This description is from Wikipedia:

The Bronze Age collapse is a transition in the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean

 from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. Some historians believe that it was

violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economies of the Aegean and

Anatolia by the isolated village cultures of the Ancient Dark Age.

Between 1206 and 1150 BCE, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms,

the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the Egyptian Empire in Syria and Canaan

interrupted trade routes and extinguished literacy. In the first phase of this period,

almost every city between Troy and Gaza were violently destroyed,

and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, Ugarit. 

[Underlines are mine.]

This Bronze Age collapse was particularly fascinating in the light of present-day

apocalyptic scenarios.  The end of the Bronze Age was akin to a breakdown of

the known world of the time – but how might we think about it (narrate it) and

how did it really happen? 

I started wondering if “interrupted trade routes and extinguished literacy” might not

be the cause of this chaos - not the result.

Tin was a key resource of the Bronze Age economy.  With armies across the

Mediterranean clad in bronze armor and using bronze weapons, tin was in high

demand (see Tin Notes below). 

If tin had suddenly become very scarce, might that have influenced the balance

of Bronze Age power? 

Could the lack of a simple thing like tin have contributed to the collapse? 

In any case, as the world began to run out of tin in 1200 B.C., the clock was ticking....