Environmental change and archaeology: lake evolution and human occupation in the Eastern Sahara during the Holocene

2001 ◽  
Vol 169 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 193-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Hoelzmann ◽  
Birgit Keding ◽  
Hubert Berke ◽  
Stefan Kröpelin ◽  
Hans-Joachim Kruse
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Lake Evolution

scholarly journals A Holocene record of environmental change from Río Zeballos, central Patagonia

The Holocene ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 941-950 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D McCulloch ◽  
Maria J Figuerero Torres ◽  
Guillermo L Mengoni Goñalons ◽  
Rebecca Barclay ◽  
Claudia Mansilla
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Beech Forest ◽  
Forest Steppe ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Southern Patagonia ◽  
Ice Field ◽  
Holocene Record ◽  
Southern Beech ◽  
Human Landscape

There are few continuous palaeoenvironmental records spanning the Holocene in Andean Southern Patagonia near the Northern Patagonian Ice Field (~47°S). Insights into the environmental context for human–landscape interactions have relied mostly on data extrapolated from distant extra-Andean locations that suggest limited environmental change during the Holocene. La Frontera (46°52′S), a high altitude site on the southern beech forest–steppe ecotone boundary in the Río Zeballos valley, provides lithostratigraphical and palaeoecological evidence, constrained by 14C dating and tephrochronology, for dynamic environmental change during the last ~8000 years. An initial amelioration in environmental conditions after c. 8210 cal. BP was followed by a reversal to colder conditions between c. 7420 and 6480 cal. BP, coincident with initial human occupation within the Paso Roballos and Lago Pueyrredón basin. Between c. 6480 and 3700 cal. BP, the woodland/steppe composition continued to fluctuate in response to climatic change. After c. 3700 cal. BP, a gradual shift to more stable and temperate conditions, punctuated by increased fire activity, is contemporary with the later phases of human occupation extending up into the Paso Roballos–Río Zeballos corridor.

Vegetation dynamics of the eastern Mediterranean region during the Holocene

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esmeralda Cruz-Silva ◽  
Sandy P. Harrison ◽  
Elena Marinova ◽  
I. Colin Prentice
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Region ◽  
Likelihood Function ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean Region ◽  
Similarity Index ◽  
Vegetation Changes ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Atmospheric Circulation Patterns

<p>The circum-Mediterranean region is characterized by high climatic diversity derived from its orographic heterogeneity and the influence of global marine and atmospheric circulation patterns. The region also has a long and dynamic history of human occupation dating back to ~ 8000 years BP.  The complexity of this area is a challenge for reconstructing the dynamics of the vegetation through the Holocene. Rule-based approaches to reconstructing changing vegetation patterns through time are insufficient as they require the imposition of subjective boundaries between biomes and can be affected by known biases in pollen representation.  We have developed and tested a new method that characterises biomes as a function of observed pollen assemblages based on a similarity index, conceptually related to the likelihood function, which takes account of within-biome variability in taxon abundances. We use 1181 modern pollen samples from the EMBSeCBIO database and assign these samples to biomes as represented in a map of potential natural vegetation that was developed using machine learning. The method was applied down-core to reconstruct past vegetation changes. Preliminary results show that this new methodology produces more accurate biome assignments under modern conditions (<80% accuracy) and more stable down-core reconstructions, apparently reducing the "flickering switch" problem found when using the traditional biomisation method for this purpose. Climate-induced vegetation changes are observable on a sub-regional scale in the Eastern Mediterranean through the Holocene. Most of the records show a change from humid to more arid biomes between 4000 and 3000 years BP. However, they are distinct subregional patterns in the expression and timing of wetter conditions during the Holocene. Mountain regions appear to show more muted changes during the Holocene, although there are biome shifts everywhere across the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.</p>

scholarly journals An Agro-Based Society after Post-Industrial Society: From a Perspective of Economic Growth Paradigm

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 455
Author(s):  
Hongyun Han ◽  
Sheng Xia
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Profit Maximization ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Degraded Ecosystems ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Post Industrial

Since the Industrial Revolution, a new era has arisen called the Anthropocene, in which human actions have become the main driver of global environmental change outside the stable environmental state of the Holocene. During the Holocene, environmental change occurred naturally, and the Earth’s regulatory capacity maintained the conditions that enabled human development. Resource overexploitation of the industrial “Anthropocene”, under the principle of profit maximization, has led to planetary ecological crises, such as overloaded carbon sinks and climate changes, vanishing species, degraded ecosystems, and insufficient natural resources. Agro-based society, in which almost all demands of humans can be supported by agriculture, is characterized by life production. The substitution of Agro-based society for a post-industrial society is an evolutionary result of social movement, it is an internal requirement of a sustainable society for breaking through the resource constraint of economic growth. The core feature of agriculture is to use organisms as production objects and rely on life processes to achieve production goals. The substitution of Agro-based society for a post-industrial society is the precondition for a sustainable carbon cycle, breaking through the resource limits of the industrial “Anthropocene”, alleviating the environmental pressure of economic development, and promoting society from increasing disorderly entropy to orderly decreasing entropy. Meanwhile, technological advancements and growing environmental awareness of society make it feasible for the substitution of an agro-based society for a post-industrial society.

The Holocene Occupations of Southern Belize

2020 ◽  
pp. 16-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith M. Prufer ◽  
Douglas J. Kennett
Keyword(s):  
Climate Reconstruction ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Social Pressures ◽  
History Of ◽  
Underlying Processes

In Chapter 2, Keith Prufer and Douglas J. Kennett focus on the long history of human occupation in southern Belize, from initial colonization at the end of the Pleistocene to the present. First occupied by Paleoindians, the landscape of southern Belize has seen 10 millennia of cultural modifications. The authors, drawing on more than two decades of archaeological research, discuss why studying the long historical trajectories of settlements within a region can provide data about how humans adapt and reorganize over long periods of time and insights into underlying processes of resilience and reorganization in response to climatic, demographic, and social pressures. The chapter draws on climate reconstruction data to look at Holocene adaptations to a changing landscape.

scholarly journals Stratigraphic Division of Holocene Loess in China

Radiocarbon ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weijian Zhou ◽  
Zhisheng An ◽  
M. J. Head
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Loess Plateau ◽  
Engineering Geology ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
The Loess Plateau ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
South West ◽  
Stratigraphic Division ◽  
History Of ◽  
Loess Deposition

Loess deposition within the Loess Plateau of China records the history of environmental change over the last 2.5 Myr. Loess-paleosol sequences of the last 10 ka, which have preserved information of global climate change, relate closely to human occupation of the area. Hence, studies of the deposition and development of Holocene loess are significant for studying environmental change and problems associated with engineering geology. We present here stratigraphic relations among four profiles from the south, west and center of the Loess Plateau. On the basis of 14C radiometric and AMS dates of organic material extracted from the paleosols, together with magnetic susceptibility measurements down each profile, we discuss Holocene stratigraphic divisions within the Loess Plateau, and suggest that the Holocene optimum, characterized by paleosol complexes, occurred between 10 and 5 ka bp. From 5 ka BP to the present, neoglacial activity is characterized by recently deposited loess.

scholarly journals Ounjougou (Mali): A history of holocene settlement at the southern edge of the Sahara

Antiquity ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (301) ◽  
pp. 579-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Huysecom ◽  
S. Ozainne ◽  
F. Raeli ◽  
A. Ballouche ◽  
M. Rasse ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
Sahara Desert ◽  
The South ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
Upper Pleistocene ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Environmental Sequence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Holocene Period

The area of Ounjougou consists of a series of gullies cut through Upper Pleistocene and Holocene formations on the Dogon Plateau in the Sahel at the south edge of the Sahara Desert. Here the authors have chronicled a stratified sequence of human occupation from the tenth to the second millennium BC, recording natural and anthropogenic strata containing artefacts and micro- and macro- palaeoecological remains, mostly in an excellent state of preservation. They present a first synthesis of the archaeological and environmental sequence for the Holocene period, define five main occupation phases for Ounjougou, and attempt to place them within the context of West African prehistory.

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