LIVING MATTER AND TERRESTRIAL GLACIATION

Paleogeographic reconstructions and forecasts of climatic change have been based largely on the impact of cosmic and astronomic factors and have tended to ignore the impact of the geochemical activity of living organisms. Yet the CO₂ cycle in the biosphere (volcanic emissions on the income side and photosynthesis and burial of dead organic matter on the outgo side) can have a significant impact on climatic change because of the greenhouse effect. The CO₂ theory is used to explain the sequence of glacial and interglacial stages of the Pleistocene. Active volcanism during the Alpine mountain-building period resulted in a high CO₂ content in the atmosphere fostering the building up of a large phytomass. The continued absorption of CO₂ produced a cooling trend that led to the Ice Age. The spread of the ice sheet reduced the terrestrial biomass and thus the rate of CO₂ absorption, resulting in an increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere and a warming trend. In the interglacial stage that followed, the build-up of biomass again reduced atmospheric CO₂, producing a new cooling trend. This natural glacial-interglacial rhythm has been modified in the last 5,000 years by human activity. Maninduced reduction of phytomass (through deforestation) and, more recently, the intensive combustion of fossil fuels tend to increase the CO₂ content of the atmosphere (in contrast to the natural interglacial process) and make the advent of a new glacial stage unlikely. (The article was contributed by Victor L. Mote, University of Houston.)     

Improving Coastal Vulnerability Assessment Methodologies for Integrated Coastal Zone Management: an Approach from South Australia

The global concern about human-induced climatic change and its potential effect on sea-level has dominated the debate on coastal vulnerability, particularly since a common assessment methodology was developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1991. There have been numerous attempts to use or adapt this methodology but the focus has remained on sea-level rise as the single most important issue for coastal vulnerability. This paper presents a revised and more holistic coastal vulnerability assessment methodology which incorporates spatial and temporal scales relevant to the predicted impacts of climatic change and current human-induced hazards. Three studies in contrasting coastal environments of South Australia demonstrate that there are significant regional variations in sea-level response, human-induced hazards and local planning issues and that these may present a greater immediate threat than the possibility of sea-level rise.     

Le Grand Abri aux Puces,a Mousterian site from the Last Interglacial: paleogeography,paleoenvironment, and new excavation results

Le Grand Abri aux Puces (GAP), located on the right bank of the Ouvèze River of southern France, has been known to contain well-preserved stone tools and faunal remains, but our work in 2008 was the first professional, controlled excavation at the site and has exposed at least 1 archaeological layer with a very rich and diverse faunal assemblage (23 macrofaunal species, as many for the microfauna, 27 land snail species), abundant charcoals (fragments are large and preserve small twigs with their pith and bark still intact), and stone tools with immaculate surface preservation (retaining their original freshness and preserving microscopic use wear). The information issuing from paleontology, micropaleontology, malacology, and anthracology all place the principle GAP human occupation unambiguously in a temperate climatic phase. Different biometric and biochronological characters of the fauna converge to place the layers found thus far from before the last glacial, and most likely in MIS 5e (127–117 kya). The lithic elements, mainly composed of tools of superior quality, demonstrating particular technical investment, and made from widely distributed raw material sources, lead us to hypothesize brief passages of hunting groups in the cave focused around an anticipated activity. This hypothesis will be refined and tested during further excavations.     

Late Pleistocene coastal environment of the Southern Cape Province of South Africa: Micromammals from klasies river mouth

A sequence of samples of micromammalian remains from Klasies River Mouth on the south coast of South Africa provides evidence of vegetational and climatic change during the Late Pleistocene. The evidence suggests the presence of a vegetational mosaic similar to that of the present but with relatively more open vegetation at the time the central part of the sequence was being deposited than was the case at the beginning or the end. Fluctuations occurred in general climatic conditions, as indicated by the Shannon—Wiener index of diversity, but conditions appear to have remained relatively moderate throughout with no evidence of glacial or interglacial maxima. Changes in sea level are probably also reflected in changed proportions of various species of small mammal. The site has yet to be dated conclusively but the micro-mammalian data tend to support other lines of evidence which suggest that this sequence of deposits was laid down during isotope stage 5, probably substages 5d—a. Human response to the challenge of changing conditions can be shown to lag behind those changes as recorded by micromammals.     

Chronology and palaeoenvironment of levantine prehistoric sites as seen from sediment studies

Analysis of sediments from the sites of et-Tabun, Jebel Qafza, and Sefunim in Israel, of Ksar 'Aqil in Lebanon, and of Yabrud Rockshelter I and Jerf 'Ajla in Syria leads to a reconstruction of the environments of deposition, periods of weathering and erosion, and relations to changing sea level during the times of occupation of these sites by prehistoric man. The overlapping sequences span the interval from part or all of the last interglaciation through the time of the last glaciation into historic time. Aeolians and from the last interglacial littoral zone and aeolian silt from more distant deserts dominate the site sediments until the early part of the last glaciation (especially at Tabun), whereas colluvial slope deposits, alluvium (Ksar 'Aqil), and angular rockfall debris are characteristic of the mid-last glaciation sediments in most sites, commonly with an admixture of reworked terra rossa soil sediment. These latter sediments seem to reflect a period or periods of greater available moisture or surface run-off. Prominent unconformities mark many sites at times coincident with the final middle palaeolithic (mousterian) occupations or in the interval between middle palaeolithic and upper palaeolithic occupations. It is not clear, in the absence of firm radiometric dates, whether these hiatuses should be correlated from site-to-site or whether they are site-specific. Freeze/thaw phenomena appear not to have played a significant role, if any at all, in the origin of sediments in coastal Levantine sites, although the middle palaeolithic of the Syrian Desert (Yabrud, Jerf 'Ajla) is contained in typical cryoclastic rubble. Finally, the reconstructed sedimentary environments are compared with the still-too-sparse palynological record for the Near East. Parallels of more humid and less humid climatic intervals throughout the past 60,000 to 70,000 years in both of these records reinforce the growing impression of a regionally fluctuating climate in the eastern Mediterranean region during the time of the last glaciation.     

Climatic Change

The methods of physical climatology are used to explain climatic variations during the contemporary epoch and in the geological past. Contemporary climatic change is found to depend to a considerable extent on variations in atmospheric transparency. These variations, which change the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth's surface, are associated with the changeable level of volcanic activity. Climatic changes in the geological past are also explained in terms of variations in atmospheric transparency and the changing distribution of the earth's land and sea areas, which influenced circulation in the hydrosphere. On the basis of established regularities in past climatic change, the possible future trend of climatic evolution is suggested. Although the current cooling trend could conceivably lead to renewed expansion of glaciation, this is considered highly unlikely in view of the increasing amount of heat generated by man's growing use of energy. The additional heat may be sufficient in the long run to melt the polar ice and introduce a climate into the middle and high latitudes typical of warm interglacial epochs. Actually, even before this, technology may enable man to eliminate the polar ice artificially. The beneficial and harmful effects of such as step are briefly considered.     

Disentangling long bones of foxes (Vulpes vulpes and Alopex lagopus) from arctic archaeological sites

To discern the presence of two anatomically close species within an archaeological assemblage is always a problem for the analyst. A particularly interesting case is the distinction between the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and the arctic fox (Alopex lagopus), which is often determined using non-rigorous criteria and producing results that must be regarded with caution. Classical methods for separating these two species and determining sexual dimorphism, and eventually the sex ratio, such as analyses using uni- and bivariate plots, are based on arbitrarily fixed limits between sexes. In this text, a more robust statistical method termed mixture analysis (MA) is used to determine the species of limb bones from foxes. First, the MA is applied to a sample of each species using metric data taken from a collection of present-day fox skeletons. Afterwards, the MA is applied to archaeological samples dated to the Dorset period and retrieved from the Tayara site (near Salluit, South Hudson Strait, Nunavik). The results clearly demonstrate that the greatest length (GL) of long bones, especially the humerus and tibia, is the best measurement for distinguishing the species, followed by the distal breadth and the proximal breadth; and that GL is better suited for sexing foxes. The results of MA applied to the Tayara site collection lead to the conclusion that the red fox is present along with the arctic fox among the assemblage, and that there is no fox body size change during the last two millennia in the Eastern Arctic.     

Microflora of the H.Y.C. Pyritic Shale Member of the Barney Creek Formation (McArthur Group), middle Proterozoic of northern Australia

The H.Y.C. Pyritic Shale Member of the Barney Creek Formation (ca 1 500 my old; northern Australia) contains several stratiform base metal sulfide deposits of economic significance. Black cherts within these mineral deposits preserve a diverse assemblage of bacterial and algal microfossils. The assemblage differs from most other Precambrian biotas so far described in that it was deposited in deep water, it is not associated with stromatolites or algal mats, and it is dominated by filamentous bacteria, most of which are pyritized. Analysis of the assemblage suggests that the depth of the depositional basin exceeded that of the photic zone, that the bacteria inhabited the basin floor where they maintained anoxic conditions through heterotrophic degradation of detrital organic matter, and that the algae inhabited overlying near surface waters. Most of the algal fossils have been assigned to the Cyanophyta, although two of the described species are potentially referable to the eukaryotic green or red algae. Differences between this assemblage and other biotas described from the McArthur Group suggest that a workable system of biostratigraphic zonation for the Group is feasible.

Fossils in the H.Y.C. assemblage are here referred to 21 species and 16 genera, of which 14 species and 6 genera are new. The new taxa are: Bacteria, Biocatenoides incrustata sp. nov., B. pertenuis sp. nov., Ramacia carpentariana gen. et sp. nov., Coleobacter primus gen. et sp. nov., Ferrimonilis variabile gen. et sp. nov.; Chroococcales (Cyanophyta), Nanococcus vulgaris gen. et sp. nov., Bisacculoides tabeoviscus gen. et sp. nov., B. vacua gen. et sp. nov., B. grandis gen. et sp. nov.; Nostocales (Cyanophyta), Oscillatoriopsis schopfii sp. nov., Cyanonema inflatum sp. nov., C. minor sp. nov.; Incertae sedis, Clonophycus elegans gen. et sp. nov., Globophycus minor sp. nov. In addition, the new combination Gunflintia septata (Schopf) is proposed.     

New Human Remains of Archaic Homo sapiens and Lower Palaeolithic Industries from Visogliano (Duino Aurisina, Trieste, Italy)

New human remains have been found during recent excavations conducted in the lower section of Visogliano dolina (Trieste, Italy). They are represented by teeth and a fragment of particularly robust mandible that for their morphological and morphometrical characters can be generically attributed to archaic Homo sapiens. The lithic industry is formed by flakes, carinated points, scrapers, choppers and chopping tools and is characteristic of the Italian Pebble Culture. Sediments, pollen and faunal remains indicate that this part of the deposit was formed during interglacial climatic conditions in the early, but not initial phase of Middle Pleistocene (isotopic stadium 13 or 11).     

粤东地区考古学文化与环境的互动

粤东地区全新世的考古学文化具有鲜明的地方特色,不同时间的古文化在文化面貌和生计方式上存在着明显差别。本文在分析粤东地区汉以前区域气候波动和海平面升降的基础上,探讨了该地区不同考古学文化聚落形态的特点以及人地之间相互作用的过程。     

A climate terrorism assemblage? Exploring the politics of climate change-terrorism-radicalisation relations

Despite a series of claims from Bernie Sanders (2015), Barack Obama (2015), and others arguing that climate change, radicalisation, and terrorism are connected by complex causal relationships, there is very little academic examination of the politics of these claims. Building on DeLanda’s (2006) account of assemblages and social complexity, this paper conceptualises climate change-terrorism-radicalisation relationships as a ‘climate terrorism assemblage’. A ‘climate terrorism assemblage’ is a complex, emergent ‘whole’ formed from a heterogeneous range of interacting geopolitical components (e.g. climatic factors, migration, think tanks and academic publications, and a discourse of ‘climate security’). Specifically, a climate terrorism assemblage is characterised by ‘strategic territorialisations’: context-specific, multi-scalar points at which political claims of causal links between climate change, terrorism, and radicalisation are crystallised. Strategic territorialisations are produced in two, interrelated contexts. First, using the case study of the Syrian Conflict, a climate terrorism assemblage reveals an intricate, contested politics of ‘drawing lines’ which link climate change, terrorism, and radicalisation. Secondly, the paper argues that, at the points at which causal links are constructed between climate change, terrorism and radicalisation, a climate terrorism assemblage territorialises around intersectional subject formations, in particular a young masculine subject vulnerable to potential radicalisation and terrorism. Overall, the paper concludes that a climate terrorism assemblage provides a productive analytic frame to investigate the contested power relations of climate change-radicalisation-terrorism connections.     

Amplitudes of orbitally induced climatic cycles and patterns of hominin speciation

Palaeoanthropologists and archaeologists have long invoked climate change to explain aspects of human evolution. Collection of new climatic and environmental data combined with new fossil discoveries and methodological improvements continue to make exploration of this link a vital endeavour in studying human evolution. The current study employs a global climatic dataset and a rigorously compiled catalogue of hominin first and last appearance dates to test the effects of changes in temperature on hominin speciation and extinction. Through the use of wavelet analysis and bandpass filters the eccentricity, obliquity, and precession components of the studied climatic record are extracted and tested independently for associations with patterns of speciation and extinction. Results suggest that all three components may play a role in speciation events, but that only the obliquity cycle shows a statistically significant relationship with extinction events. It is suggested that, whilst climatic factors could contribute to the appearance of new hominin species, subsequent competition between these species may lead to their extinction.     

Future Non-Analogue Climates for Scotland’s Temperate Rainforest

Temperate rainforest is restricted to a globally rare set of climatic conditions. Scotland has among the best remaining examples of intact temperate rainforest in Europe, characterised ecologically by a unique assemblage of epiphytic bryophytes and lichens. Given climatic control on rainforest distribution and ecology, climate change is a probable risk to Scotland’s rainforest. This study investigated climate change impacts for 20 target sites, classified based on (i) bioclimatic conditions, and (ii) epiphytic diversity, into contrasting rainforest and more continental (non-rainforest) examples. Space-for-time matching identified climate analogues within the European conservation forest network, which at present have a climate similar to that expected of the target sites during the 2080s (WorldClim datasets). The results show that 2080s analogues for sites in more continental north-eastern Scotland occur in Wales and southern England. However, Scottish rainforest sites were their own ‘best analogues’ through to the 2080s, despite the fact that their climate is projected to change significantly; they had no suitable future analogue within Europe’s conservation forest network. These contrasting regional patterns highlight the need for a flexible approach to species conservation during climate change, including a strategy to cope with ecological uncertainty in Scotland’s zone of oceanic rainforest.     

Ancient Maya wood selection and forest exploitation: a view from the Paynes Creek salt works,Belize

Ancient building construction wood preserved in a peat bog below the seafloor in a shallow mangrove lagoon in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize, provides an exceptional record of Classic Maya wood use. Identifications of construction wood at Early Classic Chan B'i, and Late Classic Atz'aam Na, are reported and discussed to assess forest exploitation and species selection over time. Black mangrove (Avicennia germinans) dominates the Early Classic assemblage. The Late Classic assemblage is characterized by greater variability and an absence of mangrove species. When considered in the environmental context, identified species conform to principles of optimal foraging. The change in the wood assemblage over time suggests overexploitation of forest resources, resulting in deforestation of the local landscape and subsequent adaptation of foraging behavior. Deforestation is linked to the wider social context in which growing inland populations created demand for salt, putting greater pressure on the forest resources exploited by the Paynes Creek salt works for fuel and timber.     

Douglas Alexander Allan,C.B.E., LL.D., D.Sc., Ph.D., F.R.S.G.S., F.R.S.E., F.H.W.C., F.M.A.

The function and expansion of skiing in Scotland are discussed in relation to the changing climatic conditions of the last few decades.     

An 8000-year history of landscape,climate, and copper exploitation in the Middle East: the Wadi Faynan and the Wadi Dana National Reserve in southern Jordan

Investigations of geomorphology, geoarchaeology, pollen, palynofacies, and charcoal indicate the comparative scales and significance of palaeoenvironmental changes throughout the Holocene at the junction between the hyper-arid hot Wadi 'Arabah desert and the front of the Mediterranean-belt Mountains of Edom in southern Jordan through a series of climatic changes and episodes of intense mining and smelting of copper ores. Early Holocene alluviation followed the impact of Neolithic grazers but climate drove fluvial geomorphic change in the Late Holocene, with a major arid episode corresponding chronologically with the ‘Little Ice Age’ causing widespread alluviation. The harvesting of wood for charcoal may have been sufficiently intense and widespread to affect the capacity of intensively harvested tree species to respond to a period of greater precipitation deduced for the Roman–Byzantine period – a property that affects both taphonomic and biogeographical bases for the interpretation of palynological evidence from arid-lands with substantial industrial histories. Studies of palynofacies have provided a record of human and climatic causes of soil erosion, and the changing intensity of the use of fire over time. The patterns of vegetational, climatic change and geomorphic changes are set out for this area for the last 8000 years.     

The avifauna of the early Epipalaeolithic site of Ohalo II (19 400 years BP), Israel: species diversity,habitat and seasonality

The early Epipalaeolithic site of Ohalo II offers evidence that, some 19 400 years BP, prehistoric people on the shore of the Sea of Galilee exploited birds in large numbers as a food source and for the decorative value of their feathers and claws. The superb preservation of even the most delicate fauna at this site enabled an extensive analysis of a type rarely possible with avian remains of this antiquity. Certain types of birds were obtained preferentially, although a broad variety of avifauna was taken; preliminary analysis of some 488 identifiable bone fragments indicates that 16 families, 40 genera, and 68 different species are represented in the archaeological assemblage. As might be expected from a lakeshore site, the remains of waterfowl abound. The most diversity within a family occurs among the Anatidae, with ten genera and 22 species; however, the most frequently occurring birds are those of the family Podicipidae, or grebes, which account for approximately one-third of the assemblage. Species common to a variety of other environments are found in significant numbers as well (namely the Accipitridae). Large birds dominate the assemblage and the number of species represented by each family is disproportionate to the numerical frequency of those species at present, with passeriformes relatively poorly represented. The regular migration pattern of birds today broadly indicates that the site was occupied during the months of September–November and February–April. There are, however, a number of species that appear in this region today only from December through to March, which might indicate a longer, semi-permanent encampment. A biseasonal, or perhaps extended winter occupation pattern at Ohalo II seems to support a shift away from the generalized foraging economy of hunter–gatherers and to indicate the onset of planned intensive collecting, thus foreshadowing the initial steps toward sedentism. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of Quantitative Mineralogical Analysis in Archaeological Micromorphology: a Case Study from Barrow Is., Western Australia

This study assesses the use of the Tescan Integrated Mineral Analyser (TIMA) platform, which integrates scanning electron microscopy—energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) chemical analysis with mineral identification software, to quantitatively determine the mineralogical composition of sediments in archaeological research. Ten samples, spanning 50,000 years of sedimentation, were examined from archaeological excavation profiles in the Boodie Cave, Barrow Island, Western Australia. TIMA mineral abundance data show a gradual change from a polymineralogic quartz-rich assemblage from ~50–12 ka to a more simple carbonate-dominate assemblage from the terminal Pleistocene. This trend is consistent with a decreasing contribution of reworked terrestrial siliciclastic sediments derived from the mainland and an increase in carbonate sediments of marine derivation, as the exposed coastal plain become submerged during post-glacial sea-level rise. SEM-EDS analysis has also provided empirical data on cultural materials, mainly bone and shell fragments that similarly reflect the increasing contribution of marine fauna into the Holocene sediments. Particularly useful is the ability of mineral mapping function of the TIMA outputs to help distinguish 16 sub-units representing sections of the main nine stratigraphic units, including at least three contiguous midden events. The SEM-EDS data indicate that the redeposited sediments were derived from the overlying midden unit, with layering reflecting differential settling of mineral phases. This study demonstrates that automated mineralogy studies using TIMA can clearly aid the identification of provenance and processes within archaeological sediments and soils.     

From riches to rags: organic deterioration at Star Carr

The 11,000-year old lake edge archaeological site of Star Carr in the Vale of Pickering of North Yorkshire is one of the most famous Mesolithic sites in Europe, and one of the earliest, dated to the period of climatic warming that immediately followed the final termination of the last ice age. One of the main reasons for this international importance is the richness of its organic artefacts, faunal assemblage and environmental data. However, recent investigations have demonstrated that these organic remains have severely deteriorated over the last 60 years due to the decay and acidification of the surrounding peat. This paper presents research into the effects on the bone (histological analysis using light and polarising microscopy, and Transmission Electron Microscopy, bulk collagen analysis, and amino acid analysis), antler (visual and metrical analysis, loss on ignition and Scanning Electron Microscopy) and wood (visual analysis, decay assessment tests and Scanning Electron Microscopy).     

Subsistence continuity,change, and environmental adaptation at the site of Nugljanska,Istria, Croatia

This paper investigates changes in subsistence strategies at the upland cave site of Nugljanska (Croatia) at the end of the last ice age, during a time of rapid sea level rise and changing environment. We analysed the faunal assemblage from archaeological levels spanning the Pleistocene–Holocene transition (15,000–8000 years BP) and evaluated changes in relative abundance of species, measured species diversity, and compared the representation of terrestrial mammal and marine resources. We found a significant shift in the most abundant prey species exploited (from red deer, Cervus, to wild boar, Sus). There was some correlation between dietary diversification and periods of increased moisture availability and the spread of deciduous forest in the area. Our results suggest that there was a continuing reliance on terrestrial resources throughout time and that changes in dietary patterns were likely due to local environmental change and potentially, changing seasonal mobility strategies, at the Pleistocene–Holocene transition.