Climate And Ancient Societies

Climate change over the past thousands of years is undeniable, but debate has arisen about its impact on past human societies. This book explores the link between climate and society in ancient worlds, focusing on the ancient economies of western Eurasia and northern Africa from the fourth millennium BCE up to the end of the first millennium CE. This book contributes to the multi-disciplinary debate between scholars working on climate and society from various backgrounds. The chronological boundaries of the book are set by the emergence of complex societies in the Neolithic on the one end and the rise of early-modern states in global political and economic exchange on the other. In order to stimulate comparison across the boundaries of modern periodization, this book ends with demography and climate change in early-modern and modern Italy, a society whose empirical data allows the kind of statistical analysis that is impossible for ancient societies. The book highlights the role of human agency, and the complex interactions between the natural environment and the socio-cultural, political, demographic, and economic infrastructure of any given society. It is intended for a wide audience of scholars and students in ancient economic history, specifically Rome and Late Antiquity.

Climate and human responses to it have a strongly interconnected relationship. Thus when climate change occurs, the result of either natural or human causes, societies should react and adapt to these. But do they? If so, what is the nature of that change, and are the responses positive or negative for the long-term survival of social groups? In Climate and Societies, scholars from diverse disciplines includ-ing archaeology, geology and climate sciences explore scientific and material evidence for climate changes in the past, their causes, their effects on ancient societies and how those societies responded. Organized around four key themes each dealing with ways to understand past climates, human impact, and sustainability – holocene climate reconstruction; responses of complex societies to climatic variation; Archaeological evidence for pollution and its ecological implica-tions; and stable isotope analysis in the Middle East – the chapters demonstrate the value of a longue durée perspective on a topic of crucial importance to the future of our planet. Climate and Ancient Societies is dedicated to the memory of the Danish scholar, zooarchaeologist, Dr. Stine Rossel, University of Copenhagen who died following a freak accident, while hiking with her husband in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (USA), shortly after having submitted her dissertation to Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the PhD in Anthropology. The dissertation The Development of Productive Subsistence Economies in the Nile Valley: Zooarchaeological Analysis at El-Mahâsna and South Abydos, Upper Egypt is available online (ProQuest document ID: 1464110981; ISBN 9780549278788). Stine Rossel carried out her main fieldwork in Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan and published her findings in numerous publications, which laid the groundwork for what would no doubt have been a promising career. Contributors: Peter M.M.G. Akkermans, Benjamin S. Arbuckle, Pernille Bangsgaard, Miroslav Bárta, Peter F. Biehl, Tom Boiy, Joachim Bretschneider, Valentina Caracuta, Elise Van Campo, Claudio Casati, Louis Chaix, Rachael J. Dann, Maurits Ertsen, Girolamo Fiorentino, Karin Margarita Frei, Matthieu Honegger, Greta Jans, Akemi Kaneda, David Kaniewski, Eva Kapteijn, Susanne Kerner, Karel Van Lerberghe, Cheryl Makarewicz, Richard H. Meadow, Christopher Meiklejohn, Deborah C. Merrett, Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse, Johannes van der Plicht, Simone Riehl, Neil Roberts, Anna Russell, Lasse Sørensen, Jason Ur, Joshua Wright. Susanne Kerner is associate professor at the Institute for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Rachael J. Dann is associate professor of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology at the Institute for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Pernille Bangsgaard is assistant professor at the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen.

This survey of ancient levels of lakes, rivers and sea, and changes in stalagmites and sediments shows an astonishing correlation between climate change and rise and fall of civilizations in the Middle East. Warm periods were characterized by aridization, economic crisis and mass migration. Cold periods brought abundant rain, prosperity and settlement. The authors conclude that climate change was the decisive factor in the origins of the "cradle of civilization".

This survey of the ancient levels of lakes, rivers and the sea, as well as changes in the compositions of stalagmites and sediments reveals an astonishing correlation of climate changes with the emergence and collapse of civilizations in the Middle East. The authors conclude that climate change has been the decisive factor in the history surrounding the origins of the "cradle of civilization".

Environment and Society in the Long Late Antiquity brings together scientific, archaeological and historical evidence on the interplay of social change and environmental phenomena at the end of Antiquity and the dawn of the Middle Ages, ca. 300-800 AD.

A thirty-thousand-year history of the relationship between climate and civilization that teaches powerful lessons about how humankind can survive. Human-made climate change may have begun in the last two hundred years, but our species has witnessed many eras of climate instability. The results have not always been pretty. From Ancient Egypt to Rome to the Maya, some of history’s mightiest civilizations have been felled by pestilence and glacial melt and drought. The challenges are no less great today. We face hurricanes and megafires and food shortages and more. But we have one powerful advantage as we face our current crisis: the past. Our knowledge of ancient climates has advanced tremendously in the last decade, to the point where we can now reconstruct seasonal weather going back thousands of years and see just how people and nature interacted. The lesson is clear: the societies that survive are those that plan ahead. Climate Chaos is a book about saving ourselves. Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani show in remarkable detail what it was like to battle our climate over centuries and offer us a path to a safer and healthier future.

As water availability, management and conservation become global challenges, there is now wide consensus that historical knowledge can provide crucial information to address present crises, offering unique opportunities to appreciate the solutions and mechanisms societies have developed over time to deal with water in all its forms, from rainfall to groundwater. This unique collection explores how ancient water systems relate to present ideas of resilience and sustainability and can inform future strategy. Through an investigation of historic water management systems, along with the responses to, and impact of, various water-driven catastrophes, contributors to this volume present tenable solutions for the long-term use of water resources in different parts of the world. The discussion is not limited to issues of the past, seeking instead to address the resonance and legacy of water histories in the present and future. Water and Society from Ancient Times to the Present speaks to an archaeological and non-archaeological scholarly audience and will be a useful primary reference text for researchers and graduate students from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds including archaeology, anthropology, history, ecology, geography, geology, architecture and development studies.

Intended to serve as an introduction to the environmental history of the ancient world. -- from preface