Abstract
The effects of the 4.2 kya climatic event on northern Mesopotamia have been the subject of significant scholarly debate, with the notion of a megadrought that forced local populations to migrate attracting particular attention. Here, the authors analyse stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotopes in human tooth and bone samples to assess trends in subsistence practice at three sites in Syria before, during and after the presumed megadrought event. Despite the proximity of the sites, isotopic differences between them are more significant than diachronic change. Combined with other archaeological evidence, these results indicate a continuity in subsistence patterns, with no indication of disruption associated with the 4.2 kya event.
Highlights
Among the eight identified North Atlantic ice-rafting events that are interpreted as periods of aridification in the Northern Hemisphere, the event that started around 4200 years BP and known as the Bond event 3 (Bond et al 2001) is considered to have been the most severe (Walker et al 2018)
Staubwasser & Weiss 2006), Weiss (2016) still claims that the 4.2 kya event resulted in a megadrought that decreased average annual precipitation by 30–50 per cent and forced local populations to migrate to other regions, mainly to southern Mesopotamia
The sample sizes are small for most subsets, and isotopic measurements in contemporaneous animal bones or cereal grains are only available for Tell Brak, the isotopic evidence is sufficient to show that no dramatic shifts in subsistence occurred in the Khabur Basin during the 4.2 kya event
Summary
Among the eight identified North Atlantic ice-rafting events that are interpreted as periods of aridification in the Northern Hemisphere, the event that started around 4200 years BP and known as the Bond event 3 (Bond et al 2001) is considered to have been the most severe (Walker et al 2018). Archaeological evidence led Harvey Weiss, the excavator of the site, to argue that rapid aridification made both herding and plant cultivation unreliable, resulting in the abandonment of the entire region for a few centuries (Weiss et al 1993) His opinion about the cause of this disaster has since evolved (cf Staubwasser & Weiss 2006), Weiss (2016) still claims that the 4.2 kya event resulted in a megadrought that decreased average annual precipitation by 30–50 per cent and forced local populations to migrate to other regions, mainly to southern Mesopotamia. In locations where agricultural output may have increased through the expansion of arable fields or by more intensive manuring, drought events had limited effects on population densities (Ur 2015; Cookson et al 2019) Instead, they triggered a transformation in local forms of social organisation, resulting in adaptations to the new environmental conditions (Pfälzner 2012, 2017). One study suggests an increase in pig consumption during the Akkadian and post-Akkadian periods (Dobney et al 2003), while another indicates a relatively low proportion of pig during the same period (Clutton-Brock et al 2001)—a discrepancy that may merely reflect variability in dietary preferences between different social groups at this large site
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