Prehistoric Change Research Articles

Climate Change in Prehistory. The End of the Reign of Chaos

Climate Change in Prehistory. The End of the Reign of Chaos

Role of methane and biogenic volatile organic compound sources in late glacial and Holocene fluctuations of atmospheric methane concentrations

Recent analyses of ice core methane concentrations suggested that methane emissions from wetlands were the primary driver for prehistoric changes in atmospheric methane. However, these interpretations conflict as to the location of wetlands, magnitude of emissions, and the environmental controls on methane oxidation. The flux of other reactive trace gases to the atmosphere also controls apparent atmospheric methane concentrations because these compounds compete for the hydroxyl radical (OH), which is the primary atmospheric sink for methane. In a series of linked biosphere‐atmosphere chemistry‐climate modeling experiments, we simulate the methane and biogenic volatile organic compound emissions from the terrestrial biosphere from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the present. Using a state‐of‐the‐art chemistry‐climate model, we simulate the atmospheric concentrations of methane, OH, and other reactive trace gas species. Over the past 21,000 years, methane emissions from wetlands increased slightly to the end of the Pleistocene but then decreased again, reaching levels at the preindustrial Holocene that were similar to the LGM. Global wetland area decreased by 14% from LGM to the preindustrial time. Emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), however, nearly doubled over the same period of time. Atmospheric OH burdens and methane concentrations were affected by this major change in BVOC emissions, with methane lifetimes increasing by more than 2 years from LGM to the present. We simulate a change in methane concentration of ∼385 ppb, accounting for 88% of the ∼440 ppb increase in methane concentrations observed in ice cores. Thus glacial‐interglacial changes in atmospheric methane concentrations would have been modulated by BVOC emissions. In addition, the increase in atmospheric methane concentrations since the mid‐Holocene is partly caused in our results by the increases in anthropogenic methane emissions over this period. While the interplay between BVOC and wetland methane emissions since the LGM cannot explain the entire record of ice core methane concentrations, consideration of BVOC source dynamics is central to understanding ice core methane. Rapid changes in atmospheric methane concentrations, also observed in ice cores, require further study.

Climate change in prehistory: the end of the reign of chaos

1. Introduction 2. The climate of the last 100,000 years 3. Life in the Ice Age 4. The evolutionary implications of living with the Ice Age 5. Emerging from the Ice Age 6. Recorded history 7. Our climatic inheritance 8. The future Appendix Bibliography References.

Climate change in prehistory. By William J. Burroughs. Cambridge University Press, 2005. xii+356 pp. ISBN 13 978 0 521 82409 5

Climate change in prehistory. By William J. Burroughs. Cambridge University Press, 2005. xii+356 pp. ISBN 13 978 0 521 82409 5

PALEOECOLOGY OF SUBMERGED MACROPHYTES IN THE UPPER CHESAPEAKE BAY

Fossil seed distributions of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) from dated sediment cores in tributaries of the upper Chesapeake Bay show prehistoric changes in species composition and abundance and reflect the response of SAV species to human disturbance since European settlement. The interval of time spanned by the cores includes several centuries prior to, and three centuries following, European settlement. Species diversity is greatest in the low-salinity northern and upper tributaries, while areas of higher salinity and extensive salt marshes are characterized by low diversity or absence of SAV. Mapped distributions of seed abundances show the migration from upstream to downstream in some tributaries of the brackish species Potamogeton perfoliatus, Zannichellia palustris, and Ruppia maritima following deforestation. The largest increase in SAV, represented by the highest abundance of fossilized seeds, occurred during the 1700s after Europeans first cleared the land for farms, and the largest and most widespread decline took place in the 1960s and 1970s after most of the watershed had been at one time or another cleared and heavily fertilized for agriculture. Distributions of SAV are highly variable both temporally and spatially, reflecting the dynamic nature of estuarine habitats. Despite high environmental variability, local and regional extinctions occurred only in the most recent decades, indicating a threshold response to land use changes and nutrient loading which had begun at least two centuries earlier and intensified in the mid- to late 19th century.

Historic and Prehistoric Changes in the Rome, New York Pine Barrens

Historic and Prehistoric Changes in the Rome, New York Pine Barrens

Prehistoric fires and land-cover change in western Kenya: evidences from pollen, charcoal, grass cuticles and grass phytoliths

High rates of sediment accumulation in Lake Simbi, western Kenya, has enabled fine-resolution fossil assemblages to reveal short-term changes in vegetation cover between 4320 ± 250 yr BP and 2880 ± 90 yr BP. Pollen analysis of a 4.2 sediment core covering this period reveals a vegetation change around 3300 yr BP. Analysis of charcoal shows that wildfires were prominent prior to the pollen-inferred vegetation change. Remains of grass cuticles and grass phytoliths show an expansion of grasslands and an increase in the diversity of grass types following the period of extensive fires. Also following the period of wildfires and the vegetation change, there were shifts within the grass flora to more Chloridoid grass types and less Panicoid grass types. This paper addresses one of the major problems of environmental reconstruction in lowland savannah: namely differentiating palaeoecological changes within the Gramineae.

The Origins of Western Mono Coiled Basketry: A Reconstruction of Prehistoric Change in Material Culture

The Origins of Western Mono Coiled Basketry: A Reconstruction of Prehistoric Change in Material Culture

From Indo-European to Latin: The Evolution of a Morphosyntactic Type

This study aims to describe the typological characteristics of the original Indo-European structure, called the derivative-flectional stage (or (sub)type), and to trace its developments to the paradigmatically organized structure of the individual Indo-European languages, called the paradigmatic-flectional stage (or (sub)type). This development is demonstrated in Latin, a language characterized by highy developed inflection, which attests, especially by its verbal system, an alternative way of paradigmatizing the original structure, differing from Old Indian and Greek on which traditional reconstruction was based. The notion of derivative-flectional type is used to try to penetrate to the original form and historical sources of the IE flectional type without presupposing radical typological change between Proto-IE and IE. The author's view differs from the traditional theory of prehistoric change in IE structure (from isolation to flection via agglutination) in that she assumes the origins of flection lie in lexico-derivative categorization. The book is divided into three parts: 1. The Origins and Evolution of the Indo-European Flectional Type 2. The Basic Principles and Origins of the Nominal System and Inflections 3. The Indo-European Origins of the Latin Verbal System

Prehistoric Political Change on the Southeast Mesoamerican Periphery

AbstractRecent archaeological settlement pattern research in the 550 sq km Comayagua Valley in central Honduras has documented considerable variation in the political structure of one ranked society over a 2,500-year period of prehistory. Data presented suggest that this Lenca and proto-Lenca culture group underwent at least five major political restructurings during this time as a response to the local, regional, and interregional political climate on the southeast Mesoamerican periphery. Such variability calls into question traditional models postulating a lack of complexity or adaptive flexibility for indigenous cultures of lower Central America.

Prehistoric artifact invention, value, and change

Abstract The evolution of artifacts has been accretive in ideas, materials, energy, and function, resulting in increasing numbers and kinds of artifacts, whereas ideological and social evolution has largely been substitutive and slower. Innovations in caloric, chemic and biologic energies may have been initiated by women, with elaborations by men resulting in specialization. Evolution of materials used in the manufacture of the food, shelter, tool, and toy functions now puts us firmly in the Synthetic Stage, preceded by half a million years of the Natural Stage of human artifact evolution. The toy function is being increasingly interwoven with other functions. Trade in techniques, materials, and finished artifacts has resulted in artifactual similarities around the world, giving hope for a true unification of mankind.

The evolution of sociopolitical complexity in prehistoric Hawaii: An assessment of the archaeological evidence

The sociopolitical system of late prehistoric Hawaii was among the most complex of any Oceanic chiefdom, as indexed by such characteristics as scale, rate of energy extraction, degree of functional specialization, and political hierarchy. Various anthropologists and archaeologists have advanced models of how this complex sociopolitical system developed out of an earlier Ancestral Polynesian society. Recent advances in Hawaiian archaeology have now begun to provide a wealth of data on the course of prehistoric change in the archipelago over some 1500 years and, thus, provide evidence which can be used to test alternative models of the evolution of sociopolitical complexity. This paper reviews the major alternative models that have been put forward and provides a synopsis of the archaeological evidence relevant to their testing.

Grasshopper Glacier: Characterization of a vanishing biological resource

NATURALLY PRESERVED ANIMALS and plants are of tremendous scientific value. Specimens preserved in ice, amber, or tar and fossilized by various means allow study of organisms and processes that no longer exist. Historically, a great deal of work has focused on fossilized specimens, and such studies have revealed much about prehistoric climatic conditions, life forms, evolutionary trends, and other changes that have occurred with geological time. However, perhaps because of the relative inaccessibility and rarity of organisms preserved in ice, glacial deposits have received little attention.

The recent prehistoric exploitation of edible mussel in Aboriginal shell middens in southern New South Wales

A striking but hitherto poorly documented feature of many coastal shell middens in southern New South Wales is the relatively high proportion of edible mussel Mytilus edulis planulatus in their uppermost layers. Poiner (1971) noted an increase in mussel in the upper layers of several shell middens near Sydney, but the phenomenon was particularly remarked upon by Bowdler (1970, 1976) for a site she excavated at Bass Point (Fig. 1). Bowdler recorded an abrupt change to mussel as the dominant shellfish species in the uppermost layers of this midden and proposed a cultural explanation for the change. In terms of both coastal physiography and ecology, the southern coastal region of New South Wales extends over 1000 km from the Hunter River to Mallacoota (Fig. 1). Edible mussel occurs throughout this region (Hum 1970), with the northern limit of its range occurring at Wallis Lake, less than 100 km north. Of about 500 stratified rock platform or estuarine shell midden deposits investigated in this region during a study by Sullivan (1982) at least 20% clearly demonstrated a recent increase in the proportion of edible mussel. Sullivan (1982) observed that this change was widespread but variable in its nature and timing. In some sites edible mussel became the dominant shellfish species in terms of midden volume, but in many others where it did not achieve dominant proportions it made up an appreciable component only of the most recent midden layers. In some middens mussel remained an insignificant component throughout, but nowhere did it decline proportionally in the most recent layers. In some sites the change to mussel was abrupt whereas in others it was gradual. The change, while not synchronous, apparently occurred within the time period between about 1200 and 700 years BP. In this paper causes of the recent prehistoric change to edible mussel are examined. The answer relies essentially on an assessment of the degree to which environmental or cultural factors, or a combination of these, were responsible. On balance the ecological, archaeological and chronological evidence favours cultural rather than environmental explanations.

New Evidence Concerning the Chronology and Paleoethnobotany of Salts Cave, Kentucky

Recent research has resolved problems surrounding the chronology and archeobotanical record of the Salts Cave Vestibule. Formerly, widely disparate radiocarbon dates made assignment of the site to either the Late Archaic or Early Woodland period equally problematic. Eight new radiocarbon determinations from Vestibule charcoal indicate an occupation in the first millennium B.C., confirming an assignment to the Early Woodland period. Previous analyses of carbonized plant remains from stratified deposits in the Vestibule indicated that the domestication of two native plants, sumpweed and sunflower, preceded the introduction of cucurbits into this part of the Eastern Woodlands. Data from other Midwestern sites have contradicted this generalization. A recent analysis of a second series of archeobotanical samples indicates that cucurbits were present at Salts Cave as early as the domesticated native annuals. These new data render the archeobotanical record of Salts Cave less anomalous than previously, and support the currently accepted reconstructions of prehistoric subsistence change in the Eastern Woodlands.

Demographic Reconstructions in the American Southwest: Alternative Behavioral Means to the Same Archaeological Ends

ABSTRACTPaleodemographic reconstructions are an important component of many evaluations of prehistoric cultural change, and the number of sites in an area, the size of those sites, or both of these variables are frequently used to estimate population size over time. Some of the reconstructions are based on a set of implicit assumptions—that a large number of large sites is the result of a large population. Despite the plausibility of this assumption, factors other than many people may have produced many and/or large sites. Data from the historic Navajo occupation of Black Mesa, Arizona, are used to illustrate our point.

The Walls of Jericho: An Alternative Interpretation

Historique des expeditions decidees a trouver les murs detruits par Josue. Reexamen des conclusions de K. Kenyon, grâce a la derniere publication de T. A. Holland. Expose des sequences chronologiques depuis le Natoufien (de I a XI) et leur datation C14. Afin de reconsiderer les interpretations de K. Kenyon, l'A. explore l'evolution generale des cultures prehistoriques du Proche-Orient, la position speciale de Jericho, les processus geomorphologiques qui influencerent son histoire. Il semble que les murs du PPNA aient ete construits a un moment ou les habitants songeaient surtout a proteger leurs installations des caprices de la nature

The Hawaiian case

Ross H. Cordy. A Study of Prehistoric Social Change: The Development of Complex Societies in the Hawaiian Islands. New York: Academic Press, 1981. xii + 274 pp. $29.00

V. Gordon Childe 25 Years After: His Relevance for the Archaeology of the Eighties

AbstractThis is a review article of three monographs published recently about v. Gordon Childe, who was Europe's most eminent prehistorian from 1925–1957. The article draws attention to the fact that there seems, especially in Great Britain, to be a re-emergence of Childe's popularity after a relative inattention in the last 20 years. There is a possible explanation of this phenomenon as part of the reactionary trend of European, and especially British, archaeology to the American New Archaeology and as part of the development of strongly history-oriented theoretical models of social and economic change. The article focusses on the theoretical and philosophical background to Childe's writings, especially on his ideas of progress, historical theory, and his use of historical materialist models of prehistoric cultural change.

Prehistoric soil and vegetation development on Bodmin Moor, southwestern England

Archaeological excavation of barrows in the St Neot Valley on the southern flanks of Bodmin Moor revealed buried soils developed in the gravelly granitic head typical of the upland block. By comparing these soil profiles with adjacent soils we have obtained evidence for and now describe dramatic prehistoric changes in upland soils and vegetation attributed previously to various combinations of human influences and climatic events. Direct pedological and palaeoecological evidence supports the theory that brown soils existed in pre-Bronze Age times in southwestern England at a site subsequently developing an iron pan (Bf) and accumulating a strongly acid peaty surface.