Of all the civilisation collapses in history, the Mayan is probably the most famous.

But there's also the Roman empire, the Wari in South America, the Qin of China and the pre-Columbian Inca.

In fact, these civilisations are "essentially innumerable", says Luke Kemp, existential risk researcher at the University of Cambridge.

And modern civilisation, despite its technological sophistication, isn't immune to becoming one of them.

Dr Kemp says there are significant common traits between modern civilisation and collapsed societies of the ancient past.

"There's a whole bunch of different reasons that contribute to the collapse of civilisations and most of them still apply to us," he tells RN's Late Night Live.

"And, most importantly, some of them — like climate change — are actually getting worse because of our actions."

Sorry, this audio has expired Hear more from Luke Kemp on his historical autopsy of collapsed civilisations.

Nonetheless, Dr Kemp is cautiously optimistic about our ability to avoid "social catastrophe" by learning from history.

"We haven't actually outlasted the average of most species yet," he says.

"I think if we can take the right lessons of the past they can be a very safe guide to the future."

Climate change is a common thread between collapsing civilisations. ( Unsplash: André Bandarra )

What exactly is a collapsed civilisation?

Dr Kemp says the term "collapsed civilisation" is often bandied about in a "colloquial and often undefined" way.

Dr Luke Kemp is optimistic about humankind's ability to fend off annihilation. ( Supplied )

So, let's be clear on what it actually means.

"To me, a collapse is a situation where there's a tipping point — where, basically, stresses overcome societal coping mechanisms," he says.

"What you have is the loss of the state and the failure of multiple systems that underpin society."

Furthermore, the term collapse "would also suggest that this happens abruptly", he says, although that's not always the case.

Apocalyptic collapse — it's not all bad

It's perhaps counterintuitive, but civilisation collapse can be emancipating rather than devastating, Dr Kemp says.

Take Babylon, the capital of Mesopotamia, from the early 2nd to 1st millennium BCE. If you were a citizen of Babylon, there's a one-in-three chance you were a slave, he says.

Babylon's collapse in 539 BCE offered the chance of a new way of life. ( Getty: Sergey Mayorov )

Even if you weren't, it's likely you worked in incredibly poor conditions.

Civilisation collapse offered the chance of a reset.

"The collapse of the Babylonian civilisation was a chance for people to actually return back to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, which — according to a large amount of anthropological evidence — is probably better in terms of health, happiness and lifespan," he says.

"Most people didn't want to stay in those early states. They were kept inside. The walls weren't to keep the barbarians out — they were kept there to keep the citizens in.

"So in many cases it was both emancipatory of people and it also helped to hopefully renew institutions."

Post-collapse periods offer the chance for new forms of government to be pioneered, Dr Kemp says.

The evidence of that can be seen today.

"We wouldn't have had the European Union, of course, if the Western Roman Empire had persisted for many more centuries," he says.

Sophistication doesn't offer immunity

Sophistication might help a civilisation to grow, but it by no means protects it from annihilation.

Size, sophistication and longevity can actually increase a civilisation's risk of collapse, Dr Kemp says.

He argues that "as societies become more complex and manage to develop more devastating weaponry, the chance of collapse becoming more calamitous increases".

"You can think of a civilisation as being a rung-less ladder," he says.

"The higher you climb up, each rung below you falls."

When the Babylonians collapsed, there was a simplicity to its society of "arrows and swords" and consequently they "could very easily return back to hunter-gatherer lifestyles".

"But now, with access to nuclear weapons and potentially near-term future things like lethal autonomous weapons ... people can't return back to simpler lifestyles that easily," Dr Kemp adds.

He cites changes in technology and weaponry as "concerns".

"We are more resilient, but we also increase, in many ways, our vulnerability as we become more advanced," he says.

Our technological and weaponry advances might actually make us more vulnerable to collapse. ( Getty: Onfokus )

Climate change a common thread between collapses

Dr Kemp says there's an "eerie pattern" in which the rise and fall of civilisations map "quite clearly" onto variations in climate.

"The very onset of civilisation didn't happen until the Holocene, this kind of stable period of climate we now enjoy, which began roughly 12,000 years ago," he says.

"As humans we have been biologically capable of building civilisations for at least over 200,000 years. But we didn't start doing it until the climate stabilised in the Holocene."

While a stable climate allowed civilisations to form, Dr Kemp says climate extremes since then have seen them fall, too.

"We see in numerous cases, whether it's the Western Roman Empire, the Anasazi in what is modern-day Mexico, or the Tiwanaku in South America — it was often coinciding with drought that they began to collapse."

The Tiwanaku, credited for this ancient sculpture in modern-day Bolivia, collapsed when drought hit. ( Getty: DEA/M.SEEMULLER )

But he says there's also the very simple factor of bad luck at play in civilisation collapse.

Dr Kemp says US biologist Leigh Van Valen discovered an "ageless random pattern" to species extinction, but that a similar pattern exists in the lifespan of societies.

That means a society is as likely to collapse at year 100 as at year 1,000, he says.

It's about luck — but it's also about competition

"Species have to compete with a changing environment and a changing competitive landscape," Dr Kemp says.

"It means they have to constantly evolve and the threat of dying off is constant.

"Competition is both the mother and reaper of civilisations, and until we learn how to cooperate at a global level and overcome our common challenges we may be destined for the same fate."

History has offered valuable lessons in societal demise — and how to avoid it.

But they're only useful if observed, Dr Kemp says.

"My concern is not so much that we can draw the right lessons, but that people actually listen," he says.

"The future is in our hands."