Climate Change (Other Keyword)
26-50 (177 Records)
Climate has been debated by historians and archaeologists as one possible contributing factor for the emergence and collapse of complex societies. Recently, connections have been proposed between an ameliorating environment, surplus resources, energy, and the rise of Chinggis Khan’s 13th-century Mongol Empire. If favorable climate and increased rangeland productivity do indeed play a critical role in the politics of pastoral nomads, then we should be able to observe this in other cases too. This...
Climate Change and Archaeology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Congress: Multivocal Conversations Furthering the World Archaeological Congress Agenda" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This contribution will discuss the relationship between climate change research in archaeology and its application in the heritage management sector, museums, education, and policies. We will do so within a global framework of past climate change action in intergovernmental panels,...
Climate Change and Chiefdom Ecodynamics in the Eastern Andean Cordillera of Colombia (2016)
Exploratory research into climate change and the formation of chiefdoms took place in the Valley of Leiva. Preliminary findings from cultural-environmental contexts provide extraordinary interdisciplinary data. A stone-walled, oval-shaped elite building with compacted earthen floors, post-holes, and artifact-ecofact assemblages (decorated pottery, spindle whorls, deer fauna, and stone monoliths) was revealed near El Infiernito. Soil survey along the Rio Leyva produced evidence for major erosion...
Climate Change and Cultural Response in Holocene Southeastern North America (2016)
The historical trajectories of many societies in southeastern North America have been linked to changes in climate and biota. Rainfall regimes influenced population distributions as much as political geography during the late prehistoric era, and arguably well back into the past. Likewise, sea-level fluctuations shaped settlement near changing shorelines and resulted in population movement over much larger areas. Changes in biota over large areas brought about changes in settlement at the...
Climate Change and Culture in Late Pre-Columbian Amazonia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Climate-Human Population Dynamics During the Late Holocene" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Climate change has been linked to the reorganisation of past societies in different parts of the globe. However, until recently, the lack of archaeological and palaeoclimate data for the Amazon had prevented an evaluation of the relationship between climate change and cultural change in the largest...
Climate change and maritime cultural heritage. Perspectives and methodologies of approach in the Island of Tierra Bomba, Cartagena de Indias. (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Transient legacies of the past: Historical Archaeology in the Intertidal Zone", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Weather conditions are in constant interaction with the tangible and intangible heritage of communities, with climate being one of the factors that most influences the configuration of dynamics and meanings that are built in the territory. Based on different sources of research, this proposal aims...
Climate Change and Moche Politics: A View from the Northern Chicama Valley, Peru (2017)
In this paper I will discuss the different lines of evidence pertaining to detecting El Niño and La Niña events at the site of Licapa II and surrounding Northern Chicama Valley. Flood deposits, dune encroachments episodes, malacological data, canal destruction and rebuilding events, and radiocarbon evidence are used as proxies to help understand the intensity and timing of ENSO events. I compare evidence from Licapa II to other sites inside and outside the Chicama Valley to highlight the...
Climate Change and Out of Africa Dispersals (2016)
International, interdisciplinary fieldwork is at the core of Lawrence Straus' long-term archaeological research. Inspired by such an approach since my involvement with Straus' excavations at the Abri Dufaure in southwest France, I have been conducting field work in the Arabian peninsula, which aims to understand the relationship between climate change and human demography across the Pleistocene. Satellite images and GIS studies have effectively demonstrated that there were wet phases in this...
Climate Change and the Predicament of Archaeology in the U.S. Middle Atlantic Region (2017)
The U.S. Middle Atlantic region, known for its rich archaeological record and diverse topographic settings, is experiencing a range of climate change impacts: sea level rise and coastal erosion; increased precipitation and flooding in some areas; and mountain-based forest fires associated with drought in other areas. Documented paleostratigraphic and palynological studies throughout the region provide a record of late Pleistocene/Holocene environmental response to changing climate, confirming...
Climate change and the preservation of archaeological sites in Greenland (2016)
Archaeological sites in Greenland represent an irreplaceable record of extraordinarily well-preserved material remains covering more than 4000 years of human history. Out of the more than 6000 registered sites very few have been excavated and it is anticipated that thousands of sites are still to be discovered in the many unexplored parts of the country. However, the climate is changing rapidly in Greenland leading to accelerated degradation of the archaeological sites. Since 2009, the National...
Climate Change and Threatened Paleoecological Landscapes of South Florida (2017)
South Florida contains millions of acres of wetlands, subtropical estuaries and prehistoric waterways interconnecting thousands of tree islands and shell work islands, comprising one of the largest and most complex prehistoric maritime landscapes worldwide. Recursive human and natural dynamics shaped these landscapes over deep time, but will soon be lost by rising sea level. Integrated archaeological and paleo-ecological studies are critical to understanding the long term impacts of humans on...
Climate Change Challenges at Bandelier National Monument: Adapting Conservation and Monitoring Responses for Cultural Sites in the Desert Southwest (2016)
The Ancestral Puebloan sites at Bandelier National Monument include both masonry pueblos and man-made cave sites. The dry climate of Northern New Mexico in conjunction with the environmental awareness and architectural ingenuity of the builders have played an important role in the preservation of these sites, which continue to yield valuable archaeological information. Changes in the semi-arid climate in which the monument is located have begun to threaten the equilibrium between these...
Climate Change in Coastal Ecuador (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Innovations in Ecuadorian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Climate change is negatively impacting cultural heritage and archaeological sites worldwide. The site of Balsamaragua, which signifies 2,500 years of human occupation on the coast, is rapidly deteriorating, having lost 10 m of shoreline since 2009. Increased awareness and documentation at the site can help us glean valuable information about...
Climate change risk assessment of coastal archaeological resources in San Diego County (2017)
Climate change poses threats to both inland and coastal archaeological resources alike. Sites along the coast of San Diego County are under various threats such as inundation and erosion due to sea level rise. For over two years, the Society for California Archaeology (SCA) and the San Diego County Archaeological Society (SDCAS) have been directing the Climate Change Project to assess the effects of climate change on San Diego County resources. This study utilizes GIS analysis to examine coastal...
Climate Change, Archaeology, and Native Expertise: an Ice Patch Success Story (2016)
Managing the impacts of climate change to cultural resources, and conducting relevant research, cross-cuts disciplinary boundaries and calls for an innovative, outward looking mindset. Descendant communities, particularly Native groups with long ties to lands and resources and high stakes in climate change outcomes, are rich in traditional ecological knowledge and cultural expertise. These bodies of knowledge are key building blocks for successful strategies for risk evaluation, vulnerability...
Climate Change, Subsistence and Warfare during the Late Pre-Columbian Period in the Lower Midwest (2016)
Archaeologists are increasingly turning to climate change as part of their explanatory models of regional and interregional population movement, socio-cultural transformation, and the dissolution of societies in North America. In the lower Midwest, both megadroughts and megafloods have been invoked to explain declining agricultural returns, rises in conflict, and abandonment of major river valleys during the latter half of the Mississippian Period. However, the data sources and indices recording...
Climate, Chronology, and Collapse: Comparing the Classic Maya and the Roman Empire (2016)
Increasing literature has focused on the role of climate change in the collapse of complex societies. These studies suggest that abrupt shifts in climate can exacerbate existing political, social, and economic issues by affecting the basic subsistence systems on which populations depend. Here we compare archaeological, historic, and climate proxy data from two state-level societies: the Classic Maya and the Roman Empire. A strong focus on the impact of multi-decadal droughts from the ninth to...
Climates of History in Ancient China: Lessons from Deep-Time and Cross-Cultural Perspectives (2015)
In recent decades, studies of climate change and its impact on past societies have been colored by a veneer of political agenda and oversimplification of how ancient societies might have actually responded to changes in their environments. Although many of these climatic changes would have profoundly impacted economic systems of past societies, these social and economic systems have often demonstrated remarkable resilience in the face of such changes. Other times, abrupt environmental changes...
Clinal Variation of Some Mammals During the Holocene In Missouri (1980)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Coastal Erosion as an Arena for Change (2017)
The problem facing archaeological heritage through loss and damage caused by rising sea levels and increased storminess requires responses that are multi-facetted and creative. Sufficient resources to deal with exposed archaeological sites and deposits through established ‘preservation by record’ methodologies are not available anywhere. In the Scottish archipelago of Orkney the combination of sand and low lying shores and extremely rich archaeological heritage make the problems of coastal...
Community action at sites threatened by natural processes (2017)
Around the world, thousands of archaeological sites are threatened by coastal processes. Although many countries have successfully implemented schemes to address threats from development, this is not the case for sites at risk from natural processes. Without developers to fund mitigation projects, the scale of the problem appears enormous, and it is difficult for individual agencies to commit to preserving, or even recording, everything at risk. Systems are needed to update information and...
Connecting Archaeology and Blue Knowledge for a Sustainable Planet (2018)
In 2015 the United Nations established Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as part of a global agenda. SDG 14 charges the world to "conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources." SDG 13 urges action to combat climate change and its impacts, while SDG 11 calls for greater efforts to safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage. Our goal here is to show that these goals are best addressed together. In the US alone, nearly half the population lives in coastal...
Conservation and Restoration Practices for Coral Reefs (2018)
Coral Reef ecosystems are composed of sessile colonies that have evolved over thousands of years. The rate of loss of these important and unique ecosystems is heightened by climate change and acute human impacts and their conservation is important for marine life and coastal communities. Many strategies are being used to protect coral reefs including marine protected areas, artificial reefs, and coral gardening. Coral gardening is gaining momentum as communities and scientists work to rebuild...
Contributing Historical Archaeology to Global Efforts to Address Climate Change (2016)
In the most recent Summary for Policy Makers from the IPCC Working Group II (Adaptation), this statement, "Throughout history, people and societies have adjusted to and coped with climate, climate variability, and extremes, with varying degrees of success," is written without attribution. Though this statement is a consensus view, the absence of a footnote disconnects it from analyses of the human past and the models of adaptation developed in the IPCC reports. This is a big gap. The most...
Correlating climate change and archaeological record in the Iron Gates Mesolithic (2015)
Material culture record from the Danube Iron Gates Mesolithic reflects a variety of hunter-gatherer adaptive strategies, including shifts in the foraging methods, changes in preferential choices for the raw material extraction, and a variable use of the same locations for residential and/or aggregation camps covering over five millennia. Archaeological debates however remained focused mainly on a few hundred years of the local hunter-gatherers’ interaction with the incoming food producers during...