Book Description

Climate and human responses to it have a strongly interconnected relationship. Thus when climate change occurs, the result of either natural or human causes, societies should react and adapt to these. But do they? If so, what is the nature of that change, and are the responses positive or negative for the long-term survival of social groups? In Climate and Societies, scholars from diverse disciplines includ-ing archaeology, geology and climate sciences explore scientific and material evidence for climate changes in the past, their causes, their effects on ancient societies and how those societies responded. Organized around four key themes each dealing with ways to understand past climates, human impact, and sustainability – holocene climate reconstruction; responses of complex societies to climatic variation; Archaeological evidence for pollution and its ecological implica-tions; and stable isotope analysis in the Middle East – the chapters demonstrate the value of a longue durée perspective on a topic of crucial importance to the future of our planet. Climate and Ancient Societies is dedicated to the memory of the Danish scholar, zooarchaeologist, Dr. Stine Rossel, University of Copenhagen who died following a freak accident, while hiking with her husband in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (USA), shortly after having submitted her dissertation to Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the PhD in Anthropology. The dissertation The Development of Productive Subsistence Economies in the Nile Valley: Zooarchaeological Analysis at El-Mahâsna and South Abydos, Upper Egypt is available online (ProQuest document ID: 1464110981; ISBN 9780549278788). Stine Rossel carried out her main fieldwork in Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan and published her findings in numerous publications, which laid the groundwork for what would no doubt have been a promising career. Contributors: Peter M.M.G. Akkermans, Benjamin S. Arbuckle, Pernille Bangsgaard, Miroslav Bárta, Peter F. Biehl, Tom Boiy, Joachim Bretschneider, Valentina Caracuta, Elise Van Campo, Claudio Casati, Louis Chaix, Rachael J. Dann, Maurits Ertsen, Girolamo Fiorentino, Karin Margarita Frei, Matthieu Honegger, Greta Jans, Akemi Kaneda, David Kaniewski, Eva Kapteijn, Susanne Kerner, Karel Van Lerberghe, Cheryl Makarewicz, Richard H. Meadow, Christopher Meiklejohn, Deborah C. Merrett, Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse, Johannes van der Plicht, Simone Riehl, Neil Roberts, Anna Russell, Lasse Sørensen, Jason Ur, Joshua Wright. Susanne Kerner is associate professor at the Institute for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Rachael J. Dann is associate professor of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology at the Institute for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Pernille Bangsgaard is assistant professor at the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen.