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7 - Palaeoenvironments of the southern Levant 5,000 BP to present: linking the geological and archaeological records

from Part II - The palaeoenvironmental record

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2011

By
Claire Rambeau  and
Stuart Black
Edited by
Steven Mithen  and
Emily Black
Claire Rambeau
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Stuart Black
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Steven Mithen
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Emily Black
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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Summary

ABSTRACT

In this chapter we review climatic and environmental changes during the middle to late Holocene in the southern Levant, and their potential impact on human communities. The Holocene is characterised in the eastern Mediterranean region by a trend towards aridity. Several climatic fluctuations are superimposed on this general trend, but contradictory palaeoenvironmental evidence often renders these variations difficult to characterise and date accurately. Nevertheless, the cultural changes at the end of the Early Bronze Age and the Byzantine period appear to be clearly related to a shift towards aridity. Relatively wetter conditions seem to prevail during the Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age, and during the Hellenistic to Byzantine period. The first of these humid periods may be related to a decline in settlements in the Israeli coastal plain during the Early Bronze Age, caused by increased flooding and the spread of diseases in a marshy environment. The second is associated with thriving agriculture. Arid conditions are prevalent during the Early Islamic period to modern times. More contradictory information characterises the Middle Bronze to Iron Age, but arid conditions are likely to have been dominant at the end of the Middle Bronze Age as well as during the first half of the Iron Age. Phases of climate instability occurred at c. 5,200–5,000 BP and c. 1,000 BP, the latter being coeval with the demise of the Decapolis society.

Type
Chapter
Information
Water, Life and Civilisation
Climate, Environment and Society in the Jordan Valley
 , pp. 94 - 104
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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