Climate and Cultural Change in Prehistoric Europe and the Near East : IEMA Proceedings, Volume 6

by: Biehl, P.F. Nieuwenhuyse, O.P.

Climate and cultural change in prehistoric Europe and the Near East
Authors:Peter F. Biehl (Editor), Olivier Nieuwenhuyse (Editor), European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meeting (16th : 2010 : Hague, Netherlands), 8.2 ka Climate Event and Archaeology in the Ancient Near East (Conference)

Rich case studies examining responses to climatic events in ancient Europe and the Near East.

Description
The subject of climate change could hardly be more timely. In Climate and Cultural Change in Prehistoric Europe and the Near East, an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine climate change through the lens of new archaeological and paleo-environmental data over the course of more than 10,000 years from the Near East to Europe. Key climatic and other events are contextualized with cultural changes and transitions for which the authors discuss when, how, and if, changes in climate and environment caused people to adapt, move or perish. More than this publication of crucial archaeological and paleo-environmental data, however, the volume seeks to understand the social, political and economic significance of climate change as it was manifested in various ways around the Old World. Contrary to perceptions of threatening global warming in our popular media, and in contrast to grim images of collapse presented in some archaeological discussions of past climate change, this book rejects outright societal collapse as a likely outcome. Yet this does not keep the authors from considering climate change as a potential factor in explaining culture change by adopting a critical stance with regard to the long-standing practice of equating synchronicity with causality, and explicitly considering alternative explanations.

Contents:
Climate and Culture Change in Archaeology / Olivier Nieuwenhuyse & Peter F. Biehl
The Oasis of Palmyra in Prehistory : Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Palaeoclimate and Human Occupation in the Region of Palmyra/Tadmor (Central Syria) / Mauro Cremaschi and Andrea Zerboni
When the Going gets Tough : Risk Minimisation Responses to the 8.2 ka Event in the Near East and their role in Emergence of the Halaf Cultural Phenomenon / Mandy Mottram
The 8.2 ka event in Upper Mesopotamia : climate and cultural change / Olivier Nieuwenhuyse, Peter Akkermans, Jan van der Plicht, A. Russell and A. Kaneda (Leiden)
The aftermath of the 8.2 Event : Cultural and Environmental Effects in the Anatolian Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic / Patrick T. Willett, Ingmar Franz, Ceren Kabukcu, David Orton, Jana Rogasch, Elizabeth Stroud, Eva Rosenstock, and Peter F. Biehl
Managing risk through diversification in plant exploitation during the 7th millennium BC : The phytolith microbotanical record at Çatalhöyük / Philippa Ryan and Arlene Rosen
The 8.2 Event and the Neolithic Expansion in Western Anatolia / Bleda S. Düring
"Singing in the Rain" : Khirokitia (Cyprus) in the Second Half of the Seventh Millennium cal BC / Odile Daune-Le Brun and Alain Le Brun
Early Holocene Climatic Fluctuations and Human Responses in Greece / Catherine Perlès
Rapid climate change and radiocarbon discontinuities in the Mesolithic-Early Neolithic settlement record of the Iron Gates : cause or coincidence? / Clive Bonsall, Mark Macklin, Adina Boronean?, Catriona Pickard, László Bartosiewicz, Gordon Cook, and Thomas Higham
Climate Fluctuations, Human Migrations, and the Spread of Farming in western Eurasia / Detlef Gronenborn
Climate Change in the Polish Upland Bronze Age / Andrzej Pelisiak
Climate and the Definition of Archaeological Periods in Sweden / Daniel Löwenborg and Thomas Eriksson
Commentary : Epilogue to a Prologue : The Changing Climate of the Past, Present and Future / Ezra B.W. Zubrow

Peter F. Biehl is Professor and Department Chair of Anthropology at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, and the coeditor (with Douglas C. Comer, Christopher Prescott, and Hilary A. Soderland) of Identity and Heritage: Contemporary Challenges in a Globalized World. Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse is Assistant Professor of Archaeology at Leiden University, Netherlands.

Reviews
"…this volume should be an excellent reference for generalists and specialists alike … [it] does an excellent job of tracking the subtle linkages between environmental transitions and transformations at the dawn of Western Civilization. And that is not faint praise. " — Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies

Climate and Cultural Change in Prehistoric Europe and the Near East : IEMA Proceedings, Volume 6

by: Biehl, P.F. Nieuwenhuyse, O.P.

• ISBN-13: 9781438461823 / 978-1-4384-6182-3
• ISBN-03: 1438461828 / 1-4384-6182-8
• State University of New York Press, New York, 2016