Climate and the Eclipse of the Ancient Cities of the Indus

Possehl, Gregory L.

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-60616-8_8

Cited by 20 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…This had more than a regional connotation, and probably coincided with the collapse of Old World societies in southwest Asia and northeast Africa (Weiss et al. 1993; Hassan 1997; Possehl 1997).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable isotope analysis of archaeological oak charcoal from eastern Anatolia as a marker of mid‐Holocene climate change

et al. 2012

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Comparison between modern trees and archaeological charred wood is an under-explored method to study climate change, which may help to infer past environmental changes. The stable carbon content of deciduous oak charcoals was analysed for five periods covering more than a 1000 years (3350-2000 BC) at the site of Arslantepe, Turkey, together with modern deciduous oak specimens from five rare arboreal patches still present in the area (17-64 km from the site). In studies of past climate change it is difficult to distinguish human-induced changes from independent variations, such as the impact of past populations on the landscape and their relationship with climate changes in the mid-Holocene. Archaeology can evaluate climate signals preserved in fossil plants in light of past human life. This paper will contribute to understanding environmental changes that can be attributed to climate variation and those linked to human activities. We compared (13) C/(12) C of modern and fossil oaks in order to correlate the (13) C-content to environmental features of Arslantepe, both today and between 3350 and 2000 BC. At present, this area is semi-arid. The results show important similarities to palaeoenvironmental records for the rest of the Near East. The climate trend can be divided in three main phases: instability phase from ca. 3200 to 2900 BC; a phase of relative stability (until 2350 BC); and a final increase in aridity. The comparison of Δ(13) C values between fossil and modern plants shows that present climate is more arid than that between the end of the fourth and the whole third millennium BC.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable isotope analysis of archaeological oak charcoal from eastern Anatolia as a marker of mid‐Holocene climate change

et al. 2012

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“…It was recorded in a large region: further to the west at Lake Karakul in the Pamirs, in the northern and northeastern foreland of the Tibetan Plateau, in eastern China and in the Arabian Sea, and can be regarded as a widespread climate event in eastern, central and southern Asia. It caused a significant aridification and possibly contributed to the collapse of civilizations in Mesopotamia and the Indus River valley (Weiss et al, 1993;Possehl, 1997;von Rad et al, 1999;Cullen et al, 2000;Staubwasser et al, 2003;Dykoski et al, 2005;Mischke et al, 2010a;Fig. 6).…”

Section: Comparison With Other Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holocene cold events on the Tibetan Plateau

Mischke

Zhang

2010

Global and Planetary Change

145

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“…Chronological imprecision for the transition from urban Harappan to post-urban remains a problem. Most radiocarbon dates available have an uncertainty of ± 100 to 150 yr (Possehl, 1997a); that is, a total uncertainty interval of 300 to 450 yr on the calibrated radiocarbon time scale (Reimer et al, 2004). Some of the more precise dates, e.g.…”

Section: The 42 Ka Abrupt Climate Change Eventmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holocene Climate and Cultural Evolution in Late Prehistoric–Early Historic West Asia

2006

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The precipitation climatology and the underlying climate mechanisms of the eastern Mediterranean, West Asia, and the Indian subcontinent are reviewed, with emphasis on upper and middle tropospheric flow in the subtropics and its steering of precipitation. Holocene climate change of the region is summarized from proxy records. The Indian monsoon weakened during the Holocene over its northernmost region, the Ganges and Indus catchments and the western Arabian Sea. Southern regions, the Indian Peninsula, do not show a reduction, but an increase of summer monsoon rain across the Holocene. The long-term trend towards drier conditions in the eastern Mediterranean can be linked to a regionally complex monsoon evolution. Abrupt climate change events, such as the widespread droughts around 8200, 5200 and 4200 cal yr BP, are suggested to be the result of altered subtropical upper-level flow over the eastern Mediterranean and Asia.The abrupt climate change events of the Holocene radically altered precipitation, fundamental for cereal agriculture, across the expanse of late prehistoric-early historic cultures known from the archaeological record in these regions. Social adaptations to reduced agro-production, in both dry-farming and irrigation agriculture regions, are visible in the archaeological record during each abrupt climate change event in West Asia. Chronological refinement, in both the paleoclimate and archaeological records, and transfer functions for both precipitation and agro-production are needed to understand precisely the evident causal linkages.

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Climate and the Eclipse of the Ancient Cities of the Indus

Cited by 20 publications

References 15 publications

Stable isotope analysis of archaeological oak charcoal from eastern Anatolia as a marker of mid‐Holocene climate change

Stable isotope analysis of archaeological oak charcoal from eastern Anatolia as a marker of mid‐Holocene climate change

Holocene cold events on the Tibetan Plateau

Holocene Climate and Cultural Evolution in Late Prehistoric–Early Historic West Asia

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