Cultural Responses to Past Climate Change: Lessons from the Holocene

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Table of Contents

Cultural Responses to Climate Change: Lessons from the Holocene.

Culture-Environment Theories.

Overview.

Introduction.

Drought in the American SW.

The 1930s Dust Bowl.

The "Lost Colony" (Virginia).

Tree Ring Evidence for Drought.

Anasazi depopulation of the SW US.

Interannual-Decadal Variability.

Holocene Climate.

Mechanisms of Holocene Climate Variability.

Stable or Unstable Holocene.

The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period.

Cultural Responses to Holocene Climate Change.

Akkadian Imperial Collapse.

Tell Leilan, NE Syria.

Deep Sea Sediment Record of Mesopotamian Climate.

Mesopotamian Dust Transport.

Climate Change and Akkadian Collapse.

Akkadian Collapse.

Classic Maya Collapse.

Climate Change and Classic Maya Collapse.

Lake Records of Mesoamerican Climate Change.

What can be learned from these ancient cultural responses to prolonged drought?

Conclusions.

 

Updated January 18, 2002