Intermediate Bronze Age: Altered Trajectories.

Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant.

"Societies adapted quickly to altered dry-farming cereal production at the onset and terminus of the 4.2–3.9 kaBP (4200–3900 years ago, or 2200–1900 BCE) abrupt climate change. Relatively high-resolution and independent archaeological and paleoclimate records document that the period of abrupt climate change began with: 1) regional abandonments; 2) habitat-tracking to riparian, paludal, and karst spring-fed refugia; and 3) nomadization (subsistence-transfer from agriculture to pastoral nomadism). Adaptive social responses at the termination of the abrupt climate change included: 1) sedentarization; 2) political state formation; 3) increased and enhanced surplus agro-production; and 4) politico-territorial expansion. This 300-year period provides, therefore, an alluring Holocene example of societal responses to abrupt climate change across the eastern Mediterranean and west Asian landscapes, and in particular across steep gradient ecotones of modern Syria and Lebanon.... "

From Villages to Towns: Studies Presented to Ufuk Esin, Arkeoloji ve Sanat Publications, Istanbul, 2003

A Companion to Ancient Agriculture, David Hollander & Timothy Howe (eds), 2020

Documenta Praehistorica, 2023

The article presents the concepts of repeating cycles of rapid climate variability in the Holocene, including rapid cooling cycles, cold events, ice-rafting events, and rapid climate change recorded in palaeoclimate archives. It also discusses the concepts of adaptation strategies embedded in the catastrophic scenarios of collapse on the one hand, and panarchy, resilience, and adaptation cycle on the other, i.e. the processes of transforming social hierarchical structures into dynamic, adaptive entities. In the rapid climate change series we focus on the 9.2 ka and 8.2 ka climate events associated with the Neolithisation process and the transition to farming. The 5.9 IRD event and/or period of rapid climate change from 6000–5200 cal yr BP are associated with the cultural, economic, and demographic collapse of the Early Neolithic Linear Pottery culture in central and western Europe. We also discuss the triad of recent weakening of North Atlantic ocean circulation, decreased solar activity, and the hypothesised transition to a cold period, the well-known historical scenario associated with the transition to Little Ice Age between 1450 and 1850.

The socio-cultural dynamics of the Bronze Age communities of Apulia (S-E Italy) during the 2nd millennium BC represent a crucial moment in the history of the relationship between humans and nature. Over the last few decades, several studies have highlighted the complex pattern of Late Holocene climate shifts across the Mediterranean region and the difficulties in distinguishing these changes from human impacts in many proxy records. This study consists of a regional-diachronic overview of Bronze Age archaeobotanical data, pertaining to south-eastern Italy, derived from charcoal and seed/fruit analysis performed on materials from several archaeological sites distributed across Apulia. The aim is to identify possible plant-related changes in subsistence strategies during a period of transformation in the environment as well as cultural systems. It follows an integrated approach in which the shifts in plant assemblages (seeds/fruits and charcoals) are considered in the light of high-resolution palaeoclimate proxies, available for the central Mediterranean area, and socio-cultural dynamics inferred from archaeological evidences. The different lines of evidence explored provide the basis for a discussion of the possible reasons for changes in subsistence strategies during the course of the Bronze Age in the area. What emerges from our analysis are major transformations of annual crop husbandry, seasonal harvesting strategies and storage technologies, one in the Middle and one in the Late Bronze Age. Although the first transformation appears to be linked to climate forces, the latter seems to be the result of social and political “pressure”.

The seven plagues. Catastrophes and destructions in Palestine and Egypt during the pre-classical period. Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, wars, famines and epidemics in the archaeological record and in Biblical and ancient Egyptian sources: an innovative approach, 2014

In order to “Deepen [...] themes allowing a more precise definition of catastrophic events identified in the archaeological record”, we propose to check how the tools we have today allow identifying and estimating climatic changes, crisis and/or catastrophic events at a regional scale. We must consider first the meaning of the words we use in that kind of research. “Catastrophe” is, by definition, an event that archaeology identifies only by chance when we have no texts. The consequences of a disaster, perceptible by the immediate reaction of the population, – social destabilization, or no consequence – are identifiable only if a finely tuned stratigraphic continuity on an excavated site allows it. When we speak of “climate fluctuation”, we seek to establish what is called an “environmental crisis” in case of fluctuation seen as negative, or, conversely, improvement, positive change (more rarely characterized and studied!). Jean-Paul Bravard asked whether “a retrospective analysis of the environmental crisis is possible? Geosciences researchers aim at identifying environmental descriptors, and then infer the occurrence of a crisis. Crisis is identified ex post several centuries or millennia after its occurrence, without any real possibility of understanding the socio-cultural issues or the social adaptation/reaction to the natural processes. The only identified reality is the recording of physical phenomena whose aggregate product curves out of geological standards defined by the scientific community”1. For us archaeologists, questions are then: “Are we sure that the ʽcrisisʼ was perceived and analyzed as such by ancient societies who have experienced it? Has the crisis produced impacts on society and, if so, what kind of reaction or adaptation? In other words, what is the status of the societal component in the studied process?”. We know that there is no single answer to these questions! Our purpose is to present: 1) the data on which we can now rely on to attempt to construct hypotheses about the nature and intensity of climate crisis; 2) the nature and intensity of settlement patterns variations. It is only in a second step that we can try to examine the relationship between the two sets of observations, in a joint work of archaeology and geosciences.

The Early/Middle Bronze Age Transition in the Ancient Near East. Chronology, C14, and Climate Change, ed., F. Höflmayer , 2017