Cultural Responses to Climate Change

During the Late Holocene

David Carrion|Yachay Tech University

ABSTRACT CULTURAL RESPONSES TO MODES AND

THE CLIMATIC MECHANISMS OF
Modern complex societies exhibit a marked
capacity to recover from interannual to decadent VARIATIONS OF THE LATE HOLOCENE
droughts. But, cultural responses to multidecanal
to multicultural droughts can only be addressed HOLOCENE CLIMATE
through the integration of detailed
archaeological and paleoclimate records. So, how Four studies illustrate past cultural
VARIABILITY
can we understand how and why climates responses to Holocene climate change: Multidecadal to
change? The answer use the following approach:
• Akkadian collapse. multicentury droughts
“Present is the key to understanding the past” marked Holocene climate
James Hutton • Classic Maya collapse. (last 11.700 years).
• Moche IV–V Transformation Droughts can be caused by
HISTORIC AND • Tiwanaku collapse.
the following factors.
PREHISTORIC DROUGHT • Water availability
• Changes in ocean
IN NORTH AMERICA
Akkadian
collapse
(Mesopotamia, circulation.
4200 calendar yr
Water availability.- Key climatic B.P.) • Solar irradiance.
determinant for drought. Produced by
aridification of • Volcanism.
Mesopotamia.
Several droughts presented in the Consequenses:
following years in USA: 1280, 1580 (”Great • Excess of
refugees at
Drought”), 1600 (“Megadroughts”), 1930 south
Mesopotamia
of

(“Dust Bowl”), 1951-1956 (six years Texas • Construction of

the "Repeller of
drought). the Amorites"
wall to prevent
the passage of
Abandonment of Akkadians to
the south.
Akkadian agricultural • Abandonment
plains. [Photo credit: H. of Akkadian B and C shows a temperature decay
Weiss/Yale University] agricultural starting in 4200 B.P. in the sub-polar Water availability is the principal factor
plains. Atlantic climate and subtropical that determine the existence of a drought
surface waters (“Holocene Event”). [Photo credit:
This fact caused the reduction of the https://pixabay.com/en/drought-aridity-
water supply of Mesopotamia. dry-earth-soil-780088/]

Classic Maya collapse

(Yucatan, 1200 Moche IV–V
Transformation
calendar yr B.P.) (coastal Peru, 1500
This civilization was calendar yr B.P. )
subjected to a period of The Peruvian coast
200 years of arid and is extremely arid,
highly evaporative therefore, depends
on the
conditions. Before that, precipitation. A 30
it was found at the top years of reduced
of development of regional
commercial networks, precipitation
urban centers, caused the
migration of the
construction of population to
monumental stelae and highlands. “Huaca de Sol” and other monuments were
advanced knowledge of abandonated by Moche people near 1500
astronomy and The number of sites dedicated to the B.P.. [Photo credit: sendautopica.com]
mathematics. construction of monuments in 1200 B.P.
indicate that the classic Mayan empire
collapsed at the peak of its cultural
development.
Brenner]
[Photo credit: M. CULTURAL
RESPONSES TO
Color figures of USA represent 1280, 1584 and 1956
Tiwanaku collapse
(Bolivian-Peruvian Graphic suggest CLIMATE
Southwest United States droughts. altiplano, ca. 1000
calendar yr B.P.).
that a Tiwanaku
abandonment CHANGE
Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), measures the coincides eith a
A multicentury multicentury What can we learn from this?
intensity, duration and spatial extent of a drought. It
interval of reduced interval of • Interannual droughts occur many times in a
goes from -5.0 (extreme drought) to +5.0 (extreme precipitation caused reduced determinate generation.
humidity conditions). the collapsed of high precipitation, as • Decenal droughts are repeated infrequently
determined by the over many generations.
1580 USA figure correspond to ”Great Drought”. The field cultivation and
ice accumulation • Multidecadal to multicentric scale droughts
black curves represent decadal average of drought. their urban and rural record at are much rarer nut natural.
The gray curves represent the full annual-resolution agricultural Quelccaya ice As it was seen, the culture of a civilization can
environments. Also core, at 200 km
record change according to the climate conditions.
produced a 10 m. fall northwest of Lake Therefore, we can conclude that our society has
at Titicaca lake level. Titicaca. great resilience and vulnerability to complex
environmental variability.