Mesozoic Mammals: Mammalian Dark Ages

The collapse of Bronze Age civilizations in the Aegean, southwest Asia, and the eastern Mediterranean 3200 years ago remains a persistent riddle in Eastern Mediterranean archaeology, as both archaeologists and historians believe the event was violent, sudden, and culturally disruptive. In the first phase of this period, many cities between Pylos and Gaza were destroyed violently and often left unoccupied thereafter. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterized the Late Bronze Age was replaced by the isolated village cultures of the Dark Ages. Earthquakes, attacks of the Sea Peoples, and socio-political unrest are among the most frequently suggested causes for this phenomenon. However, while climate change has long been considered a potential prime factor in this crisis, only recent studies have pinpointed the megadrought behind the collapse. An abrupt climate shift seems to have caused, or hastened, the fall of the Late Bronze Age world by sparking political and economic turmoil, migrations, and famines. The entirety of the megadrought’s effects terminated the Late Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean.

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Mesozoic Mammals from South America and Their Forerunners

10.1007/978-3-030-63862-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Guillermo W. Rougier ◽

Agustín G. Martinelli ◽

Analía M. Forasiepi

Keyword(s):

South America ◽

Mesozoic Mammals

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Climate Variability in Central Europe during the Last 2500 Years Reconstructed from Four High-Resolution Multi-Proxy Speleothem Records

Geosciences ◽

10.3390/geosciences11040166 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 166

Author(s):

Sarah Waltgenbach ◽

Dana F. C. Riechelmann ◽

Christoph Spötl ◽

Klaus P. Jochum ◽

Jens Fohlmeister ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Trace Elements ◽

High Resolution ◽

Climate Variability ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Medieval Warm Period ◽

Warm Period ◽

Ice Age ◽

Cold Period ◽

Cave System ◽

Dark Ages

The Late Holocene was characterized by several centennial-scale climate oscillations including the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Ages Cold Period, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. The detection and investigation of such climate anomalies requires paleoclimate archives with an accurate chronology as well as a high temporal resolution. Here, we present 230Th/U-dated high-resolution multi-proxy records (δ13C, δ18O and trace elements) for the last 2500 years of four speleothems from Bunker Cave and the Herbstlabyrinth cave system in Germany. The multi-proxy data of all four speleothems show evidence of two warm and two cold phases during the last 2500 years, which coincide with the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, as well as the Dark Ages Cold Period and the Little Ice Age, respectively. During these four cold and warm periods, the δ18O and δ13C records of all four speleothems and the Mg concentration of the speleothems Bu4 (Bunker Cave) and TV1 (Herbstlabyrinth cave system) show common features and are thus interpreted to be related to past climate variability. Comparison with other paleoclimate records suggests a strong influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation at the two caves sites, which is reflected by warm and humid conditions during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, and cold and dry climate during the Dark Ages Cold period and the Little Ice Age. The Mg records of speleothems Bu1 (Bunker Cave) and NG01 (Herbstlabyrinth) as well as the inconsistent patterns of Sr, Ba and P suggests that the processes controlling the abundance of these trace elements are dominated by site-specific effects rather than being related to supra-regional climate variability.

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A Canal Treaty out of the Dark Ages

Worldview ◽

10.1017/s0084255900030084 ◽

1976 ◽

Vol 19 (10) ◽

pp. 4-8

Author(s):

Martha Bennett Stiles

Keyword(s):

Strong Support ◽

Panama Canal ◽

Ford Administration ◽

Canal Zone ◽

Dark Ages ◽

Panama Canal Zone ◽

The Republic ◽

The U.S

Seventy-three years ago the U.S. connived in the secession of the Republic of Panama from Colombia in return for the privilege of building a canal across the Panamanian Isthmus "on a strip of land leased in perpetuity." Within this 533-square-mile zone the U.S. was to exercise, forever, all those rights that it "would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory..." Today the significance of that "if" is much debated.Although Ronald Reagan's campaign position—that the Panama Canal Zone is as much a part of the U.S. as is Alaska—has been deplored by the Ford Administration, it maintains strong support in the Senate.

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