This range of dates also matches the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in the British Isles and a period of widespread societal collapse in the Near East.
[1][2] In 1997, Marie-Agnès Courty proposed that a natural disaster involving wildfires, floods, and an air blast of over 100 megatons occurred about 2350 BCE.
This proposal is based on unusual "dust" deposits which have been reported from archaeological sites in Mesopotamia that are a few hundred kilometres from each other.
[4][5] Based only upon the analysis of satellite imagery, Umm al Binni lake in southern Iraq has been suggested as a possible extraterrestrial impact crater and possible cause of this natural disaster.
[6][7] More recent sources have argued for a formation of the lake through the subsidence of the underlying basement fault blocks.