Climate Change - (eBook)

Contents 6
List of Illustrations 9
Figures 9
Plates 10
List of Tables 12
List of Abbreviations 13
Copyright and Authors Acknowledgements 14
Introduction 15
Acknowledgements 25
The Pendulum of Paradigms 26
Constructing the Jigsaw Puzzle of Palaeo- Climates 36
2.1 The Climatological and Historical Background ( Table 1) 36
2.2 Time Series of Proxy-Data to Decipher Climates of the Past 39
The Near East: A Bridge from the Garden of Eden to the Fields of Toil 63
From the Palaeolithic to the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period ( From ca. 2 million to ca. 8000 years ago) 63
3.1 The Password ‘Climate Change’ ( Table 2, Fig. 5) 63
3.2 The Establishment of Agricultural Villages – The Pre Pottery Neolithic – ( 6000– 8000 B. C. E.) 84
The Great Transition – From Farming Villages to Urban Centers 90
From the Pottery Neolithic to the Chalcolithic Period and the Beginning of the Early Bronze Age, ca. 6000 to 3000 B. C. E. 90
4.1 The Progress of Climate 91
4.2 The First Technological Revolution – The Pottery Neolithic Period ( 6000– 4500| 4000 B. C. E.) ( Fig. 5) 96
4.3 TheMetallurgical Revolution – The Chalcolithic Period ( 4500| 4000– 3500| 3000 B. C. E.) 106
4.4 From Copper to Bronze – The Beginning of the Early Bronze Age 119
The Urban Revolution and the Dawn of History 126
The Early Bronze Age, ca. 3100/3000 to 2400/2300 B.C.E. 126
5.1 The First Cities and a New Order ( Table 3) 126
5.2 The Climate Background – When Cities Drowned and the Desert Bloomed 128
5.3 The Early Bronze Age in the Levant and Anatolia 129
5.4 The Great Civilizations 135
Dark Age, Renaissance, and Decay 157
From the Intermediate Bronze to the end of the Late Bronze Age, ca. 2400 to 1200 B. C. E. 157
6.1 The Crisis Years – The Climate Evidence 158
6.2 The Archaeological and Historical Evidence About the Intermediate Bronze Age 164
6.3 The ‘ Winning of the South’ – the Migration Southward 172
6.4 The Crisis Years in Egypt 176
6.5 The Late Bronze Age, ca. 1500 to 1200 B.C.E. ( Table 4) 179
Migrations and Settlings 185
Fromthe end of the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age, ca. 1200 to 900 B.C.E. 185
7.1 The End of the Age of Bronze and the Beginning of a NewWorld ( Table 4) 185
7.2 Focussing on the Impact of Climate on the Events at the End of the Second Millennium B. C. E. 187
7.3 TheWave Pattern of Migrations and the “Sea Peoples” 189
7.4 A Glance at Ugarit 198
7.5 The Aramaeans and the ‘ Wandering of the Israelites’ 201
7.6 The Formative Years of the Israelite Nation 204
The Age of Iron and Empires 215
From ca. 900 B.C.E. to ca. 800 C.E. 215
8.1 The Aramaeans Occupy Center Stage 217
8.2 The Empires of Assyria and Babylon – A Brief and Brutal Performance 218
8.3 The Persian Empire and the First Unification of the Ancient Near East 223
8.4 Hellenism Dominates the Near East and Unites East andWest 227
8.5 Under the Boot of Rome and the Beginning of Christianity 230
8.6 The Arabs and Islam Emerge from the Desert 238
Crusaders, Mamluks, and Ottomans on the Eve of the Era of Industry ( ca. 800 C. E. to the Present) 242
9.1 The Crusaders’ Interlude 243
9.2 The Slaves who Became Sultans – Mamluks, Mongols and Turks 247
9.3 The Ottoman Centuries: Peace and Stagnation 249
An Epilogue 255
The Near East Enters the Era of Technology and Global Change 255
Appendix I 258
Groundwater Use and the Evolution of Groundwater Exploitation Methods as a Function of Climate Changes 258
Water Harvesting (Fig. 15) 268
Appendix II 272
Isotopic Tools in Palaeo-Hydrological Investigations 272
Appendix III 274
Pastoral Nomadism 274
Appendix IV 282
Middle Eastern Languages 282
Appendix V 292
Egyptian Chronology 292
Index 293