Hydraulic landscapes in Mesopotamia: the role of human niche construction

Wilkinson, T. J.; Rayne, Louise; Jotheri, Jaafar

doi:10.1007/s12685-015-0127-9

Cited by 66 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The Euphrates and Tigris river courses have seen continuous change in response to a range of anthropic, autogenic and allogenic processes, causing damages to human settlements and irrigation systems due to flooding or desertification . Since the early Holocene, considerable efforts have thus been made by the Mesopotamian people to control and sustain the water for their requirements, and an extensive network of channels was formed over time throughout the region (Wilkinson et al, 2015).…”

Section: The Mesopotamian Floodplainmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Besides the relevant archeological implications (Lees and Falcon, 1952;Morozova, 2005;Wilkinson et al, 2015), monitoring the compositional variability of modern sediments in big-river systems such as the Euphrates-Tigris-Karun drainage basin, over 10 6 km 2 wide and ranking about twentieth on Earth, provides us with a key to understand the information stored in sedimentary archives, and to reconstruct the evolution of the Earth's surface from the recent to the less recent past. Previous mineralogical studies on recent Mesopotamian sediments include Philip (1968), Berry et al (1970), Ali (1976), and Al-Juboury and Al-Miamary (2009) and Awadh et al (2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Euphrates-Tigris-Karun river system: Provenance, recycling and dispersal of quartz-poor foreland-basin sediments in arid climate

Garzanti

Al-Juboury

Zoleikhaei

et al. 2016

Earth-Science Reviews

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Citation for published item:q rz ntiD iF nd elEtu ouryD eFsF nd oleikh eiD F nd ermees hD F nd totheriD tF nd ekko D fw nd y idD eFuF nd ellenD wFfF nd end¡ oD F nd vimont D F nd do nD wF nd esentiniD eF nd ittnerD wF nd ezzoliD qF @PHITA 9 he iuphr tesE igrisEu run river system X proven n eD re y ling nd dispers l of qu rtzEpoor forel ndE sin sediments in rid lim teF9D i rthEs ien e reviewsFD ITP F ppF IHUEIPVF Further information on publisher's website:httpsXGGdoiForgGIHFIHITGjFe rs irevFPHITFHWFHHW Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Abstract: We present a detailed sediment-provenance study on the modern Euphrates-Tigris-Karun fluvial system and Mesopotamian foreland basin, one of the cradles of humanity. Our rich petrographic and heavy-mineral dataset, integrated by sand geochemistry and U-Pb age spectra of detrital zircons, highlights the several peculiarities of this large source-tosink sediment-routing system and widens the spectrum of compositions generally assumed as paradigmatic for orogenic settings. Comparison of classical static versus upgraded dynamic petrologic models enhance the power of provenance analysis, and allow us to derive a more refined conceptual model of reference and to verify the limitations of the approach. Sand derived from the Anatolia-Zagros orogen contains abundant lithic grains eroded from carbonates, cherts, mudrocks, arc volcanics, obducted ophiolites and ophiolitic mélanges representing the exposed shallow structural level of the orogen, with relative scarcity of quartz, Kfeldspar and mica. This quartz-poor petrographic signature, characterizing the undissected composite tectonic domain of the entire Anatolia-Iranian plateau, is markedly distinct from that of sand shed by more elevated and faster-eroding collision orogens such as the Himalaya. Arid climate in the region allows preservation of chemically unstable grains including carbonate rock fragments and locally even gypsum, and reduces transport capacity of fluvial systems, which dump most of their load in Mesopotamian marshlands upstream of the Arabian/Persian Gulf allochemical carbonate factory. Quartz-poor sediment from the AnatoliaZagros orogen mixes with quartz-rich recycled sands from Arabia along the western side of the foreland basin, and is traced all along the Gulf shores as far as the Rub' al-Khali sand sea up to 4000 km from Euphrates headwaters.Reviewer #1: This is an excellent review of an intriguing complex modern sediment source-to-sink system that has not been studied in a comprehensive manner prior to...

show abstract

Section: The Mesopotamian Floodplainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Euphrates-Tigris-Karun river system: Provenance, recycling and dispersal of quartz-poor foreland-basin sediments in arid climate

Garzanti

Al-Juboury

Zoleikhaei

et al. 2016

Earth-Science Reviews

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These are the degree of urbanism, or the density of nucleated settlements [22], the size of the human (and non-human animal) population served, which is often highly correlated with density of settlements [29], and the degree to which a population was dependent on agriculture and/or animal husbandry [20]. It is possible to envision these factors as situated on a continuum.…”

Section: Water Supply Technologies In the Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainably Managing Reservoir Storage: Ancient Roots of a Modern Challenge

Kondolf

Farahani

2018

Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sedimentation is a major issue for water systems worldwide, but the need for sustainable sediment management is rarely addressed. This article surveys the problem of sedimentation in the contemporary sphere in addition to drawing on archaeological evidence of past unsustainable and sustainable sedimentation management practices. A compact characterization scheme is presented for identifying the scale of sedimentation management, both past and present. The results of the research illustrate that communities have grappled with issues of sedimentation for as long as water storage has existed. System failure from sedimentation is therefore not inevitable, but arises from a combination of social and biophysical factors.

show abstract

“…Small-scale activities many thousands of years ago in mountainous regions such as the Caucasus and southern Arabia, and plains like southern Mesopotamia, increased the capacity of such regions to sustain large populations over long periods of time (Wilkinson, Rayne and Jotheri 2015;Ertsen and Wilkinson 2014). These early anthropogenic irrigated landscapes seemed to have emerged from short-term activities, but long-term effects were massive.…”

Section: Moral Nichesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In southern Mesopotamia, disposal of excess water from irrigation canals into the marshlands would have affected fishing and the exploitation of other marshland resources. More speculatively, excess irrigation water could have enlarged the marshes' area, creating the conditions for the spread of malaria, which in turn may have caused human genetic changes (Wilkinson, Rayne and Jotheri 2015; for another example relating water management to genetics, see Kaptijn 2015).…”

Section: Moral Nichesmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Friendship is a slow ripening fruit’: an agency perspective on water, values and infrastructure

Ertsen

2016

World Archaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper argues that human and material agents co-shape 'morality'. Water systems will be discussed in more detail. Artefacts (technologies) relate humans and their worlds, but the specifics of this relationship become meaningful only within specific actor-networks. As such, the material influences the moral decisions of humans. Examples from the larger Mesopotamian area, on both state-led and community-managed water systems, are discussed to show that these result from activities of individuals, households and groups manipulating water fluxes in short time periods of hours and days. Analysis of these daily activities, and especially of how the material acts, offers options for archaeologists to trace morality in action.

show abstract

Hydraulic landscapes in Mesopotamia: the role of human niche construction

Cited by 66 publications

References 29 publications

The Euphrates-Tigris-Karun river system: Provenance, recycling and dispersal of quartz-poor foreland-basin sediments in arid climate

The Euphrates-Tigris-Karun river system: Provenance, recycling and dispersal of quartz-poor foreland-basin sediments in arid climate

Sustainably Managing Reservoir Storage: Ancient Roots of a Modern Challenge

‘Friendship is a slow ripening fruit’: an agency perspective on water, values and infrastructure

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About