Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics: A Global Perspective on Mid-Holocene Transitions

The Middle Holocene epoch (8,000 to 3,000 years ago) was a time of dramatic changes in the physical world and in human cultures. Across this span, climatic conditions changed rapidly, with cooling in the high to mid-latitudes and drying in the tropics. In many parts of the world, human groups became more complex, with early horticultural systems replaced by intensive agriculture and small-scale societies being replaced by larger, more hierarchial organizations. Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics explores the cause and effect relationship between climatic change and cultural transformations across the mid-Holocene (c. 4000 B.C.).

Explores the role of climatic change on the development of society around the worldChapters detail diverse geographical regionsCo-written by noted archaeologists and paleoclimatologists for non-specialists

Contents list.List of figures. Preface and Acknowledgments. Foreword. Climate and Culture Change: Exploring Holocene Transitions
Mid-Holocene climate and culture change in coastal Peru. Mid-Holocene climate and culture change in the South Central Andes. Mid-Holocene Climate and cultural dynamics in Brazil and the Guianas. Culture and Climate in Mesoamerica during the middle holocene. Middle holocene environments of North and East Africa, with special emphasis on the African Sahara. Influence of holocene marine transgression and climate change on cultural evolution in Southern Mesopotamia. Mid-Holocene cultural dynamics and climate change in the Western Pacific. Mid Holocene climate and cultural dynamics in Easter Central Asia. Mid-Holocene Climate change and cultural dynamics in the basin of the Sea of Japan and Adjacent Areas
Mid-Holocene Climatic and Cultural dynamics in Northern Europe. Mid-Holocene Cultural adaptations to central Maine. Mid-Holocen Cultural dynamics in Southeastern North America
Mid-Holocene culture and climate on the Northwest coast of North America. Middle holocene climate change and population dispersal in Western North America.