Drought stress variability in ancient Near Eastern agricultural systems evidenced by δ13C in barley grain
Drought stress variability in ancient Near Eastern agricultural systems evidenced by δ13C in barley grain
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1409516111
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发表时间：
2014-08-26
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Hole, Frank
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Riehl, Simone;Pustovoytov, Konstantin E.;Hole, Frank
古代近东政治制度的崩溃和恢复及其与农业发展的关系一直是考古学和人类学的广泛兴趣。尽管试图将考古证据与当地的古气候数据联系起来，但环境条件在古代农业生产中的确切作用仍然知之甚少。最近，稳定同位素分析已被用于重建特定地点的古代生长条件的作物物种在半干旱和干旱景观。为了开启对区域多样性在过去农业生产中的作用的讨论，作为社会发展的一个因素，我们从33个考古遗址和新月沃土地理区域的现代领域中提出了1.037个新的稳定碳同位素测量，跨越了新石器时代[公元前10，000校准年（cal）]。到铁器时代晚期（公元前500卡），以及13个地点的现代数据。我们的数据表明，干旱压力是一个问题，在古代近东的许多农业定居点，特别是与主要的全新世气候波动，但其区域影响是不同的，受地理因素的影响。虽然生长在黎凡特北方沿海地区的谷物相对不受全新世气候波动的影响，但内陆地区的农民不得不采用灌溉来科普日益增加的水资源压力。然而，内陆农业战略表现出高度的可变性。我们的研究结果表明，气候效应的区域差异导致了古代生存和经济的多样化战略，即使在空间有限的文化单位。
The collapse and resilience of political systems in the ancient Near East and their relationship with agricultural development have been of wide interest in archaeology and anthropology. Despite attempts to link the archaeological evidence to local paleoclimate data, the precise role of environmental conditions in ancient agricultural production remains poorly understood. Recently, stable isotope analysis has been used for reconstructing site-specific ancient growing conditions for crop species in semiarid and arid landscapes. To open the discussion of the role of regional diversity in past agricultural production as a factor in societal development, we present 1.037 new stable carbon isotope measurements from 33 archaeological sites and modern fields in the geographic area of the Fertile Crescent, spanning the Aceramic Neolithic [10,000 calibrated years (cal) B.C.] to the later Iron Age (500 cal B.C.), alongside modern data from 13 locations. Our data show that drought stress was an issue in many agricultural settlements in the ancient Near East, particularly in correlation with the major Holocene climatic fluctuations, but its regional impact was diverse and influenced by geographic factors. Although cereals growing in the coastal areas of the northern Levant were relatively unaffected by Holocene climatic fluctuations, farmers of regions further inland had to apply irrigation to cope with increased water stress. However, inland agricultural strategies showed a high degree of variability. Our findings suggest that regional differences in climatic effects led to diversified strategies in ancient subsistence and economy even within spatially limited cultural units.