so, caught an article on NPR where they were interviewing an archeologist who specialized in the Sea Peoples (and the bronze age collapse). In any case, there were some points he made that stuck with me. The most pointed being that, the collapse during the bronze age (for those that lived in it,) wouldn't have known it was happening.

It was slow, happened across generations. while the climate change and other factors was inexorably moving to collapse... the changes weren't fast enough for people to notice, it was just the way things were their entire life.

The sea people were climate migrants. Actually, we don’t know that much about them except to say Mesopotamia really hated them.

They may have invaded Egyptian time or two, but they really don’t known where they came from.

But it’s almost certain that the massive trade network that was highly specialized and crisscrossed the known world collapsed causing everyone to get isolated.

Tin, for example only came from one place and the mines just stopped producing.