Armit, I, Swindles, GT, Becker, K et al. (2 more authors) (2014) Rapid climate change did not cause population collapse at the end of the European Bronze Age. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (48). pp. 17045-17049. ISSN 0027-8424
Abstract
The impact of rapid climate change on contemporary human populations is of global concern. To contextualize our understanding of human responses to rapid climate change it is necessary to examine the archeological record during past climate transitions. One episode of abrupt climate change has been correlated with societal collapse at the end of the northwestern European Bronze Age. We apply new methods to interrogate archeological and paleoclimate data for this transition in Ireland at a higher level of precision than has previously been possible. We analyze archeological 14C dates to demonstrate dramatic population collapse and present high-precision proxy climate data, analyzed through Bayesian methods, to provide evidence for a rapid climatic transition at ca. 750 calibrated years B.C. Our results demonstrate that this climatic downturn did not initiate population collapse and highlight the nondeterministic nature of human responses to past climate change.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014, PNAS. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Bronze age; Climate change; Demography; Prehistory; Radiocarbon dating |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 19 Jan 2015 11:20 |
Last Modified: | 02 Dec 2020 16:33 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1408028111 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | National Academy of Sciences |
Identification Number: | 10.1073/pnas.1408028111 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:82349 |