Book contents
- Quaternary of the Levant
- Quaternary of the Levant
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Quaternary of the Levant
- Part I: The Evolution of Current Landscapes and Basins
- Part II: Palaeoclimates
- Part III: Archaeology of Human Evolution
- Part IV: Palaeoecology
- Part V: Quaternary Geomorphology
- Part VI: Humans in the Levant
- 59 The Acheulian of the Levant
- 60 The Palaeolithic Sequence in Southeast Turkey
- 61 Lower and Middle Palaeolithic of Lebanon
- 62 The Lower Palaeolithic of Syria
- 63 The Lower Palaeolithic of Jordan
- 64 The Middle Palaeolithic of Southern Jordan
- 65 Middle Palaeolithic Open-Air Sites
- 66 A Hominid ‘Archetype’
- 67 Neanderthals and Modern Humans in the Levant: An Overview
- 68 Human Fossils from the Upper Palaeolithic through the Early Holocene
- 69 The Initial Upper Palaeolithic in the Levant
- 70 The Upper Palaeolithic in Cisjordan
- 71 The Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic of Cisjordan
- 72 The Early Epipalaeolithic in the Eastern Levant
- 73 The Upper and Epipalaeolithic of Southern Jordan
- 74 The Upper and Epipalaeolithic of the Azraq Basin, Jordan
- 75 Late Quaternary Refugia, Aggregations, and Palaeoenvironments in the Azraq Basin, Jordan
- 76 The Epipalaeolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Lebanon
- 77 The Natufian Culture
- 78 The Natufian Period in Syria
- 79 Natufian and Early Neolithic in the Black Desert, Eastern Jordan
- 80 The Archaeology of Early Farming in Southeast Turkey
- 81 Early Agriculture in the Southern Levant
- 82 Domesticating Plants in the Near East
- 83 The Neolithic of Southern Jordan
- 84 The Beginning of Animal Domestication and Husbandry in Southwest Asia
- 85 Environmental Change and Society in Holocene Prehistory
- Index
- Plate section
- References
85 - Environmental Change and Society in Holocene Prehistory
from Part VI: - Humans in the Levant
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 May 2017
Book contents
- Quaternary of the Levant
- Quaternary of the Levant
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Quaternary of the Levant
- Part I: The Evolution of Current Landscapes and Basins
- Part II: Palaeoclimates
- Part III: Archaeology of Human Evolution
- Part IV: Palaeoecology
- Part V: Quaternary Geomorphology
- Part VI: Humans in the Levant
- 59 The Acheulian of the Levant
- 60 The Palaeolithic Sequence in Southeast Turkey
- 61 Lower and Middle Palaeolithic of Lebanon
- 62 The Lower Palaeolithic of Syria
- 63 The Lower Palaeolithic of Jordan
- 64 The Middle Palaeolithic of Southern Jordan
- 65 Middle Palaeolithic Open-Air Sites
- 66 A Hominid ‘Archetype’
- 67 Neanderthals and Modern Humans in the Levant: An Overview
- 68 Human Fossils from the Upper Palaeolithic through the Early Holocene
- 69 The Initial Upper Palaeolithic in the Levant
- 70 The Upper Palaeolithic in Cisjordan
- 71 The Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic of Cisjordan
- 72 The Early Epipalaeolithic in the Eastern Levant
- 73 The Upper and Epipalaeolithic of Southern Jordan
- 74 The Upper and Epipalaeolithic of the Azraq Basin, Jordan
- 75 Late Quaternary Refugia, Aggregations, and Palaeoenvironments in the Azraq Basin, Jordan
- 76 The Epipalaeolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Lebanon
- 77 The Natufian Culture
- 78 The Natufian Period in Syria
- 79 Natufian and Early Neolithic in the Black Desert, Eastern Jordan
- 80 The Archaeology of Early Farming in Southeast Turkey
- 81 Early Agriculture in the Southern Levant
- 82 Domesticating Plants in the Near East
- 83 The Neolithic of Southern Jordan
- 84 The Beginning of Animal Domestication and Husbandry in Southwest Asia
- 85 Environmental Change and Society in Holocene Prehistory
- Index
- Plate section
- References
Summary
The Holocene saw both a significant reduction in the scale of climatic and environmental change relative to the Pleistocene, as well as major technological and social developments enhancing human adaptations. Human groups increasingly managed and engineered their environments, ultimately resulting in greater reliance on food production rather than collection, with the effect of both enhancing food security in times of climatic stability and increasing vulnerability in times of unpredictable climate change. Demographic growth increased risk from such changes. Holocene prehistory includes the development of early village foragers using low-level cultivation of cereals through more complex village societies more dependent upon food production. Understanding the culture-environment dynamic requires fine resolution reconstructions of both the environmental and the historical circumstances, chronological and geographical; global perspectives will not suffice. The ability of human groups to adapt to changing environments and buffer themselves against risk by actively constructing their environments is embedded in their specific social structures and technologies.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Quaternary of the LevantEnvironments, Climate Change, and Humans, pp. 761 - 766Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2017
References
Albert, R.M. & Henry, D.O. 2004. Herding and agricultural activities at the early neolithic site of Ayn Abu Nukhayla (Wadi Rum, Jordan). The results of phytolith and spherulite analyses. Paléorient 30: 81–92.Google Scholar
Bar-Matthews, M. & Ayalon, A. 2004. Speleothems as palaeoclimate indicators: A case study from Soreq Cave located in the eastern Mediterranean region, Israel. In Past Climate Variability through Europe and Africa, ed. Battarbee, R., Gasse, F., & Stickley, C.E.. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 363–91.Google Scholar
Bar-Matthews, M., Ayalon, A., Kaufman, A. & Wasserburg, G.J. 1999. The eastern Mediterranean paleoclimate as a reflection of regional events: Soreq Cave. Israel. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 166: 85–95.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Belfer-Cohen, A. 2002. Facing environmental crisis: Societal and cultural changes at the transition from the Younger Dryas to the Holocene in the Levant. In The Dawn of Farming in the Near East, ed. Cappers, R.T.J. & Bottema, S.. SENEPSE 6. Berlin: ex oriente, pp. 55–66.Google Scholar
Baruch, U. 1986. The late Holocene vegetational history of Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), Israel. Paléorient 12: 37–48.Google Scholar
Baruch, U. & Bottema, S. 1999. Palynological evidence for climatic changes in the Levant ca. 17,000–9,000 BP. In The Natufian Culture in the Levant, ed. Bar-Yosef, O. & Valla, F.. Ann Arbor: International Monographs in Prehistory, pp. 11–20.Google Scholar
Bruins, H.J. & Lithwick, H. (ed.) 1998. The Arid Frontier: Interactive Management of Environment and Development. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burton, M. 2001. The Chalcolithic radiocarbon record and its use in southern Levantine archaeology. Radiocarbon 43: 1223–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butzer, K.W. 1982. Archaeology as Human Ecology: Method and Theory for a Contextual Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crouvi, O., Amit, R., Enzel, Y., Porat, N. & Sandler, A. 2008. Sand dunes as a major proximal dust source for late Pleistocene loess in the Negev desert, Israel. Quaternary Research 70: 275–82.Google Scholar
Crouvi, O. Amit, R., Enzel, Y. & Gillespie, A.R. 2010. Active sand seas and the formation of desert loess. Quaternary Science Reviews 29: 2087–98.Google Scholar
Davis, S. 1984. Climatic change and the advent of domestication: The succession of ruminant artiodactyls in the Late Pleistocene–Holocene in the Israel region. Paléorient 8: 5–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eastwood, W.J., Roberts, N., Lamb, H.F. & Tibby, J.C. 1999. Holocene environmental change in southwest Turkey: A palaeoecological record of lake and catchment-related changes. Quaternary Science Reviews 18: 671–95.Google Scholar
Enzel, Y., Bookman, R., Sharon, D. et al. 2003. Late Holocene climates of the Near East deduced from Dead Sea level variations and modern regional winter rainfall. Quaternary Research 60: 263–73.Google Scholar
Enzel, Y., Amit, R., Dayan, U. et al. 2008. The climatic and physiographic controls of the eastern Mediterranean over the late Pleistocene climates in the southern Levant and its neighboring deserts. Global and Planetary Change 60: 165–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enzel, Y., Amit, R., Crouvi, O. & Porat, N. 2010. Abrasion-derived sediments under intensified winds at the latest Pleistocence leading edge of the advancing Sinai–Negev erg. Quarternary Research 74: 121–31.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A. 1997. The Holocene history of Dead Sea levels. In The Dead Sea: The Lake and its Setting, ed. Niemi, T.M., Ben-Avraham, Z. & Gat, J.R.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 237–48.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A., Magartiz, M., Carmi, I. & Zak, I. 1991. The Holocene climatic record of the salt caves of Mount Sedom, Israel. The Holocene 1: 191–200.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A., Ford, D.C. & Schwarcz, H.P. 1999. Continental oxygen isotope record of the last 170,000 years in Jerusalem. Quaternary Research 51: 317–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galili, E., Rosen, B., Gopher, A. & Kolska-Horwitz, L. 2002. The emergence and dispersion of the eastern Mediterranean fishing village: Evidence from submerged Neolithic settlements off the Carmel Coast, Israel. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 15: 167–98.Google Scholar
Gilead, I. 1993. Socio-political organization in the northern Negev at the end of the Chalcolithic period. In Biblical Archaeology Today 1990, Pre-Congress Symposium Supplement, ed. Biran, A. & Aviram, J.. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, pp. 82–97.Google Scholar
Gilead, I. 1994. The history of Chalcolithic settlement in the Nahal Beer Sheva Area: The radiocarbon aspect. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 296: 1–13.Google Scholar
Goldberg, P. 1986. Late Quaternary environmental history of the southern Levant. Geoarchaeology 1: 225–44.Google Scholar
Goldberg, P. 1987. The geology and stratigraphy of Shiqmim. In Shiqmim I: Prehistoric Investigations of Early Farming Communities in the Negev, ed. Levy, T.E., BAR International Series 356. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, pp. 35–44.Google Scholar
Goldberg, P. & Rosen, A.M. 1987. Early Holocene paleoenvironments of Israel. In Shiqmim I: Prehistoric Investigations of Early Farming Communities in the Negev, ed. Levy, T.E., BAR International Series 356. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, pp. 23–34.Google Scholar
Goodfriend, G.A. 1988. Mid-Holocene rainfall in the Negev Desert from 13C of land snail shell organic matter. Nature 333: 757–60.Google Scholar
Goodfriend, G.A. 1990. Rainfall in the Negev Desert during the Middle Holocene, based on 13C of organic matter in land snail shells. Quaternary Research 34: 186–97.Google Scholar
Goodfriend, G.A. 1999. Terrestrial stable isotope records of late Quaternary paleoclimates in the eastern Mediterranean region. Quaternary Science Reviews 18: 501–13.Google Scholar
Goodfriend, G.A. & Magaritz, M. 1988. Paleosols and late Pleistocene rainfall fluctuations in the Negev desert. Nature 332: 144–46.Google Scholar
Goring-Morris, A.N. 1987. At the Edge: Terminal Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherers in the Negev and Sinai, BAR International Series 361. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Goring-Morris, A.N. & Belfer-Cohen, A. 1998. The articulation of cultural processes and Late Quaternary environmental changes in Cisjordan. Paléorient 23: 71–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, D.O. & Beaver, J.E. (ed). 2014. The Sands of Time. The Desert Neolithic Settlement at Ayn Abū Nukhayla, Bibliotheca Neolithica Asiae meridionalis et occidentalis. Berlin: ex oriente.Google Scholar
Horwitz, L.K., Tchernov, E., Ducos, P. et al. 1999. Animal domestication in the southern Levant. Paléorient 25: 63–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Issar, A.S. & Zohar, M. 2004. Climate Change: Environment and Civilization in the Middle East. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, O., Gilead, I., Bar (Kutiel), P. & Shahack-Gross, R. 2007. Chalcolithic agricultural life at the site of Grar, northern Negev, Israel: Dry farmed cereals and dung-fueled hearths. Paléorient 33: 101–16.Google Scholar
Köhler-Rollefson, I. 1992. A model for the development of nomadic pastoralism on the Transjordanian Plateau. In Pastoralism in the Levant: Archaeological Materials in Anthropological Perspective, ed. Bar-Yosef, O. & Khazanov, A.M., Monographs in World Archaeology 10. Madison: Prehistory Press, pp. 11–8.Google Scholar
Kuijt, I. & Goring-Morris, N. 2002. Foraging, farming, and social complexity in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the southern Levant: A review and synthesis. Journal of World Prehistory 16: 361–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuzucuoğlu, C., Bertaux, J., Black, S. et al. 1999. Reconstruction of climatic changes during the Late Pleistocene, based on sediment records from the Konya Basin (central Anatolia, Turkey). Geological Journal 34: 175–98.Google Scholar
Litt, T., Ohlwein, C., Neumann, F.H., Hense, A. & Stein, M. 2012. Holocene climate variability in the Levant from the Dead Sea pollen record. Quaternary Science Reviews 49: 95–105.Google Scholar
Lovell, J. & Rowan, Y. (ed.) 2011. Culture, Chronology and the Chalco-lithic: Theory and Transition. London: Council for British Research in the Levant.Google Scholar
Martin, L. 1999. Mammal remains from the eastern Jordanian Neolithic, and the nature of caprine herding in the steppe. Paléorient 25: 87–104.Google Scholar
Meadows, J. 2005. The Younger Dryas episode and the radiocarbon chronologies of the Lake Huleh and Ghab Valley pollen diagrams, Israel and Syria. The Holocene 15: 631–6.Google Scholar
Migowski, C., Stein, M., Prasad, S., Negendank, J.F.W. & Agnon, A. 2006. Holocene climate variability and cultural evolution in the Near East from the Dead Sea sedimentary record. Quaternary Research 66: 421–31.Google Scholar
Niklweski, J. & Van Zeist, W. 1970. A late Quaternary pollen diagram from northwest Syria. Acta Botanica Neerlandica 9: 737–54.Google Scholar
Roberts, N. 2002. Did prehistoric landscape management retard the post-glacial spread of woodland in southwest Asia? Antiquity 76: 1002–10.Google Scholar
Rollefson, G. & Köhler-Rollefson, I. 1989. The collapse of Early Neolithic settlements in the southern Levant. In People and Culture in Change: Proceedings of the Second Symposium on Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Populations of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, ed. Hershkovitz, I., BAR International Series 508. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, pp. 73–89.Google Scholar
Rosen, A.M. 1986a. Quaternary stratigraphy and paleoenvironments of the Shephela, Israel. Geological Survey of Israel Report GSI/25/86.Google Scholar
Rosen, A.M. 1986b. Environmental change and settlement at Tel Lachish, Israel. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 263: 55–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, A.M. 1987. Phytolith studies at Shiqmim. In Shiqmim I: Prehistoric Investigations of Early Farming Communities in the Negev, ed. Levy, T.E., BAR International Series 356. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, pp. 243–50, 547–8.Google Scholar
Rosen, A.M. 1991. Early Bronze Age Tel Erani: An environmental perspective. Tel Aviv 18: 192–204.Google Scholar
Rosen, A.M. 2007. Civilizing Climate: Social Responses to Climate Change in the Ancient Near East. Walnut Creek: Altamira.Google Scholar
Rosen, A.M. 2010. Natufian plant exploitation: Managing risk and stability in an environment of change. Eurasian Prehistory 7: 117–31.Google Scholar
Rosen, A.M. 2013. Natufian foragers and the ‘monocot revolution’: A phytolith perspective. In Natufian Foragers in the Levant: Terminal Pleistocene Social Changes in Western Asia, ed. Bar-Yosef, O. & Valla, F.R.. Ann Arbor: International Monographs in Prehistory, pp. 638–48.Google Scholar
Rosen, A.M. & Rivera-Collazo, I. 2012. Climate change, adaptive cycles, and the persistence of foraging economies during the late Pleistocene/Holocene transition in the Levant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 109: 3640–5.Google Scholar
Rosen, A.M. & Rosen, S.A. 2001. Determinist or not determinist? Climate, environment, and archaeological explanation in the Levant. In Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and Neighboring Lands in Memory of Douglas L. Esse, ed. Wolff, S., SAOC 59 and ASOR Books 5. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, pp. 535–50.Google Scholar
Rosen, S.A. 2011. The desert and the pastoralist: An archaeological perspective on human-landscape interaction in the Negev over the millennia. Annals of Arid Zone 50: 295–309.Google Scholar
Rossignol-Strick, M. 1995. Sea–land correlation of pollen records in the eastern Mediterranean for the glacial–interglacial transition: biostratigraphy versus radiometric time-scale. Quaternary Science Reviews 14: 893–915.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, M., Torfstein, A., Gavrieli, I. & Yechieli, Y. 2010. Quaternary Science Reviews 29: 567–75.Google Scholar
Stutz, A.J., Munro, N.D. & Bar-Oz, G. 2009. Increasing the resolution of the broad spectrum revolution in the southern Levantine Epipaleolithic. Journal of Human Evolution 56: 294–306.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ullah, I.T. 2011. A GIS method for assessing the zone of human-environmental impact around archaeological sites: a test case from the Late Neolithic of Wadi Ziqlâb, Jordan. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 623–32.Google Scholar
Weiss, E., Kislev, M.E., Simchoni, O. & Nadel, D. 2004. Small-grained wild grasses as staple food at the 23 000-year-old site of Ohalo II, Israel. Economic Botany 58 (Supplement): S125–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, E., Kislev, M.E. & Hartmann, A. 2006. Autonomous cultivation before domestication. Science 312: 1608–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wick, L., Lemcke, G. & Sturm, M. 2003. Evidence of Late Glacial and Holocene climatic change and human impact in eastern Anatolia: High resolution pollen, charcoal, isotopic and geochemical records from the laminated sediments of Lake Van, Turkey. The Holocene 13: 665–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, H.E. & Thorpe, J.L. 2003. Climatic change and the origin of agriculture in the Near East. In Global Change in the Holocene, ed. Mackay, A., Battarbee, R., Birks, J. & Oldfield, F.. London: Arnold Press, pp. 49–92.Google Scholar
Yasuda, Y., Kitagawa, H. & Nakagawa, T. 2000. The earliest record of major anthropogenic deforestation in the Ghab Valley, northwest Syria: a palynological study. Quaternary International 73/4: 127–36.Google Scholar
- 5
- Cited by