Arlene M. Rosen

Climate change, adaptive cycles, and the persistence of foraging economies during the late Pleistocene/Holocene transition in the Levant

Climatic forcing during the Younger Dryas (∼12.9–11.5 ky B.P.) event has become the theoretical basis to explain the origins of agricultural lifestyles in the Levant by suggesting a failure of foraging societies to adjust. This explanation however, does not fit the scarcity of data for predomestication cultivation in the Natufian Period. The resilience of Younger Dryas foragers is better illustrated by a concept of adaptive cycles within a theory of adaptive change (resilience theory). Such cycles consist of four phases: release/collapse (Ω); reorganization (α), when the system restructures itself after a catastrophic stimulus through innovation and social memory—a period of greater resilience and less vulnerability; exploitation (r); and conservation (K), representing an increasingly rigid system that loses flexibility to change. The Kebarans and Late Natufians had similar responses to cold and dry conditions vs. Early Natufians and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A responses to warm and wet climates. Kebarans and Late Natufians (α-phase) shifted to a broader-based diet and increased their mobility. Early Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A populations (r- and K-phases) had a growing investment in more narrowly focused, high-yield plant resources, but they maintained the broad range of hunted animals because of increased sedentism. These human adaptive cycles interlocked with plant and animal cycles. Forest and grassland vegetation responded to late Pleistocene and early Holocene climatic fluctuations, but prey animal cycles reflected the impact of human hunting pressure. The combination of these three adaptive cycles results in a model of human adaptation, showing potential for great sustainability of Levantine foraging systems even under adverse climatic conditions.

Earliest floral grave lining from 13,700–11,700-y-old Natufian burials at Raqefet Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel

Flowering plants possess mechanisms that stimulate positive emotional and social responses in humans. It is difficult to establish when people started to use flowers in public and ceremonial events because of the scarcity of relevant evidence in the archaeological record. We report on uniquely preserved 13,700–11,700-y-old grave linings made of flowers, suggesting that such use began much earlier than previously thought. The only potentially older instance is the questionable use of flowers in the Shanidar IV Neanderthal grave. The earliest cemeteries (ca. 15,000–11,500 y ago) in the Levant are known from Natufian sites in northern Israel, where dozens of burials reflect a wide range of inhumation practices. The newly discovered flower linings were found in four Natufian graves at the burial site of Raqefet Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel. Large identified plant impressions in the graves include stems of sage and other Lamiaceae (Labiatae; mint family) or Scrophulariaceae (figwort family) species; accompanied by a plethora of phytoliths, they provide the earliest direct evidence now known for such preparation and decoration of graves. Some of the plant species attest to spring burials with a strong emphasis on colorful and aromatic flowers. Cave floor chiseling to accommodate the desired grave location and depth is also evident at the site. Thus, grave preparation was a sophisticated planned process, embedded with social and spiritual meanings reflecting a complex preagricultural society undergoing profound changes at the end of the Pleistocene.

Phytolith evidence of mid-Holocene Capsian subsistence economies in North Africa

Climatic fluctuations that occurred in North Africa during the early and middle Holocene had a profound impact on the environment of the region and would have required human populations in the area to adapt their subsistence and economic strategies in equally significant ways. Capsian groups, located in eastern Algeria and southern Tunisia from approximately 10,000 to 6000 cal. BP, were among the last North African foragers at a time when other groups were abandoning food collection to engage in food production in the form of pastoralism. Capsian foragers relied heavily on land snails, but we have little information on their use of plant resources, which can be an important indicator of economic adaptation to environmental change. In this study we use phytolith analyses at the Capsian site of Aïn Misteheyia in eastern Algeria to track the changes in subsistence strategies throughout much of the middle-Holocene climatic transitions. Our results show that Capsian foragers exploited plants such as sedges and small-seeded grasses from wetland microenvironments within their home ranges which allowed them to demonstrate robust and resilient resource procurement strategies, and maintain a foraging lifestyle resistant to major fluctuations in climate.

Modifying the marsh: Evaluating Early Epipaleolithic hunter-gatherer impacts in the Azraq wetland, Jordan

The ecological impacts of human activities have infiltrated the whole of the ‘natural world’ and precipitated calls for a newly defined geological epoch – the Anthropocene. While scholars discuss tipping-points and scale, viewed over the longue durée, it is becoming clear that we have inherited the compounding consequences of a constructed environment with a long history of human landscape modification. By linking phytolith and micro-charcoal evidence from sediments in the Azraq Basin, Jordan, we discuss potential Early Epipaleolithic (23,000–17,400 cal. BP) human–environment interactions in this wetland. Our analyses reveal that during the Last Glacial Maximum, Levantine hunter-gatherers could have had a noticeable and increasing impact on their environment. However, further work needs to be undertaken to assess the range, frequency, intensity, and intentionality of marsh disturbance events. We suggest that the origin of ‘persistent places’ and larger aggregation settlements in the Azraq Basin may have been, in part, facilitated by human–environment interactions in the Early Epipaleolithic that consequently enhanced the economic and, subsequently, social meaning of that landscape. Through their exploitation of the sensitive wetland environment, hunter-gatherers were modifying the marshes and initiating long-term changes to the already dynamic and changing landscape at the close of the Pleistocene. These findings challenge us to further reconsider the way we see early hunter-gatherers in the prehistory of the Levant and in the development of the ‘Anthropocene’.

A view from the past to the future: Concluding remarks on the ‘The Anthropocene in the Longue Durée’

The Special Issue provides a deep-time interdisciplinary perspective on the Anthropocene and signals the importance of the Anthropocene concept in past, present, and future human–environmental relationships. This concluding article recognizes that various approaches – scientific, postmodern, catastrophist, and ecomarxist – can contribute to understanding the Anthropocene as a process and that contributions have been made by several disciplines, including Anthropology, Archaeology, Geography, History, and Politics. The critical importance of weaving together social science perspectives with those of the natural sciences is emphasized.

The Anthropocene and the landscape of Confucius: A historical ecology of landscape changes in northern and eastern China during the middle to late Holocene

The Yellow River catchment of northern China was central to the rise of complex societies from the first Neolithic farmers through to early states and empires. These cultural developments brought with them rising populations and increasing intensity of land-use. This region provides an important record of landscape changes that mark the development of the Anthropocene in China. Geoarchaeological research in the middle reaches of the Yellow River catchment of Henan Province and eastward to the Si River drainage of Shandong Province illustrates human impact on vegetation and hydrological systems dating back at least until the middle Neolithic Yangshao Period in the mid-Holocene, ca. 7000 yr BP. This research provides geomorphological evidence that early human impact began in the Yangshao period with deforestation, soil erosion, and increased alluviation in the upper catchment of the Yiluo River. The increased alluviation allowed small-scale Neolithic farmers to intensify and supplement their production with rice paddy farming. Further east along the Si River of Shandong Province, Neolithic Dawenkou farmers were intensifying production by taking advantage of the already moist floodplains, but had little impact on the surrounding forests and hillslopes. At the beginning of the Zhou Period (ca. 1000 BCE), farmers along the Si River at Qufu began to intensify production by digging canals into the floodplain, and deforestation of the hillslopes led to the beginnings of widespread floods and silty floodplain buildup, culminating in the massive destructive floods of the later Han Period characterized by thick sand beds.

Risk, reliability and resilience: Phytolith evidence for alternative 'Neolithization' pathways at Kharaneh IV in the Azraq Basin, Jordan

‘Neolithization’ pathway refers to the development of adaptations that characterized subsequent Neolithic life, sedentary occupations, and agriculture. In the Levant, the origins of these human behaviors are widely argued to have emerged during the Early Epipaleolithic (ca. 23 ka cal BP). Consequently, there has been a pre-occupation with identifying and modeling the dietary shift to cereal and grains during this period, which is considered to have been a key development that facilitated increasing sedentism and, eventually, agriculture. Yet, direct evidence of plant use in the form of macrobotanical remains is extremely limited at Epipaleolithic sites and the expected ‘Neolithization’ pathway has not been robustly demonstrated. However, new direct microbotanical phytolith evidence from the large aggregation site of Kharaneh IV, in the Azraq Basin, suggests that increasingly settled occupation was not the result of wild grass and cereal use, but rather the result of a typical hunter-gatherer balance, based on the use of mostly reliable resources supplemented by some risky resources. Moreover, and illustrating this balance, the direct botanical evidence emphases the importance of the wetlands as an under-recognized reliable plant resource. Significantly, the use of these reliable wetland plant resources at Kharaneh IV represents an unexpected ‘Neolithization’ pathway.

Introduction to the Special Issue ‘The Anthropocene in the Longue Durée’

In the past few decades, there has been growing public awareness of human-caused global warming, rapidly decreasing biodiversity, massive soil erosion and ocean acidification. Human impacts on the planet now extend to most aspects of what Western science has defined as ‘natural’ geo-ecological systems (atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, etc.). This has led some scholars to suggest that we have left the Holocene behind and are now entering a new geological epoch that should be designated the ‘Anthropocene’. The environmental situation has become so alarming that in recent years, a number of academic workshops, conference sessions, special issues and new journals have dealt with the general topic of the Anthropocene (Braje and Erlandson, 2013; Crutzen, 2002; Foley et al., 2013; Kotchen and Young, 2007; Lewin and Macklin, 2014; Oldfield et al., 2013; Ruddiman et al., 2011, 2015; Smith and Zeder, 2013; Waters et al., 2014; Williams et al., 2011). It might seem somewhat ironic to publish this current collection of papers dealing with the Anthropocene in a periodical journal entitled The Holocene. However, we maintain that this is an ideal venue to reach out to a broader scientific and informed community of readers interested in the social and natural sciences. This collection of articles stems from a workshop held at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin in April 2014, entitled ‘The Anthropocene in the Longue Durée’, sponsored by the Department of Anthropology at UT and the Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance (GHEA). With these papers, we emphasize the importance of expanding our views of the Anthropocene to consider a deep-time perspective, which we feel is an essential way to address the urgent issues of modern-day relationships between humans and the environment. It is an approach that prioritizes human behavior and the cumulative nature of human impacts on the environment stretching as far back as the mid-Pleistocene and ultimately touches on issues of who we are as a species, how we have succeeded in becoming a dominant entity in our many diverse environments, and ways to proceed into a sustainable future. Although the term ‘Anthropocene’ itself may be considered contentious by some members of the scientific community, few can disagree that our species has had a profound and, in many respects, irreversible effect on the planet. One key question for comprehending the nature of human impact is the issue of where we place the starting point for the Anthropocene. This is fundamental for delineating ‘tipping points’ that took us potentially from a hypothetical ‘natural equilibrium’ to a situation in which factors such as human-induced climate change and decreasing biodiversity now are beyond our control. This viewpoint presupposes an initial state of ‘insignificant’ human impact on climate, landscapes and biodiversity, to one of irreparable change. We acknowledge the argument for a geologically defined line in the sand or ‘Golden Spike’, distinguishing formal geological epochs from one another, and in this case the quest for the point in time when the Holocene transformed into the Anthropocene. However, we stress that the issues relating to the Anthropocene are larger than terminological concerns, as emphasized in some previous articles which highlight the need to address the processes behind the visible effects (Lewin and Macklin, 2014; Smith and Zeder, 2013). These processes can only be understood by taking a deep-time perspective and an interdisciplinary approach as reflected in the papers in this Special Issue of The Holocene. Timing and tipping points aside, there are still many questions that remain about the nature of human impact, its origins, and the future of the planet in an age when humans alter, dominate, or manipulate almost every ecological system on Earth. But our modern era is not unique in terms of human processes; it is only unique in the degree of impact. We argue here that humans have always altered their environments, and this basic characteristic of human ‘nature’ is central to our success as a species. Indeed, humans are exceptionally good at adapting to our environments by changing them as we employ flexible and novel solutions for the survival and well-being of our societies. We are the ultimate ‘niche constructing’ species (Smith, 2011). This behavior is key not only to our success but also to the success or failure of those species whose habitats are enhanced or expanded through our activities on one hand, or on the other are negatively impacted by our survival strategies. Historical ecologists have long studied these dynamics in anthropogenic ecology, engineered environments, forest management, and traditional ecological knowledge. In creating and modifying our environments, we leave an ecological inheritance for future generations. Likewise, our innovations and ecological impacts are shaped by the activities of preceding generations (Kendal et al., 2011). Therefore, the Anthropocene is an example of ecological inheritance and the composite result of previous human behavior (Balée and Erickson, 2006; Butzer, 1982; Crumley, 1994, 2001; Smith, 2011). Consequently, it is critical that we employ a deep-time perspective to understanding the processes leading to the Anthropocene. Both Archaeology and Geography are uniquely well-suited to this task. These two disciplines have the tools for recording and explaining both the social and the environmental aspects of the processes leading to profound human impact on the planet through time and into the future. Archaeology and Geography have important roles to play on the global stage in the critical public debates about the effects of human-induced climate change, human alterations of every ecozone on the planet, and going forward into a future Earth that has an ethical approach to the distribution and conservation of resources, and ecological stewardship. These questions can only be answered by taking a long-term cross-cultural perspective on the Anthropocene. Importantly, while humans are the source of many negative impacts on this planet, the Anthropocene demonstrates that we also are capable of providing the solutions. The papers included in this Special Issue represent a wide variety of geographical regions to emphasize the ecological diversity and global reach of a humanized planet. They also provide case studies of societies with increasingly complex technologies and social organizations, and hence progressively Introduction to the Special Issue ‘The Anthropocene in the Longue Durée’ 594472 HOL0010.1177/0959683615594472The HoloceneEditorial research-article2015

Intensification of production in Medieval Islamic Jordan and its ecological impact: Towns of the Anthropocene

Medieval Islamic archaeology in Jordan is relevant to the ‘Anthropocene’ discourse because of state investment in intensive land use, including irrigation and diversion of local agricultural economies from subsistence crops to cash crops. Archaeology offers a deep-time perspective on these issues. Previous archaeological and historical studies indicate that major centers of Medieval agriculture deteriorated at some point during the 15th century, in part because of state economic withdrawal and this impacted land use. In this paper, we use phytoliths to understand agricultural practices of Medieval Hisban (Mediterranean vegetation zone), Tawahin as-Sukkar, Khirbet as-Sheikh Isa, and Beidha (semi-arid region of the Jordan Valley) to offer new insights into state agricultural policies in relation to ecological and environmental history. Our results show control of irrigable land by subsistence farmers gave them resilience and contributed to sustainable farming. However, state-managed agricultural systems expropriated irrigable land, emphasizing production of cash crops for state revenue, thus reducing sustainability and putting pressure on the landscape. Sugarcane production replaced cereal cultivation and led to wood fuel burning, enhancing landscape erosion. Phytoliths from Beidha indicate that intensive agricultural production extended to marginal areas with the use of irrigation, thus creating greater human impact on sensitive environments.