Human responses to climate and ecosystem change in ancient Arabia.
Michael D. Petraglia,Michael D. Petraglia,Michael D. Petraglia,Huw S. Groucutt,Maria Guagnin,Maria Guagnin,Paul S. Breeze,Nicole Boivin +7 more
TLDR
Data from northern Arabia suggest that Holocene populations responded to environmental challenges through high mobility, managing water sources, and transforming their economies, which illustrated diverse strategies to resilience and provide important lessons for a world in which climate predictions forecast dramatic changes in temperature and precipitation.Abstract:
Recent interdisciplinary archaeological and paleoenvironmental research in the Arabian peninsula is transforming our understanding of ancient human societies in their ecological contexts. Hypotheses about the cultural and demographic impacts of a series of droughts have primarily been developed from the environmental and archaeological records of southeastern Arabia. Here we examine these human-environment interactions by integrating ongoing research from northern Arabia. While droughts and extreme environmental variability in the Holocene had significant impacts on human societies, responses varied across space and time and included mobility at various scales, as well as diverse social, economic and cultural adaptations, such as the management of water resources, the introduction of pastoral lifeways, and the construction of diverse types of stone structures. The long-term story of human societies in Arabia is one of resilience in the face of climate change, yet future challenges include rising temperatures and flash flooding. The history of human responses to climatic and ecosystem changes in Arabia can provide important lessons for a planet facing catastrophic global warming and environmental change.read more
Citations
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Defining the Anthropocene
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TL;DR: The evidence suggests that of the various proposed dates two do appear to conform to the criteria to mark the beginning of the Anthropocene: 1610 and 1964.
Journal ArticleDOI
Large-scale features and evaluation of the PMIP4-CMIP6 midHolocene simulations
Chris Brierley,Anni Zhao,Sandy P. Harrison,Pascale Braconnot,Charles Williams,Charles Williams,David Thornalley,Xiaoxu Shi,Jean-Yves Peterschmitt,Rumi Ohgaito,Darrell S. Kaufman,Masa Kageyama,Julia C. Hargreaves,M. P. Erb,Julien Emile-Geay,Roberta D'Agostino,Deepak Chandan,Matthieu Carré,Matthieu Carré,Partrick J. Bartlein,Weipeng Zheng,Zhongshi Zhang,Qiong Zhang,Hu Yang,Evgeny Volodin,Robert A. Tomas,Cody C. Routson,W. Richard Peltier,Bette L. Otto-Bliesner,Polina Morozova,Nicholas P. McKay,Gerrit Lohmann,Allegra N. LeGrande,Chuncheng Guo,Jian Cao,Esther C. Brady,James D. Annan,Ayako Abe-Ouchi,Ayako Abe-Ouchi +38 more
TL;DR: The PMIP4-CMIP6 ensemble for the mid-Holocene has a global mean temperature change of −0.3 ǫK, which is − 0.2 ôK cooler than the previous generation (PMIP3 -CMIP5) of simulations as mentioned in this paper.
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Mobilizing the past to shape a better Anthropocene.
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Holocene regional population dynamics and climatic trends in the Near East: A first comparison using archaeo-demographic proxies
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TL;DR: In this paper, a long-term trend in human population and climate from the Late Pleistocene to the Late Holocene (14,000-2500 cal. yr. BP) was analyzed using a large corpus of archaeo-demographic data.
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Archaeology, climate, and global change in the Age of Humans
TL;DR: Contributions by archaeology—the study of the human past—to interdisciplinary research programs designed to evaluate current social and environmental challenges and contribute to solutions for the future are highlighted.
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