Climate Change, Rock Coatings, and the Archaeological Record

Elements ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Whitley ◽  
Calogero M. Santoro ◽  
Daniela Valenzuela
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Rock Coatings

scholarly journals Identifying climate change threats to the arctic archaeological record

Eos ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 92 (21) ◽  
pp. 180-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maribeth Murray ◽  
Anne Jensen ◽  
Max Friesen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Archaeological Record

scholarly journals Distributed urban network systems in the tropical archaeological record: Toward a model for urban sustainability in the era of climate change

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-230
Author(s):  
Vernon L Scarborough ◽  
Christian Isendahl
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Low Density ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Network Systems ◽  
Urban Network ◽  
Near Term ◽  
Social Environmental ◽  
The Impact

Identifying and employing the concept of sustainability in the social sciences remain a challenge. One approach presented here emphasizes its utility in examining past urban adaptations primarily from the archaeological record that demonstrate the role of low-density urbanism. Drawing upon early semitropical cities and their dispersed land-use and settlement patterns, both longevity and interconnectivity are shown to have developed in the context of environmental and societal diversity. The impact of climate change to our near-term futures can result in adaptations that accommodate positive societal transformations if all relevant disciplines are included in the dialogue. Past sustainable practices when melded with thoughtfully deployed technologies of today and tomorrow will assist with this new ecology. We argue that generating knowledge about tropical urban systems in the ancient past adds to a more diversified pool of urban models from which to draw for future urban planning. We specifically suggest that networked urban systems of distributed, low-density settlement repeatedly occurring throughout the tropical archaeological records have several social–environmental benefits toward a sustainability transition of cities in the era of climate change.

Sand Canyon: Vanishing Acts

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
William deBuys
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
San Juan ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Building Stones ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
San Juan River ◽  
Cautionary Tales

In the southwest the specter of climate change invites a long look into the deep past. For anyone who hunts for insights about the nature of the region and the trick of making peace with its aridity, the ubiquitous signs of vanished communities beckon irresistibly—in the ruins of Chaco Canyon, the empty cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, and the mounded rubble of abandoned villages scattered near and far. The “lessons” they offer, however, are not always as clear as we would like them to be. Cautionary tales about the truths and errors of distant centuries can be easy to spin but surprisingly hard to reconcile to the complexity of the archaeological record, which is never static. As with any domain of science, the story told by the archaeology of the Southwest is always emerging, always gaining in heft and detail. When I went looking for someone who could help me read it, the trail I took led to the head of a rugged canyon, choked with piñon and juniper, in the far southwest of Colorado. “There’s a kiva, there’s a kiva, there’s a kiva,” says archaeologist Mark Varien, who is vice president of programs at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, outside Cortez. He points in succession to three circular depressions amid the rubble, signatures of the remains of subterranean rooms that once housed much of the life of the pueblo. Rough blocks of sandstone outline the space the kivas occupied, their roofs having long ago caved in. Wind has filled their cavities with the dust and litter of centuries. Now they bloom with cliff rose and sagebrush. We stand just behind the kivas on a mound of half-buried building stones, which are canted at every angle—the remains of masonry rooms. To either side lie the mounds of more room blocks, their rear walls forming the perimeter of the pueblo, and the pueblo itself wrapping around the cleft of a rocky draw. The draw leads south and widens into Sand Canyon, a dry tributary of McElmo Creek, which flows west out of Colorado and joins the San Juan River not far away in Utah.

scholarly journals The archaeology of climate change: The case for cultural diversity

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (30) ◽  
pp. e2108537118
Author(s):  
Ariane Burke ◽  
Matthew C. Peros ◽  
Colin D. Wren ◽  
Francesco S. R. Pausata ◽  
Julien Riel-Salvatore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
The Past ◽  
Environmental Transformation ◽  
Contemporary Climate

Anthropogenic climate change is currently driving environmental transformation on a scale and at a pace that exceeds historical records. This represents an undeniably serious challenge to existing social, political, and economic systems. Humans have successfully faced similar challenges in the past, however. The archaeological record and Earth archives offer rare opportunities to observe the complex interaction between environmental and human systems under different climate regimes and at different spatial and temporal scales. The archaeology of climate change offers opportunities to identify the factors that promoted human resilience in the past and apply the knowledge gained to the present, contributing a much-needed, long-term perspective to climate research. One of the strengths of the archaeological record is the cultural diversity it encompasses, which offers alternatives to the solutions proposed from within the Western agro-industrial complex, which might not be viable cross-culturally. While contemporary climate discourse focuses on the importance of biodiversity, we highlight the importance of cultural diversity as a source of resilience.

scholarly journals Holocene Climate and Cultural Evolution in Late Prehistoric–Early Historic West Asia

2006 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Staubwasser ◽  
Harvey Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Transfer Functions ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Abrupt Climate Change ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Holocene Climate ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Change Events ◽  
Early Historic

AbstractThe precipitation climatology and the underlying climate mechanisms of the eastern Mediterranean, West Asia, and the Indian subcontinent are reviewed, with emphasis on upper and middle tropospheric flow in the subtropics and its steering of precipitation. Holocene climate change of the region is summarized from proxy records. The Indian monsoon weakened during the Holocene over its northernmost region, the Ganges and Indus catchments and the western Arabian Sea. Southern regions, the Indian Peninsula, do not show a reduction, but an increase of summer monsoon rain across the Holocene. The long-term trend towards drier conditions in the eastern Mediterranean can be linked to a regionally complex monsoon evolution. Abrupt climate change events, such as the widespread droughts around 8200, 5200 and 4200 cal yr BP, are suggested to be the result of altered subtropical upper-level flow over the eastern Mediterranean and Asia.The abrupt climate change events of the Holocene radically altered precipitation, fundamental for cereal agriculture, across the expanse of late prehistoric–early historic cultures known from the archaeological record in these regions. Social adaptations to reduced agro-production, in both dry-farming and irrigation agriculture regions, are visible in the archaeological record during each abrupt climate change event in West Asia. Chronological refinement, in both the paleoclimate and archaeological records, and transfer functions for both precipitation and agro-production are needed to understand precisely the evident causal linkages.

When the Levee Breaks

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Shane Miller ◽  
Jesse Tune
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Younger Dryas ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Projectile Point ◽  
Macro Scale

This chapter offers an examination of complexity theory and everyday decision-making in the Paleoindian Period and its effects on the archaeological record. Using several studies, the authors argue that the variation in how people learned knapping at quarry sites led to the regionalization of projectile point styles, and that everyday microeconomic decisions about what to eat, where to live, and what tools to use generated macro-scale patterns concerning people adapting to climate change, and in particular the Younger Dryas. Finally, the authors argue that decisions made by hunters to take advantage of species clustered and stranded by floods could have altered their long-term availability during the Younger Dryas.

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