Environmental Change in Prehistory: An Interdisciplinary Examination of the Impact of the 6th Millennium BP Climate Transition on Human Populations

拟议的网络将把在全新世早期和中期拥有专业知识的考古学家和气候科学家聚集在一起，以调查在公元前6000年(公元前4000年)校准后在地中海大部分地区发生的史前最有趣但研究最少的文化转变之一。在欧洲、近东、塞浦路斯和北非，考古学家记录了定居点模式以及社会和经济行为的广泛变化。对这些变化的传统解释倾向于区域特定的文化解释，但从公元前6000年遗址发掘中恢复的考古和环境数据越来越多地支持和补充越来越多的气候数据，表明公元前6000年是一个深刻和不可逆转的气候变化时期。因此，如果我们要更好地了解这一新兴的知识重要性领域，一个将辩论的主要贡献者聚集在一起的论坛是及时和必要的。随着我们进入21世纪，研究过去的气候和环境变化及其对人类社会的影响将变得越来越重要。辩论基本上没有讨论对气候和环境快速变化的反应，但过去为我们提供了一些比较，这些比较可能在未来被证明是相关的。地理上广泛分布的气候和环境变化在公元前约6000到5000年间十分明显，这为我们提供了一个机会来探索气候和环境条件的变化对社会的影响，这些社会虽然在时间上很遥远，但与历史和现代社会有许多共同的特征。因此，这项研究的结果不仅会引起考古学家和气候学家的广泛兴趣，而且可能会引起历史学家、艺术历史学家、人类地理学家和人类学家的兴趣，研究现代人对环境变化的反应。

The proposed network will bring together archaeologists and climate scientists with expertise in the early and mid Holocene in order to investigate one of the most interesting but understudied cultural shifts in prehistory occurring in much of the Mediterranean after 6000 calibrated BP (4000 calibrated BC). In Europe, the Near East, Cyprus and North Africa archaeologists have documented widespread changes in settlement patterns and social and economic behaviour. Traditional interpretations of these changes have favoured regionally specific cultural explanations but increasingly, archaeological and environmental data recovered from excavations of 6th millennium BP sites are supporting and supplementing the growing body of climatic data indicating that the 6th millennium BP was a period of profound and irreversible climatic change. A forum which brings together key contributors to the debate is therefore timely and essential if we are to gain greater understanding of this emerging area of intellectual importance.The study of past climatic and environmental change and its impact on human societies will become increasingly relevant as we move into the 21st century. Discussion of responses to rapid climatic and environmental change is essentially absent from the debate, yet the past provides us with comparisons which may prove relevant in the future. The geographically widespread climatic and environmental changes evident between ~6000 and 5000 BP provide us with an opportunity to explore the impacts of changes in climatic and environmental conditions on societies which, while remote in time, share many characteristics with historical and modern societies.The results of this research will thus be of wide interest, not only amongst archaeologists and climate scientists, but also potentially, historians, art historians, human geographers and anthropologists researching modern human responses to environmental change.