Abstract
Abstract. This paper focuses on early Holocene rapid climate change (RCC) records in the Mediterranean zone, which are under-represented in continental archives (9.2 to 8.2 ka events) and on their impact on prehistoric societies. This lack of data handicaps the general interpretation of climate impacts on human societies, which flourished in recent years. Key questions remain about the impact of early Holocene cooling events on the Mediterranean climate, ecosystems and human societies. In this paper, we discuss some examples from river and lake systems from the eastern to central Mediterranean area (central Anatolia, Cyprus, northeastern and northwestern Greece) that illustrate some palaeohydrological and erosion variations that modified the sustainability of the first Neolithic populations in this region. Results allow us to present direct land–sea correlations and to reconstruct regional long-term trends as well as millennial- to centennial-scale climatic changes. In this context, we question the socio-economic and geographical adaptation capacities of these societies (mobility, technology, economic practices, social organisation) during the “early Holocene” interval (11.7 to 8.2 ka), which corresponds partly to the Sapropel 1 deposition in the eastern Mediterranean sea.
Highlights
Expected to have had a large impact on past societies, rapid climate changes (RCCs), which start abruptly within one decade or two at the most and most often concern a period of 150 to 400 years, are often considered one of the main environmental factors causing socioeconomic and cultural changes, migrations, and even collapses (Weiss et al, 1993; Cullen et al, 2000; Staubwasser and Weiss, 2006; Weninger et al, 2006)
The cultural turning point that occurs through Neolithic Anatolia ca. 8.6 ka seems more distinct than changes happening ca. 8.2/7.8 ka (Düring, 2011; charts in Özdogan, 2012a, b)
This study demonstrates the reality of hydrogeomorphological responses to early Holocene RCCs derived from glacial outburst in valleys and alluvial fans and lake–marsh systems
Summary
Expected to have had a large impact on past societies, rapid climate changes (RCCs), which start abruptly within one decade or two at the most (in polar records) and most often concern a period of 150 to 400 years, are often considered one of the main environmental factors causing socioeconomic and cultural changes, migrations, and even collapses (Weiss et al, 1993; Cullen et al, 2000; Staubwasser and Weiss, 2006; Weninger et al, 2006). In the course of this debate, recent and ongoing research on Neolithic societies points to the necessity to focus simultaneously on (i) the economic, socio-cultural, technological and cognitive transformations of the human group living on site(s); (ii) the sharpening of old and new chronological series within the site(s); (iii) the development of contextual analyses associated with geoarchaeological researches; and (iv) investigating, with a highresolution and multi-proxy approach, the palaeoenvironmental records available in the vicinity of Neolithic sites and their connections with the sites, an approach that is at present poorly utilised. From the site to the region and from the eastern to the central Mediterranean, the hydrogeomorphic and ecological impacts of these early Holocene RCCs are evaluated, along with their potential impacts on the first Neolithic societies
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