Reviewing Cyprian Broodbank’s The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World (London: Thames &amp; Hudson, 2013)

Broodbank, Cyprian; Barker, Graeme; Foxhall, Lin; Manning, Sturt W.

doi:10.1558/jmea.v27i1.101

Cited by 89 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

116

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Broodbank [45, 46] considered any possible maritime activity in the Mediterranean before c . 12,000 ya to be episodic and of limited evolutionary significance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The distribution of mitochondrial DNA haplogroup H in southern Iberia indicates ancient human genetic exchanges along the western edge of the Mediterranean

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundThe structure of haplogroup H reveals significant differences between the western and eastern edges of the Mediterranean, as well as between the northern and southern regions. Human populations along the westernmost Mediterranean coasts, which were settled by individuals from two continents separated by a relatively narrow body of water, show the highest frequencies of mitochondrial haplogroup H. These characteristics permit the analysis of ancient migrations between both shores, which may have occurred via primitive sea crafts and early seafaring. We collected a sample of 750 autochthonous people from the southern Iberian Peninsula (Andalusians from Huelva and Granada provinces). We performed a high-resolution analysis of haplogroup H by control region sequencing and coding SNP screening of the 337 individuals harboring this maternal marker. Our results were compared with those of a wide panel of populations, including individuals from Iberia, the Maghreb, and other regions around the Mediterranean, collected from the literature.ResultsBoth Andalusian subpopulations showed a typical western European profile for the internal composition of clade H, but eastern Andalusians from Granada also revealed interesting traces from the eastern Mediterranean. The basal nodes of the most frequent H sub-haplogroups, H1 and H3, harbored many individuals of Iberian and Maghrebian origins. Derived haplotypes were found in both regions; haplotypes were shared far more frequently between Andalusia and Morocco than between Andalusia and the rest of the Maghreb. These and previous results indicate intense, ancient and sustained contact among populations on both sides of the Mediterranean.ConclusionsOur genetic data on mtDNA diversity, combined with corresponding archaeological similarities, provide support for arguments favoring prehistoric bonds with a genetic legacy traceable in extant populations. Furthermore, the results presented here indicate that the Strait of Gibraltar and the adjacent Alboran Sea, which have often been assumed to be an insurmountable geographic barrier in prehistory, served as a frequently traveled route between continents.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12863-017-0514-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

show abstract

“…Broodbank [45, 46] considered any possible maritime activity in the Mediterranean before c . 12,000 ya to be episodic and of limited evolutionary significance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The distribution of mitochondrial DNA haplogroup H in southern Iberia indicates ancient human genetic exchanges along the western edge of the Mediterranean

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Broodbank (2013), in fact, traced the origin of many textually recorded ecodynamic relationships to the initial Late Holocene and the aridification of the Sahara. Contact with the Americas and Oceania created significant changes in species composition, including the introduction of the tomato, maize, beans and peppers to the Mediterranean.…”

Section: Mediterranean Islands Through Deep Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeology, historical ecology and anthropogenic island ecosystems

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SUMMARYIn the face of environmental uncertainty due to anthropogenic climate change, islands are at the front lines of global change, threatened by sea level rise, habitat alteration, extinctions and declining biodiversity. Islands also stand at the forefront of scientific study for understanding the deep history of human ecodynamics and to build sustainable future systems. We summarize the long history of human interactions with Polynesian, Mediterranean, Californian and Caribbean island ecosystems, documenting the effects of various waves of human settlement and socioeconomic systems, from hunter-gatherer-fishers, to agriculturalists, to globalized colonial interests. We identify degradation of island environments resulting from human activities, as well as cases of human management of resources to enhance productivity and create more sustainable systems. These case studies suggest that within a general global pattern of progressive island degradation, there was no single trajectory of human impact, but rather complex effects based on variable island physiographies, human subsistence strategies, population densities, technologies, sociopolitical organization and decision-making.

show abstract

“…Braudel () modeled the fractured topographies of the region as imperceptible constraints to human action working at deep, slow‐moving time scales, what he called the longue durée . This temporal scheme and the microecologies inherent to the Mediterranean form the basis of more recent historical and archeological accounts of the region's developments (Broodbank, ; Horden & Purcell, ). In these methods of analysis, the sea both connects and challenges social interaction, and humans contend with the risks associated with the vagaries of local temperatures, hydrology, geology, and vegetation .…”

Section: Mediterranean Environments and The Longue Duréementioning

confidence: 94%

“…Bolstered by increasingly precise data, interest in studies of ancient and historical environments is spreading virally across the sciences and humanities. For scholars of Mediterranean antiquity, past climatic change and anthropogenic landscapes are proving “good to think with,” particularly in readdressing historical questions (e.g., Harper, ; Harris, ), or in complicating thematic concepts such as community, identity, politics, and economy (e.g., Bevan & Conolly, ; Broodbank, ; Kennedy & Jones‐Lewis, ; Porter, ). Convergent with this millennial outlook is the concept of the “Anthropocene,” the name for a new geological epoch proposed by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen and ecologist Eugene Stoermer (Crutzen & Stoermer, ) to acknowledge humankind's unprecedented alterations of the functioning of earth systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mediterranean archeology and environmental histories in the spotlight of the Anthropocene

Kearns

2017

History Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The last two decades have seen increasing scientific and humanistic research about anthropogenic impacts on earth systems such as climate, leading to a controversial proposal that we are living in an Anthropocene epoch, when humans have become unprecedented forces of global change. The status of the Anthropocene as a historiographical period poses an opportunity to consider how archeologists and historians conceive of environmental and social change in Mediterranean antiquity. Scholarship has tended to focus on regional landscapes or large‐scale climatic accounts of the rise and fall of societies and less on the politics and social dimensions of human–environment relationships. Although bridging the small and large scales of these interactions poses challenges, recent research on the island of Cyprus during the Archaic period highlights the possibilities of an archeological approach to the intersections between social and environmental Mediterranean histories and their material contexts.

show abstract

Reviewing Cyprian Broodbank’s The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World (London: Thames & Hudson, 2013)

Cited by 89 publications

References 0 publications

The distribution of mitochondrial DNA haplogroup H in southern Iberia indicates ancient human genetic exchanges along the western edge of the Mediterranean

The distribution of mitochondrial DNA haplogroup H in southern Iberia indicates ancient human genetic exchanges along the western edge of the Mediterranean

Archaeology, historical ecology and anthropogenic island ecosystems

Mediterranean archeology and environmental histories in the spotlight of the Anthropocene

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About