Joel D. Gunn

Paleoclimatological Patterning In Southern Mesoamerica

Paleoclimatological and archaeological data indicate a strong correlation between atmospheric and ground moisture and the political and socioeconomic prehistory and history of the Lowland Maya.

Climatic change, culture, and civilization in North America

Analysis of modern climatic data suggests a pattern of response to global cooling for precipitation in Mesoamerica and North America. Also research in palaeoclimatology has defined a series of globally warm and cold periods for the Holocene. This paper joins the study of modern and palaeoclimate into a time-series model which appears to explain some of the florescences and declines of civilizations in the region during the last 3,000 years. Economic buffering and local invulnerability to climatic change for specifiable reasons appear to cover those cases which defy climatic explanation.

BAJO SEDIMENTS AND THE HYDRAULIC SYSTEM OF CALAKMUL, CAMPECHE, MEXICO

Maya Lowlands climate researchers have set aside earlier beliefs that Maya civilization flourished in an unchanging environment. Analyses of river discharge, weather patterns, lake-bottom sediments, and settlement patterns reveal a highly variable climate, considerable diversity in local geology and soils, and a wide range of cultural adaptations tailored to distinctive subregional settings. Significant knowledge gaps remain. Among the unanswered questions is how cities in the elevated interior were maintained without natural, permanent bodies of water even during equitable climatic conditions, much less through the episodes of severe drought that have become apparent in studies of past climates. The research reported in this article lays the groundwork for climate studies in the southwestern Yucatan Peninsula.

Emergence of Complex Societies After Sea Level Stabilized

Sea level rose rapidly from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ~18,000 years ago) until it stabilized about 7000 years ago. A millennium later, the rudiments of early civilizations appeared. However, the factors that might have spurred the first civilizations are a subject of debate, with proposals ranging across many possibilities from drought to the influence of individual rulers.

MEADOWCROFT ROCKSHELTER, 1977: AN OVERVIEW

Meadowcroft Rockshelter is a deeply stratified multicomponent site in Washington County, southwestern Pennsylvania. The 11 well-defined stratigraphic units identified at the site span at least 16,000 years and perhaps 19,000 years of intermittent occupation by groups representing all of the major cultural stages/periods now recognized in northeastern North America. Throughout the extant sequence, the site served as a locus for hunting, collecting, and food-processing activities, which involved the seasonal exploitation of the immediately adjacent Cross Creek Valley and contiguous uplands. Presently, Meadowcroft Rockshelter represents one of the earliest well-dated evidences of man in the New World as well as the longest occupational sequence in the Western Hemisphere.

CLIMATE-CHANGE STUDIES IN THE MAYA AREA: A diachronic analysis

The series of papers on climate change published in this issue are the result of the symposium “Environmental Change in Mesoamerica: Physical Forces and Cultural Paradigms in the Preclassic to Postclassic,” held at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in March 2000 in Philadelphia. The authors bring their expertise in paleoclimatological studies to bear on the Maya Lowlands and Highlands from the beginning of the Holocene to the Postclassic and modern times. The studies reveal that climate has changed during the past 4,000 years to a considerable degree that correlates in a reasonable way with archaeological periodizations. Several climate-change models are presented as an effort to understand better past cultural and natural events.

Global Temperature Stability by Rule Induction: An Interdisciplinary Bridge

Rules incorporating influences on global temperature, an estimate of radiation balance, were induced from astronomical, geophysical, and anthropogenic variables. During periods of intermediate global temperatures (generally like the present century), the influences assume cancelingroles; influences cancel the effects of extreme states potentially imposed by other influences because they are, in aggregate, most likely to be assuming opposite values. This imparts an overall stability to the global temperature. To achieve cold or hot global temperature, influences assume reinforcingroles. CO2 is an active influence on global temperature. By virtue of its constancy in the atmosphere, it can be expected to sponsor frequent hot years in combination with the other influences as they cycle through their periods. If measures were implemented to maintain warm or cool global temperatures, it could retain the status quoof present global agricultural regions. They are probably more productive than hot world regions would be because of narrow storm tracks.

The Influence of Enhanced Post-Glacial Coastal Margin Productivity on the Emergence of Complex Societies

ABSTRACT We analyze the dynamics of post-glacial coastal margin (CM) productivity and explore how it affected the emergence of six complex CM societies. Following deglaciation, global relative sea level stabilized after ∼7000 BP and CM productivity significantly increased in many areas. Primary and secondary productivity (fish) likely increased by an order of magnitude or more. Aquatic animals were readily available in the CM providing sources of polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids, high-quality protein, and nutrients, especially essential to human nutrition. In all six case studies, mature CMs appear to have been occupied by Neolithic agricultural and fishing villages within ∼500 years of sea-level stabilization. Within a few hundred years population densities increased and roughly a millennium later social ranking and monumental architecture appeared. Sea-level stabilization and increased CM productivity in conjunction with agricultural intensification in lower alluvial floodplains were major contributors to the origins of many complex CM societies.

Prehistoric and historic settlement patterns in western Cyprus (with a discussion of Cypriot Neolithic stone tool technology)

Intensive site survey in the Paphos District of western Cyprus indicates considerable variation in preferred settlement locus from the early Neolithic period to modern times. Settlement data for each major chronological period are summarized and related to factors of topography, elevation, available water, lithic sources, access to arable land, and potential for defence. Included is a discussion of Neolithic stone tool technology within the survey area.

Meadowcroft Rockshelter-Retrospect 1977: Part 2

Meadowcroft Rockshelter is a deeply stratified multicomponent site in Washington County, southwestern Pennsylvania. The eleven well defined stratigraphic units identified at the site span at least 16,000, and perhaps 19,000 years of intermittent occupation by groups representing all of the major cultural stages/periods now recognized in northeastern North America. Throughout the extant sequence, the site served as a locus for hunting, collecting and food processing activities which involved the seasonal exploitation of the immediately adjacent Cross Creek valley and contiguous uplands. Presently, Meadowcroft Rockshelter represents the earliest well dated evidence of man in the New World as well as the longest occupational sequence in the Western Hemisphere.