East Mediterranean civilisation collapse and climatic catastrophes: examining the Palaeoecological record based on stable isotope data.
by
Warren J. Eastwood
School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
Coauthors: Melanie J. Leng, Neil Roberts, Matthew D. Jones

Palaeoclimate reconstructions for Southwest Asia are based on a range of sources including pollen, macrofossils, diatoms, geomorphological evidence, tree rings and historical records. Each of these proxy approaches has limitations. Pollen data are an excellent proxy data source for vegetation change, including studies of human impact and climatic reconstruction, but have limitations relating to differential production, dispersal and preservation of pollen grains. However, human impact, particularly for the later Holocene, can blur any climate signal. Macrofossil analysis, although important for producing a higher resolution picture of local environmental changes, do not always produce a continuous record. Diatoms are often poorly preserved in saline-alkaline lakes which frequently occur in the eastern Mediterranean. Tree rings and geomorphological data are not always easily interpretable in terms of climate change alone, while historical and archaeological records are often intermittent and of varying quality. The analysis of stable isotopes has emerged as a powerful technique which can provide additional data for palaeoclimate reconstruction which are largely independent of anthropogenic influences. For the eastern Mediterranean region, stable isotopes have been analysed from varying contexts, including cave speleothems, marine cores, land snails and authigenic carbonates produced in lake sediments. The latter allow the direct comparison with other proxy data (pollen, macrofossils, diatoms) from the same lake sediment records. The aim of this paper is to compare the archaeological evidence for civilisation establishment, collapse and recovery with independent palaeoecological evidence derived from stable isotope and other data.

Date received: March 6, 2002

Copyright © 2002 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caiq-60.