New multi-proxy record shows potential impacts of precipitation on the rise and ebb of Bronze Age and imperial Persian societies in southeastern Iran

Vaezi, Alireza; Routh, Joyanto; Djamali, Morteza; Gurjazkaite, Karolina; Tavakoli, Vahid; Beni, Abdolmajid Naderi; Roberts, Patrick

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107855

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…Interestingly, similar to the other episodes of enhanced erosion identified in the Hashilan Wetland sediment core, this episode is also coeval with a cold and dry climate event known as the 3.2 ka event ( ~3.3 to 2.9 kcal BP) that influenced Late Bronze and Early Iron Age communities in different regions including southwestern Asia (Neumann and Parpola, 1987;Alpert and Neumann, 1989;Shaikh Baikloo Islam, 2021;Vaezi et al, 2022), the eastern Mediterranean (Kaniewski et al, 2019) and western Europe (Molloy, 2022).…”

Section: Sedimentologysupporting

confidence: 61%

“…4). A notable drop in MS between 3.3 and 2.9 kcal bp is associated with increased erosion and influx of coarse‐grained sediments with calcite from the catchment into the wetland, which is synchronous with arid conditions identified in a peat core from southeast Iran (Vaezi et al, 2022) and increased aeolian deposition in Lake Neor, northwest Iran (Sharifi et al, 2015). Interestingly, similar to the other episodes of enhanced erosion identified in the Hashilan Wetland sediment core, this episode is also coeval with a cold and dry climate event known as the 3.2 ka event ( ~3.3 to 2.9 kcal bp ) that influenced Late Bronze and Early Iron Age communities in different regions including southwestern Asia (Neumann and Parpola, 1987; Alpert and Neumann, 1989; Shaikh Baikloo Islam, 2021; Vaezi et al, 2022), the eastern Mediterranean (Kaniewski et al, 2019) and western Europe (Molloy, 2022).…”

Section: Results and Interpretationsmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…4). A notable drop in MS between 3.3 and 2.9 kcal BP is associated with increased erosion and influx of coarse-grained sediments with calcite from the catchment into the wetland, which is synchronous with arid conditions identified in a peat core from southeast Iran (Vaezi et al, 2022) and increased aeolian deposition in Lake Neor, northwest Iran (Sharifi et al, 2015).…”

Section: Sedimentologymentioning

confidence: 87%

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Vegetation and climate dynamics at the dawn of human settlement: multiproxy palaeoenvironmental evidence from the Hashilan Wetland, western Iran

Safaierad

Matthews

Dupont

et al. 2023

J Quaternary Science

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The scarcity of high‐resolution palaeoclimate records from the interior of West Asia has limited our understanding of the mechanisms of past climate change and their potential impacts on early human societies of the Eastern Fertile Crescent. Here, we present a multiproxy sedimentological, geochemical and palynological record from the Hashilan Wetland in the central Zagros Mountains, spanning the time interval from 22 to 2.2 kcal bp. Our results indicate a cold, dry climate for the last deglaciation (22 to 10 kcal bp) with amplified aridity during the Last Glacial Maximum, Heinrich Stadial 1, the Younger Dryas and the 8.2 and 3.2 ka events. The Early Holocene (11.6 to 7.8 kcal bp) is characterised by prolonged dry summers, frequent spring/summer dust storms and restricted oak woodlands that gradually expanded as summers shortened toward the second half of the Holocene (<6 kcal bp). We show an out‐of‐phase Holocene moisture variation between the interior of West Asia and the Indian Summer Monsoon domain and conclude that summer insolation‐driven latitudinal shifts of the Hadley cell played a key role in seasonality changes in the interior of West Asia by modulating the strength and pathway of the subtropical high‐pressure cells. Finally, we explore possible impacts of these changes on regional prehistoric human communities.

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