Tolerating change at Late Chalcolithic Tell Brak: responses of an early urban society to an uncertain climate

Abstract

Recent excavation and survey work in northern Mesopotamia has shown that the Late Chalcolithic urban-based society, based on rain-fed agriculture, in many ways matches that of southern Mesopotamian Uruk civilisation where irrigation agriculture is attributed a key role. This northern civilisation thrived for some thousand years from the late 5th to 4th millennium BC. Reconstruction of the climate of the region during this period suggests that a climatic optimum, of temperature and precipitation, persisted until the time of the collapse at the end of the 4th millennium BC. This paper assesses the scale and duration of climatic change around the 5·2 kBP climate event as recorded in lake and cave material and examines the on-site charred plant evidence of crops, weeds and wood charcoal from Tell Brak (north-eastern Syria) for economic and environmental responses to these climate changes.