Climate and Ancient Societies

by Susanne Kerner (Editor), Rachael Dann (Editor), Pernille Bangsgaard (Editor)

Overview

While most scientists agree that humans are bringing about an unprecedented climate change on Earth, it is also true that Earth has undergone many periods of climactic variation without our help, and we, as a species, have had to cope with them for most of our existence. In this book, scholars from both archaeology and climate science explore the climate changes of the past: their causes, their effects on ancient societies, and how those societies responded, for better or worse. Exploring the ancient globe and topics ranging from preindustrial pollution to isotope analysis, they offer a longue durée on a topic of crucial importance to the future of our planet and how we live within it. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788763541992
Publisher:	Museum Tusculanum Press
Publication date:	06/15/2015
Pages:	341
Product dimensions:	6.62(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Susanne Kerner is associate professor at the Institute for Regional and Cross-Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen and coeditor of Food and Commensality.



Rachel Dann is associate professor of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology at the Institute for Regional and Cross-Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen and coeditor of Egypt. 



Pernille Bangsgaard is assistant professor at the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen. 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

...........................................

Foreword: Stine Rossel (1975–20 0 7): An Appreciation

Richard H. Meadow

...........................................

Introduction: Can Archaeology Save the World?

Rachael J. Dann

...............................................

Holocene Climate Reconstruction

Holocene Climate Change and Archaeological Implications, with

Particular Reference to the East Mediterranean Region

Neil Roberts

..................................................

Hunter-Gatherers Living in a Flooded World: The Change of Climate,

Landscapes and Settlement Patterns during the Late Palaeolithic and

Mesolithic on Bornholm, Denmark

Lasse Sørensen and Claudio Casati

...............................

Complex Society’s Responses to Climatic Variation

Urban Adaptations to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia

Jason Ur

.....................................................

Cultural Transformation and the ka Event in Upper Mesopotamia

Peter M. M. G. Akkermans, Johannes van der Plicht, Olivier P.

Nieuwenhuyse, Anna Russell and Akemi Kaneda

...................

Climate and Social Change during the Transition between the Late

Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic in Central Anatolia

Peter F. Biehl

................................................

A Narrow Place Can Contain a Thousand Friends: Irrigation as a

Response to Climate in the Zerqa Triangle, Jordan

Maurits Ertsen and Eva Kapteijn

...............................

The Late Bronze Age Collapse and the Early Iron Age in the Levant:

The Role of Climate in Cultural Disruption

David Kaniewski, Elise Van Campo, Karel Van Lerberghe, Tom Boiy,

Greta Jans, Joachim Bretschneider

..............................

Long Term or Short Term? Climate Change and the Demise of the Old Kingdom

Miroslav Bárta

..............................................

Archaeological Evidence for Pollution and its Ecological

Implications

New Data on Animal Exploitation from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic

periods in Northern Sudan

Louis Chaix and Matthieu Honegger

............................

Large Game Depression and the Process of Animal Domestication in the Near East

Benjamin S. Arbuckle

.........................................

Living in a Marginal Environment: Climate Instability and Possible

Lathyrism in the Syrian Neolithic

Deborah C. Merrett and Christopher Meiklejohn

..................

Perceptions of Pasture: The Role of Skill and Networks in Maintaining

Stable Pastoral Nomadic Systems in Inner Asia

Joshua Wright and Cheryl Makarewicz

..........................

Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East

Understanding the Reasons for Non-Sustainability in Past Agricultural

Systems

Simone Riehl

................................................

AMS 14C-dated Plants as a Tool for Investigating Palaeoclimate:

New Data for Analysing Social Complexity in Ebla and Qatna (North-western Syria) in the Light of 3rd Millennium BC Climate Change

Girolamo Fiorentino and Valentina Caracuta

.....................

Provenance Studies of Ancient Textiles: A New Method Based on

The Strontium Isotope System

Karin Margarita Frei

.........................................

Contributors