At https://www.sciencealert.com/thousands-of-years-ago-plague-may-have-helped-the-decline-of-an-ancient-civilization … from mid to late 3rd millennium BC there was widespread collapse of civilizations around the world. In the eastern Mediterranean and Sumero-Babylonia, this was the end of the Early Bronze age. In Britain it marks the end of the Late Neolithic era, with widespread population decline, followed by the arrival of new people from the near continent, who went on to found the British Bronze Age. In the Aegean it is marked by the end of the Minoan Early Bronze, as also in the Levent. Further east it marked first the collapse of the Sumerian dynastic period, and subsequently, that of the Akkadian empire, which coincided with the collapse of Old Kingdom Egypt. As catastrophism from space is ruled out as a fringe or looney theory mainstream tends to blame climate change or warfare, the latter to account for site destructions. Catastrophism with an origin in meteors or comets [little bits of comets], seems unlikely in a uniformitarian world view. However, it was proposed by a group of astronomers in the 1990s and promulgated in the two books by Victor Clube and Bill Napier. They also suggested epidemics could have resulted from
such events. This was taken up by dendrochronologist Mike Baillie in his book, New Light on the Black Death [Tempus:2006]. In recent years scientists have found evidence of plague by looking at skeletons from long ago – going back into the Neolithic era. Plague is well known from the 14th century AD and the 6th century AD, resulting in a sharp fall in population density. It more or less thwarted Justinian’s ambition to recreate the Roman empire [Rome and Constantinople] and therefore had a profound effect on subsequent history. Now, evidence of plague has been found in Crete in skeletons from the late 3rd millennium BC, coinciding with the end of the EB era. It also roughly coincides with the decline and population collapse in Late Neolithic Britain, and it has been suggested it was also responsible for a similar population drop around 3000BC, at what is known as the Piorra Oscillation [also a global event it would seem]. The interesting point made at the link above, which caught my eye, is that the authors say the plague could not have been spread by fleas on rats at this time. They suggest that instead, the transmission route was different, and may have led to pneumonic plague rather than bubonic. That is of course to be established at a later date. The route was in the air, or atmosphere, something like the spread of bird flu. We may note that an exploding meteor, or fragment of a comet, could have put the virus in the air where it then circulated around the globe, as recently suggested by Chandra Wickramasinghe [on a number of occasions]. Wickramasinghe, with Fred Hoyle, came out with the idea of Panspermia many years ago, the origin of life on earth, transmitted by cosmic objects. Wickramasinghe later expanded this idea to not just the building blocks of life but to some viruses, which would have been devastating to humans. Whilst plague was not specifically associated with space it was an idea explored by Baillie. It received no traction in mainstream circles, however. If plague, even in the 14th century AD, was spread via the atmosphere, it may explain why it dispersed so quickly, and was so devastating in the initial outbreak [and less so in later outbreaks as the virus gradually broke down]. One might even wonder if it broke out in the Americas as there was also a massive decline in population in that part of the world as well. When the Spanish arrived in the 15th century the Amazon rainforest was already hiding evidence of human settlement in some parts of the world. Mainstream allege the Native Americans succumbed to European diseases, and no doubt that also played a role – but did that come on top of people already depleted by the plague in the 14th century?
It is worth looking at the mindset of the ancient world. Various gods were destructive, associated with loud noise, mighty winds, and consuming fire. The goddess Sekhmet in Egypt has been likened to Agni, a goddess from India. She was destructive in several ways, but was specifically associated with fire. However, she also had another well known aspect. She was also a goddess of plague. In the Babylonian Erra Epic we have the same thing, a god associated with fire and destruction, also a god of plague. Such outbreaks of plague did not necessarily coincide with catastrophic incidents as in the late reign of Amenhotep III and his son, Akhnaton, avenues of statues of Sekhmet were erected, at Luxor for example, as plague, or some kind of epidemic, ravaged Late Bronze Egypt.