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Title Megadrought and collapse : from early agriculture to Angkor / edited by Harvey Weiss
Published New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2017

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 331 pages)
Contents Introduction / Harvey Weiss -- 12,000-11,700 cal BP : the collapse of foraging and origins of cultivation in western Asia / Ofer Bar-Yosef, Miryam Bar-Matthews, Avner Ayalon -- 6600-6000 cal BP abrupt climate change and neolithic dispersal from west Asia / Bernard Weninger, Lee Clare -- 4.2 ka BP megadrought and the Akkadian collapse / Harvey Weiss -- 3.2 ka BP megadrought and the late Bronze Age collapse / Daniel Kaniewski, Elise Van Campo -- Ad 550-600 collapse at Teotihuacan : testing a climate forcing from a 2400-year Mesoamerican rainfall reconstruction / Matthew S. Lachniet, Juan Pablo Bernal-Uruchurtu -- AD 750-1100 climate change and critical transitions in classic Maya sociopolitical networks / Douglas J. Kennett, David A. Hodell -- Twelfth century AD: climate, environment, and the Tiwanaku State / Lonnie Thompson, Alan L. Kolata -- Thirteenth century AD: implications of seasonal and annual moisture reconstructions for Mesa Verde, Colorado / David W. Stahle, Dorian J. Burnette, Daniel Griffin, Edward R. Cook -- Fourteenth to sixteenth centuries AD: the case of Angkor and monsoon extremes in mainland southeast Asia / Roland Fletcher, Brendan M. Buckley, Christophe Pottier, Shi-Yu Simon Wang
Summary "Megadrought and Collapse is the first book to treat in one volume the current paleoclimatic and archaeological evidence of megadrought events coincident with major prehistoric and historical examples of societal collapse. Previous works have offered multi-causal explanations for collapse, from overpopulation, overexploitation of resources, and warfare to poor leadership and failure to adapt to environmental changes. In earlier synthetic studies of major instances of collapse, the full force of climate change has often not been considered. This volume includes nine case studies that span the globe and stretch over fourteen thousand years, from the paleolithic hunter-gatherer collapse of the 12th millennium BC to the 15th century AD fall of the Khmer capital at Angkor. Together, the studies constitute a primary sourcebook in which principal investigators in archaeology and paleoclimatology present their original research. Each case study juxtaposes the latest paleoclimatic evidence of megadrought (so-called for its severity and its decades - to centuries-long duration) with available archaeological records of synchronous societal collapse. The megadrought data are derived from all five archival paleoclimate proxy sources: speleothems (cave stalagmites), tree rings, and lake, marine, and glacial cores. The archaeological records in each case are the most recently retrieved."--Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed September 12, 2017)
Subject Climatic changes -- Social aspects
Anthropology.
Human beings -- Effect of climate on.
Droughts -- History
Nature -- Effect of human beings on.
anthropology.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Infrastructure.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- General.
Anthropology
Climatic changes -- Social aspects
Droughts
Human beings -- Effect of climate on
Nature -- Effect of human beings on
Dürre
Klimaänderung
Paläoklimatologie
Sozialer Wandel
Trockenheit
Vor- und Frühgeschichte
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
Author Weiss, Harvey, editor
ISBN 9780199329212
0199329214
9780190607920
0190607920
9780190660277
0190660279