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_Climate Change in Prehistory_, _The End of the Reign of Chaos_ Climate Change in Prehistory explores challenges faced by humankind in a glacial climate and opportunities that arose when the climate improved dramatically around 10,000 years ago. Drawing on recent advances in genetic mapping, it presents latest thinking on how fluctuations during the ice age defined development and spread of modern humans across Earth. It reviews aspects of our physiology, intellectual development, and social behavior influenced by climatic factors, and how features of our lives—diet, health, relationship with nature—are also products of the climate we evolved in. This analysis is based on proposition that essential features of modern societies—agriculture and urban life—only became possible when climate settled down after chaos of last ice age. In short: climate change in prehistory has made us what we are today. Climate Change in Prehistory weaves together studies of the climate with anthropological, archaeological, and historical studies. Fascinating for all interested in effects of climate on human development and history. William James Burroughs spent seven years at UK National Physical Laboratory researching atmospheric physics. He then served three years as a UK Scientific Attaché in Washington DC. Between 1974 and 1995, he held senior posts in UK Departments of Energy and Health. Currently, he is a professional science writer with several books on weather and climate (two as co-author) and three for children on lasers. Contents Preface Acknowledgements page ix xi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Cave paintings 2 1.2 DNA sequencing 8 1.3 Archaeological foundations 10 1.4 Where do we start? 11 1.5 What do we cover? 12 1.6 Climate rules our lives 16 1.7 Interaction between history and climate change 17 2 The climate of the past 100,000 years 18 2.1 Defining climate change and climatic variability 19 2.2 Emerging picture of climate change 22 2.3 Proxy data 26 2.4 Do ice-core and ocean-sediment data relate to human experience? 31 2.5 Changes during the last ice age 37 2.6 End of the last ice age 43 2.7 Holocene 47 2.8 Changes in climate variability 51 2.9 Just how chaotic is the climate? 56 2.10 Changes in sea level 57 2.11 Causes of climate change 63 2.12 Lunatic fringe 70 2.13 Conclusion: climatic template 72 3 Life in the ice age 74 3.1 Climatology of last ice age 75 3.2 Early stages of ice age 82 vi CONTENTS 3.3 Oxygen Isotope Stage Three (OIS3) 86 3.4 Last glacial maximum (LGM) 93 3.5 Implications of greater climatic variability 99 3.6 Lower sea levels 102 3.7 Genetic mapping 104 3.8 Walking out of Africa 109 3.9 Transition to Upper Palaeolithic 115 3.10 Settling on plains of Moravia 119 3.11 Life on mammoth steppes of Asia 120 3.12 Shelter from the storm 124 3.13 First fishermen of Galilee 125 3.14 Wadi Kubbaniya and Kom Ombo Plain 127 3.15 Three-dog nights 129 3.16 Of lice and men 132 4 Evolutionary implications of living with ice age 135 4.1 Bottlenecks 136 4.2 Upper Palaeolithic Revolution 141 4.3 Europeans’ palaeolithic lineage 144 4.4 Physique 147 4.5 Broad spectrum revolution 148 4.6 Concerning tortoises and hares 151 4.7 Gender roles 153 4.8 Anthropomorphisation: a pathetic fallacy or key to survival? 160 4.9 Importance of networks 165 4.10 Did we domesticate dogs or did dogs domesticate us? 167 5 Emerging from ice age 169 5.1 North Atlantic Oscillation 170 5.2 Europe, Middle East and North Africa 175 5.3 East and South Asia 179 5.4 Africa and southern hemisphere 181 5.5 North America 182 5.6 Mass extinctions of big game 184 5.7 Origins of agriculture 188 5.8 Natufian culture 193 5.9 Çatalhöyük 194 5.10 People and forests move back into northern Europe 197 5.11 Spread of farming into Europe 204 5.12 Peopling of the New World 207 5.13 Concerning brown bears and hairless dogs 214 5.14 European connection? 215 5.15 Flood myths 217 5.16 Formation of Nile Delta 222 5.17 Lost Saharan pastoral idyll 223 5.18 Bantu expansion 232 5.19 ENSO comes and goes 233 6 Recorded history 236 6.1 Climatic conditions in Europe during mid-Holocene 237 6.2 East Asia in mid-Holocene 239 6.3 Agricultural productivity: abundance of Mesopotamia 240 6.4 Egypt: paradigm for stability 244 6.5 Price of settling down 248 6.6 First great dark age 250 6.7 Demonisation of the pig 255 6.8 Sea Peoples 256 6.9 Continuing catalogue of dark ages 258 7 Our climatic inheritance 261 7.1 Did we have any choice? 262 7.2 Regaining palaeolithic potential 265 7.3 Warfare 270 7.4 Climatic determinism: benefits of temperate zones 276 7.5 Ambivalence to animals 282 7.6 Updating gender roles 283 8 The future 285 8.1 Climate change and variability revisited 286 8.2 Are we becoming more vulnerable to climatic variability? 291 8.3 Can we take global warming in our stride? 293 8.4 Which areas are most vulnerable to increased variability? 295 8.5 Threat of flickering switch 298 8.6 Supervolcanoes and other natural disasters 302 Appendix: Dating 303 Glossary 312 References 322 Bibliography 340 Index 346 Preface Gazing up at the roof of the reconstruction of the cave at Lascaux in southwestern France, it is a stunning realisation that magnificent paintings were drawn some 17,000 years ago. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Sistine Chapel of Prehistory’, this artistic marvel was painted when northern hemisphere was about to emerge from ice age’s grip. Wonderment is compounded by knowledge that similar paintings in Chauvet cave, Ardeche region of France, have been dated 15,000 years earlier. So, more than 10,000 years before first recognised civilisations emerged, ice-age hunters produced extraordinary examples of creativity. Confronted by so much talent long ago, stream of questions arises: where did these people come from? Where did they go? What conditions were like at time? Why skills developed faded from view? Did climate changes explain their disappearance? What happened to the skills they had developed? Answers starting to emerge from two areas science transformed understanding human development in prehistory. First, advances in climate change studies provide detailed picture of chaotic ice-age world threatening existence of our species. How ancestors survived challenges is vital part history. Other scientific development even more extraordinary. By unravelling information locked DNA, can address deeply personal question how we linked people who survived ice age. Contains record entire evolution humankind. Although limitations to what can find out, two things central unlocking secrets in genes: not single direct ancestor died issue; unbroken genetic line from all of us to people living during ice age. In add' Ключевые слова: e, r, o