Warren J. Eastwood

Climatic, vegetation and cultural change in the eastern Mediterranean during the mid-Holocene environmental transition:

The eastern Mediterranean region witnessed changes in human culture of the highest importance between ~9000 and ~2500 cal. BP (7000—500 BC) and over the same time period was affected by very significant shifts in climate. Stable isotope data from lake and deep-sea sediment cores and from cave speleothems show an overall trend from a wetter to a drier climate during the mid Holocene. Superimposed on this trend were multicentennial oscillations in climate, with notable arid phases occurring around 5300—5000 BP, 4500—3900 BP, and 3100—2800 BP (all ages are expressed in calibrated/ calendar years). These phases coincide with major archaeological transitions across the eastern Mediterranean region (Chalcolithic to early Bronze Age, EBA to MBA, and LBA to Iron Age) implying that environmental stress or opportunity may have acted as a pacemaker for cultural change and re-organisation. We use 14C and δ 13C analysis of archaeobotanical samples from two protohistoric sites in Syria to illustrate the linkage between water availability, climate and cultural change during the third and second millennia BC. Specific societal responses to environmental change were not predictable in advance, but resulted instead from contingent processes involving antecedent conditions, human choice and adaptive strategies. Pollen analysis highlights how changes in climate were coupled to increasing human impacts to transform the region’s landscapes. Initial human-induced land-cover transformation commonly took place during Bronze Age times, sometimes coinciding with phases of drier climate, although the pattern and precise timing varied between sites. Changes in climate between the early and late Holocene thus helped to transform eastern Mediterranean landscape ecologies and human cultures, but in complex, non-deterministic ways.

Holocene environmental change in southwest Turkey: a palaeoecological record of lake and catchment-related changes

Percentage, concentration and accumulation pollen data together with diatom and non-siliceous microfossil data are presented for the site of Go‹ lhisar Go ‹l u‹ (37i8@N, 29i36@E; elevation 930 m), a small intramontane lake in Burdur Province, southwest Turkey. Microfossil assemblages from the longest sediment core (GHA: 813 cm) record changes in local and regional vegetation and lake productivity over the last &9500 years. Pollen spectra indicate that vegetation progressed from an open landscape with an increase in arboreal pollen occurring &8500 BP to mixed forest comprising oak, pine and juniper until around 3000 BP (Cal &1240 BC) when a human occupation phase becomes discernible from the pollen spectra. This occurs shortly after the deposition of a volcanic tephra layer which originated from the Minoan eruption of Santorini (Thera) and radiocarbon dated to 3330

Tephrostratigraphy, chronology and climatic events of the Mediterranean basin during the Holocene: An overview:

70 yr BP (Cal &1600 BC). This human occupation phase is comparable to the Beys,ehir Occupation phase recorded at other sites in southwest Turkey and involved forest clearance and the cultivation of fruit trees such as Olea, Juglans, Castanea and »itis together with arable cereal growing and pastoralism. The presence of pollen types associated with the Beys,ehir Occupation phase in deposits above the Santorini tephra layer confirms a Late Bronze Age/early Anatolian Dark Age date for its commencement. Since &3000 BP notable changes in aquatic ecology associated with tephra deposition and subsequent nutrient and sediment flux from the lake catchment are recorded. The Beys,ehir Occupation phase at Go‹ lhisar Go ‹l u‹ came to an end around 1300 BP (Cla AD &700) when pine appears to have become the dominant forest tree. ( 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Chronology and stratigraphy of Late Quaternary sediments in the Konya basin, Turkey: Results from the KOPAL project

The identification and characterisation of high-frequency climatic changes during the Holocene requires natural archives with precise and accurate chronological control, which is usually difficult to achieve using only 14C chronologies. The presence of time-spaced tephra beds in Quaternary Mediterranean successions represents an additional, independent tool for dating and correlating different sedimentary archives. These tephra layers are potentially useful for resolving long-standing issues in paleoclimatology and can help towards correlating terrestrial and marine paleoclimate archives. Known major tephras of regional extent derive from central and southern Italy, the Hellenic Arc, and from Anatolia. A striking feature of major Holocene tephra deposition events in the Mediterranean is that they are clustered rather than randomly distributed in time. Several tephra layers occurred at the time of the S1 sapropel formation between c. 8.4 and 9.0 ka BP (Mercato, Gabellotto-Fiumebianco/E1, Cappadocia) and other important tephra layers (Avellino, Agnano Monte Spina, ‘Khabur’ and Santorini/Thera) occurred during the second and third millennia BC, marking an important and complex phase of environmental changes during the mid- to late-Holocene climatic transition. There is great potential in using cryptotephra to overlap geographically Italian volcanic ashes with those originating from the Aegean and Anatolia, in order to connect regional tephrochronologies between the central and eastern Mediterranean.

Geochemistry of Santorini tephra in lake sediments from Southwest Turkey

Abstract The Late Quaternary environmental history of the Konya plain, in south central Turkey, is used to examine sediment facies changes in a shallow non-outlet basin which has experienced major climatically driven changes in lake extent. Two principal types of sedimentary archive are used to reconstruct a palaeoenvironmental record, namely alluvial sequences on the Carsamba alluvial fan and sediments from residual lakes. The latter have been used to investigate broader climatic and vegetational histories via palaeolimnological techniques including pollen, diatom and stable isotope analysis. These changes are dated here by radiometric techniques including radiocarbon (AMS and conventional), OSL, and U–Th. Chronological agreement is generally good between the different dating techniques, although typically there is greatly reduced precision beyond ca. 25 ka. Lake sediment cores investigated have basal ages beyond the range of 14C dating, but contain hiatuses as a result of subsequent alternation between phases of lacustrine sedimentation and aeolian deflation. In contrast to most deepwater non-outlet lake systems, the Konya basin may have been occupied by a single extensive lake for as little as 10% of Late Quaternary time, mainly around the time of the LGM. This lake highstand was followed by an important arid interval. In the absence of unbroken chronostratigraphic sequences, palaeohydrological investigation of shallow non-outlet lakes may require analysis of basin-wide changes in sedimentation rather than reliance on single core records. Stratigraphic continuity in such sedimentary environments cannot be assumed, and requires independent chronological control through radiometric dating.

The application of laser ablation ICP-MS to the analysis of volcanic glass shards from tephra deposits: bulk glass and single shard analysis

A layer of volcanic ash (4 cm maximum recorded thickness) is present at ∼250 cm depth in littoral sediments of Golhisar Golu; a small intramontane lake in Southwest Turkey. The major-element glass chemistry, determined by electron microprobe, is characterised by a rhyolitic composition. Trace-element data, determined by solution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (icp-ms) match previously reported results for proximal pumice samples from Santorini and Crete. Peat immediately below the tephra deposit has yielded radiocarbon ages of 3330±70 yr bp and 3225±45 yr bp (calibrated age range 1749–1406 bc).

Trace-element composition of single glass shards in distal Minoan tephra from SW Turkey

Abstract Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) has been applied to the chemical analysis of fine-grained (125–250 μm) volcanic glass shards separated from tephra deposits. This has been used both for bulk sample analysis and for the analysis of individual shards. Initial work concentrated on the use of an infra-red (IR) laser operating at 1064 nm, which gave craters of the order of 200 μm and was suitable for the analysis of bulk samples. This technique requires of the order of 80 μg of sample to determine a full suite of trace elements. Modification of the laser optics to enable operation in the ultra-violet (UV, at 266 nm) enables craters between 5 and 50 μm diameter to be produced, and the UV laser couples better with glass than the IR laser. We have applied this UV laser system to the analysis of single shards from Miocene tephra deposits from the Ruby Range in south-west Montana. Detection limits are below 1 ppm for a wide range of petrogenetically significant elements, but are critically dependent upon operating conditions. Calibration is achieved using synthetic multi-element glasses, with internal standardisation provided from electron probe analyses. Analysis of single shards provides a wide range of data from a single sample, enabling (i) magmatic evolution to be discerned within one eruption and (ii) the identification of separate populations of shards within one deposit which may not be apparent from the electron probe data. In this paper we will present a summary of the techniques used for both bulk sample and single shard analysis and compare some new bulk analyses with analyses of glass derived from other analytical methods.

The Climate and Environment of Byzantine Anatolia: Integrating Science, History, and Archaeology

Volcanic glass from the seventeenth century bc (c. 3600 bp) Minoan eruption of Santorini (Thera) has been recovered from a 4 cm thick tephra deposit at Gölhisar Gölü, a small lake in SW Turkey. Analysis of single grains of this glass by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) provides, for the first time, an accurate determination of the trace element composition of the juvenile glass component of this eruption, free from contaminants such as phenocrysts or detrital material. Individual glass shards (>150 μm) show a large degree of variation in their trace element composition, indicative of substantial, small-scale compositional heterogeneity in the magma. This is a result of the proximity of crystallizing phases, and provides insights into the chemical evolution of the Minoan magma. The range of elemental compositions displayed by individual glass shards combined with the consistency of many trace element ratios are characteristics of the Minoan glass. These features provide a trace element signature for the Minoan tephra, which will be of value in stratigraphic correlation across the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Physical Geography of The Balkans and Nomenclature of Place Names

The integration of high-resolution archaeological, textual, and environmental data with longer-term, low-resolution data affords greater precision in identifying some of the causal relationships underlying societal change. Regional and microregional case studies about the Byzantine world—in particular, Anatolia, which for several centuries was the heart of that world—reveal many of the difficulties that researchers face when attempting to assess the influence of environmental factors on human society. The Anatolian case challenges a number of assumptions about the impact of climatic factors on socio-political organization and medium-term historical evolution, highlighting the importance of further collaboration between historians, archaeologists, and climate scientists.

Testate amoebae as palaeohydrological proxies in Sürmene Ağaçbaşi Yaylasi Peatland (Northeast Turkey)

The complexity of Balkan physical geography, together with its location in an important transition zone of faunal and floral influences, will have influenced greatly the evolution of Balkan biodiversity. This chapter gives a broad description of the geology, topography and climate of the Balkan Peninsula which serves as a reference point for subsequent specialist chapters on the biodiversity of the Balkan flora and fauna. Since some of the geographic boundaries of the Balkans are not well demarcated the chapter begins with a discussion of how the territory is defined. For the international audience, it includes a brief summary of the nomenclature used for geographic features whose names vary locally.