About 4,200 years ago, a catastrophic worldwide drought caused the collapse of societies all over the globe. That’s an archaeological theory linked with the newest division of geological time, dubbed the Meghalayan Age.

But in a new article in Science, Guy Middleton, a senior researcher at the Czech Institute of Egyptology at Charles University, throws cold water on the concept. According to Middleton, the new age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Here’s what you need to know.

If the name doesn’t ring a bell, it’s no surprise: The age was only recently defined. The youngest, newest unit of the geologic time scale, it was adopted earlier this year by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), a subcommittee