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- Title
CLIMATE AND CULTURE CHANGE IN PREHISTORIC AND EARLY HISTORIC EASTERN NORTH AMERICA.
- Authors
Anderson, David G.
- Abstract
The archaeological and paleoclimate records spanning the period of human occupation in Eastern North America are becoming linked with greater and greater precision. Researchers examining both culture change and paleoclimate make use of similar temporal and geographic scales, and collaborative multidisciplinary efforts are, as a result, highly productive. Climate change, both abrupt and gradual, played a major role in the development of prehistoric and early historic cultures in the region. Initial human colonization and settlement >13,450 cal. BP/11,500 rcbp was constrained by the location of climate-linked terrain features such as glacial lakes and ice sheets. The onset of the Younger Dryas cold interval, which lasted from ca. 12,900-11,650 cal. BP/10,800-10,100 rcbp, closely corresponds to the demise of the continental-scale Clovis cultural adaptation, the completion of the late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions, and the emergence of distinct regional cultural traditions. During the Mid-Holocene warm interval from ca. 8900-5700 cal. BP 18000-5000 rcbp major changes in vegetation and precipitation regimes are evident, leading to population relocations over large areas. Portions of the lower Eastern Coastal Plain appear to have been largely depopulated, and large sites appear along some of the major river systems, further into the interior and, somewhat later, along portions of the coast. These factors, when coupled with regional population growth, contributed to the emergence of monumental construction, warfare, and long-distance exchange networks, and hence the development of organizational complexity. During later prehistory, as agricultural food production increased in importance, fluctuations in climate and hence potential crop yields had varying impacts on societies at both local and regional scales . During the initial European colonization of the region, isolated events like hurricanes as well as longer term phenomena like extended periods of drought or favorable rainfall shaped how settlement proceeded. The combined archaeological/paleoclimate record from the past 15,000 years has significant implications for understanding how climate change may affect our own society.
- Subjects
NORTH America; CLIMATE change; NATIVE Americans; COLONIZATION; PREHISTORIC land settlement patterns; CLOVIS culture; HOLOCENE paleoclimatology; PALEODEMOGRAPHY
- Publication
Archaeology of Eastern North America, 2001, Vol 29, p143
- ISSN
0360-1021
- Publication type
Article