evolutionary advantage; it also means that they required more sustenance (Kate Wong, "The Mysterious Downfall of the Neanderthals"). Each of them had to eat more than each of us so that a band of Neanderthals living in a similar environment and with a similar survival strategy would either have been smaller or required a larger territory than a band of anatomical moderns. Their population densities were therefore lower. Additionally, they may have eaten more meat (been higher up the food chain) than the Cro-Magnon moderns that replaced them, which has the same effect (although this may be a sign of their lesser adaptability – below).

Their smaller numbers may have been a handicap if they had to confront Cro-Magnons in physical conflict and the number of spear-throwers was more important than their physical strength.

More important, however, is probably the smaller size of their communities, which results in a simpler and less adaptable culture. Humans are fairly unique in the animal world in the fact that their extraordinarily complex culture makes them adaptable far beyond any other animal and a complex and rich culture is normally more adaptable than a simple one.

Just like a large brain with many brain cells has more cognitive power than a small brain, a large community stores more knowledge and can explore more ways to adapt than a small community can. The Tasmanians, after they got isolated from their Australian mainland cousins, considerably simplified their material culture (Richerson & Boyd, p. 138).

Their richer and more adaptable culture would have given the Cro-Magnons an advantage over the Neanderthals with the result that they gradually got the upper hand in competition, especially when the climate became volatile, requiring faster adaptation (cf. Richerson & Boyd, p. 136). This advantage of the anatomically moderns need not have been great to gradually give them the upper hand. After all, it took the Neanderthals some 15,000 years to disappear after the coming of the moderns. It was only around 30,000 years ago, significantly at a time of unstable climate, that they finally vanished.

Anatomical moderns did not outcompete Neanderthals because they were smarter or more adaptable one by one. It was only because their groups were larger and therefore more adaptable (for group selection see D.S. Wilson, Evolution for Everyone, 2007). According to this scenario, the respective cultures of the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals were influenced by their genetically affected phenotypes; nevertheless, it was cultural competition that determined the survival of one and the demise of the other.

Iceland exists in a relatively quiet part of the modern world and doesn't face any imminent military threat (although such things can change rapidly). The same cannot be said about economic threats. The banking collapse of 2008 showed that Iceland does not have any real allies and a small state without allies in a competitive system is in a very precarious position.

From the mid 20th century the Americans operated a military base in the Icelandic town of Keflavik that had significant importance during the Cold War. Despite controversy about the base (I used to march against it in my younger days) it often proved useful for Iceland in international politics (such as the Cod Wars) since the USA could often be persuaded to use its influence in Iceland's interest for fear of loosing the base. After the end of the Cold War the base lost most of its importance and the USA finally abandoned it in 2006. Since then, Iceland has effectively stood alone and without support from dependable allies. The Icelandic authorities either failed or didn't try to remedy this situation with the consequences that when the Icelandic banking system collapsed in 2008, Iceland stood alone and has had to pay a high price for its isolation.

Not only does Iceland now have to deal with its massive home-grown economic problems but also with disputes with neighbours, orders of magnitude stronger politically and economically. These disputes have severely damaged Iceland’s efforts to rebuild its economy since it has found little or no political support (except from the Faroese).

This chain of events has shown that Iceland without allies is doomed. It will always be vulnerable to economic attacks from larger states or even large corporations seeking profit (e.g. by attacking the small Icelandic currency). In the past 2-3 years it has already suffered several such attacks that have damaged its economy.

Economic competition – one might even say economic war – has largely replaced military competition even if Iceland has yet to appreciate this transformation. Many Icelanders still think they are perfectly safe as long as there is no threat of a military intervention. They are wrong. The world has changed and modern threats are more often economic than military but they can be just as dangerous to the survival of small states. If nothing is done to guarantee the economic safety of Iceland it is going to be very vulnerable. It has little capacity to defend against economic attacks from other states or corporations. It neither has the economic nor political clout to stand alone in economic disputes and will normally suffer for it and the consequences will be reduced living standards, political instability and emigration.

So what are Iceland’s choices? Not many. Iceland could apply for membership in Canada or even USA but that would mean the end of autonomy and a merger with political units that Iceland doesn't have much in common with. Iceland could try to negotiate with Norway; that it would defend Iceland economically and even militarily. In this case we could also expect considerable loss of sovereignty and Icelandic foreign policy would have to become subservient to the Norwegian one. Besides, Norway itself is a smallish state with a limited ability to defend itself (although much greater than Iceland's).

Joining the EU seems to be the only choice that is acceptable. Within the European Union, Iceland would acquire the economic and political defences it so sorely needs without its autonomy being significantly compromised. One could even say that such a move would enhance Iceland's autonomy; today it simply has to accept many EU resolutions through its membership in the European Economic Area; with membership in the EU it would at least have a say in the matter. Additionally, Iceland would have the chance to significantly influence EU policy in matters important to it, such as the fishing policy.

The question of Iceland's membership in the EU is often presented as a purely economic one; that it is simply a cold calculation about the economic pros and cons. This is a grave misunderstanding. Politics and economics are so intertwined in the modern competitive system that it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. What Iceland needs now more than anything is effective economic and political defences, which a small state can only acquire through alliances with others. Iceland should be happy that the EU exists at this point in time. Without it, all its choices would be bad ones.

*If you want to learn more about competitive systems then read my book: Expansions: Competition and Conquest in Europe Since the Bronze Age.