Oasis or Mirage? Assessing the Role of Abrupt Climate Change in the Prehistory of the Southern Levant

Maher, Lisa; Banning, Edward B.; Chazan, Michael

doi:10.1017/s0959774311000011

Cited by 133 publications

(91 citation statements)

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“…In the wider Levant region people's adaptation and mitigation strategies to a changing climate during the transition from the last glacial period into the Holocene interglacial have been widely discussed in relation to the beginnings of agriculture (e.g. Rosen, 2007;Blockley and Pinhasi, 2011;Maher et al, 2011a;Rosen and Rivera-Collazo, 2012). Yet our understanding of how the Levant experienced this global transition in climate is still somewhat unclear (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The environmental setting of Epipalaeolithic aggregation site Kharaneh IV

Jones

Maher

Macdonald

et al. 2016

Quaternary International

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a b s t r a c tThe archaeological site of Kharaneh IV in Jordan's Azraq Basin, and its relatively near neighbour Jilat 6 show evidence of sustained occupation of substantial size through the Early to Middle Epipalaeolithic (c. 24,000e15,000 cal BP). Here, we review the geomorphological evidence for the environmental setting in which Kharaneh IV was established. The on-site stratigraphy is clearly differentiated from surrounding sediments, marked visually as well as by higher magnetic susceptibility values. Dating and analysis of offsite sediments show that a significant wetland existed at the site prior to and during early site occupation (~23,000e19,000 BP). This may explain why such a substantial site existed at this location. This wetland dating to the Last Glacial Maximum also provides important information on the palaeoenvironments and potential palaeoclimatic scenarios for today's eastern Jordanian desert, from where such evidence is scarce.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To improve our ability to test hypotheses about people's reactions to climatic and environmental change, or about their influence on climate and local environments (e.g. Ruddiman et al, 2015;Ramsey et al, 2015), improved spatial and temporal resolution of our palaeoenvironmental and archaeological records is required (Maher et al, 2011a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The environmental setting of Epipalaeolithic aggregation site Kharaneh IV

Jones

Maher

Macdonald

et al. 2016

Quaternary International

Self Cite

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“…Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen (13) argue that experimentation with plant cultivation, triggered by the need to increase food production in response to declining resource abundance, ultimately lead to the beginning of agriculture at the onset of the Holocene. Other researchers recognize the importance of climatic change (18)(19)(20).…”

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confidence: 99%

Hunted gazelles evidence cooling, but not drying, during the Younger Dryas in the southern Levant

Hartman

Bar‐Yosef

Brittingham

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The climatic downturn known globally as the Younger Dryas (YD; ∼12,900-11,500 BP) has frequently been cited as a prime mover of agricultural origins and has thus inspired enthusiastic debate over its local impact. This study presents seasonal climatic data from the southern Levant obtained from the sequential sampling of gazelle tooth carbonates from the Early and Late Natufian archaeological sites of Hayonim and Hilazon Tachtit Caves (western Galilee, Israel). Our results challenge the entrenched model that assumes that warm temperatures and high precipitation are synonymous with climatic amelioration and cold and wet conditions are combined in climatic downturns. Enamel carbon isotope values from teeth of human-hunted gazelle dating before and during the YD provide a proxy measure for water availability during plant growth. They reveal that although the YD was cooler, it was not drier than the preceding Bølling-Allerød. In addition, the magnitude of the seasonal curve constructed from oxygen isotopes is significantly dampened during the YD, indicating that cooling was most pronounced in the growing season. Cool temperatures likely affected the productivity of staple wild cereal resources. We hypothesize that human groups responded by shifting settlement strategies-increasing population mobility and perhaps moving to the warmer Jordan Valley where wild cereals were more productive and stable.paleoclimate | stable isotopes | δ 13 C | δ 18 O | Natufian

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“…Several earlier studies estimated the dating of the M-/L-PPNB transition using calibrated radiocarbon dates (Benz 2013) and even Bayesian modelling (Maher et al 2011). These studies were focussed at estimating the date of the transition and not its duration.…”

Section: Assessing the Abruptness Of The M-/l-ppnb Transition: Methodmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While this is often used as a criterion of chronometric hygiene (Flohr et al 2016;Maher et al 2011;Taché and Hart 2013), low measurement precision itself does not mean that the measurement is inaccurate. If there is sufficient evidence to disregard the low precision measurements, this will happen through shrinkage of the modelled date ranges once they are incorporated into chronological models;…”

Section: Assessing the Abruptness Of The M-/l-ppnb Transition: Methodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiocarbon Evidence for the Pace of the M-/L-PPNB Transition in 8th Millennium BC Southwest Asia

Jacobsson

2017

Radiocarbon

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Abstract:The transition from the Middle to Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) happened throughout southwest Asia in the mid-8th millennium cal BC. It entailed the abandonment of a number of sites, rapid growth of others, as well as the widespread of morphologically domestic caprines. What remains an unknown is how rapid these processes were in real time. Over the period when the transition was taking place, the calibration curve has two shallow sections divided by a sudden drop, which for many of the older dates creates an illusion of a sudden cultural break around 7600-7500 cal BC. Yet a more detailed study presented in this paper suggests that the transition event could have been spread over a more extended period of time. This, however, is still far from certain due to risks of old wood effects and complexities of site formation. Keywords: Legacy dates, Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Bayesian analysisThe tempo of cultural transformations is fundamental to understanding their nature and thus identifying factors that caused (pre)history to follow the specific path it took. When rapid changes take place, corresponding major causal factors, such as abrupt climate change (Childe 1936;Weninger et al. 2009), or a socio-political upheaval (Gebel 2004), have to be invoked and explored. Slower rates of change often imply greater continuity (Harding 2004) and the study of the transitions in question becomes one of tracing the connections in the processes involved. These are basic considerations, but they show that understanding change in prehistory often requires specific chronological resolution and that in turn leads to specific requirements of 14 C chronologies. This paper discusses whether these requirements are fulfilled for the transition from the Middle to Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (M-and L-PPNB), which took place in south-west Asia in the eighth millennium BC. The aim is to look beyond the apparent abruptness of the transition, induced by the shape of the calibration curve, and evaluate whether it is possible to derive good temporal estimates for some of its associated processes. The discussion takes place from a 14 C perspective and makes no assertions as to how the transition might appear from the perspective of other markers, such as lithic technologies. Archaeological background to the M-/L-PPNB transition and effects of the calibration curveThe Neolithic of south-west Asia (mid-tenth to the sixth millennium cal BC) was a period when a number of earlier practices persisted, such as the wide-ranging exchange networks ( Figure 1). Hence the chronological variability on either side of 7500 cal BC was hidden and an impression of an abrupt transition emerged in the 14 C record. While the interpretation in terms of sudden change might be correct, its radiocarbon basis is an artifact of the radiocarbon calibration curve. Assessing the abruptness of the M-/L-PPNB transition: methodologyWith the development of the calibration curve for the eighth millennium cal BC, the increasing number and precision of 14 C determinatio...

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Oasis or Mirage? Assessing the Role of Abrupt Climate Change in the Prehistory of the Southern Levant

Cited by 133 publications

References 136 publications

The environmental setting of Epipalaeolithic aggregation site Kharaneh IV

The environmental setting of Epipalaeolithic aggregation site Kharaneh IV

Hunted gazelles evidence cooling, but not drying, during the Younger Dryas in the southern Levant

Radiocarbon Evidence for the Pace of the M-/L-PPNB Transition in 8th Millennium BC Southwest Asia

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