A detailed climatic context for the growth and decay of Cretan Civilisations

克里特岛的景观是复杂的地质过程的结果，这些地质过程导致了大约300万到400万年前，在上新世时期，该岛从海洋中出现（McEnroe, 2010）。岛上的地形、气候和植物的多样性是巨大的。事实证明，整个地中海地形的范围可以被发现凝聚在其陆地上，跨度约250公里长，只有60公里宽（McEnroe 2010）。此外，在过去的几千年里，克里特岛的风景一直是许多文化发展和衰败的家园。最著名的是米诺斯人，他们在青铜时代在岛上繁荣发展。众所周知，米诺斯文明在青铜时代末期（公元前1315-1190年）崩溃（Drake 2012）。这种宫殿系统的崩溃归因于许多不同的因素，包括人为因素和环境驱动因素（Drake 2012）。一些有目的的原因包括大量人口迁移、经济体系崩溃、构造不稳定导致整个地区发生一系列地震，以及气候变化，如青铜时代末期的干旱事件，可能导致该地区干旱加剧（Drake 2012）。尽管青铜时代末期的崩溃引起了大多数人的关注，因为它标志着克里特岛最重要的文化之一的终结，但在随后的时期，我们继续看到各种文化和遗址的发展和放弃。总的来说，在调查文化崩溃时，有很多不同的因素需要考虑，但最受关注的范式是环境崩溃（Middleton 2012）。虽然气候变化和多样性会对人类社会产生影响是一个公认的事实，但在克里特岛过去看到的社会崩溃的程度可以等同于气候的变化，这可能有点夸张。到目前为止，我们有克里特岛的古气候记录，记录了过去一万年里重大的气候变化和事件。同样，我们也知道，岛上的人类活动在形成该地区的生态系统方面发挥了重要作用。然而，该地区仍然需要年代准确、高分辨率和空间分布的古气候记录。通常，在社会变迁和气候之间得出的结论是基于具有较大时间不确定性的古气候重建，或者由于缺乏目前存在的克里特岛古气候数据而使用低分辨率记录。因此，为了更好地理解社会变迁和气候变迁之间的联系，以及在多大程度上我们可以将克里特岛的社会崩溃等同于环境因素，我们必须进一步研究整个地区的气候变化。项目目标：利用克里特岛过去一万年的洞穴化石，制作出高分辨率、年代准确的气候记录。将季节性极端气候事件（干旱、野火）限制在十年一次的范围内，这些事件更有可能影响克里特岛的人类社会。综合岛上现有的气候和考古资料。研究问题：气候对克里特文明的形成有影响吗？

The Cretan landscape is a result of complex geological processes that resulted in the island's emergence from the sea some three to four million years ago, during the Pliocene era (McEnroe, 2010). The topographic, climate, and floral diversity of the island is immense. This is exemplified by the fact that the entire range of Mediterranean topography can be found condensed on its land mass that spans around 250 km long and only 60 km wide (McEnroe 2010).Moreover, during the last few millennia, the Cretan landscape has been home to both the growth and decay of many cultures. Most famously the Minoans, who flourished on the island throughout the Bronze Age. As is widely known, the Minoan civilization collapsed at the end of the Bronze age (1315-1190 BCE) (Drake 2012). This collapse of the palatial system has been attributed to many different factors both human and environmentally driven (Drake 2012). Some purposed causes include large population migrations, economic system collapse, tectonic instabilities that led to a series of earthquakes throughout the region, and shifts in the climate such as the proposed drought event at the end of the Bronze Age that could have led to heightened aridity in the region (Drake 2012). Although the collapse at the end of the Bronze Age is given most of the attention as it marked the end of one of the most important cultures of Crete, in the subsequent periods we continue to see the growth and abandonment of various cultures and sites. Overall, there are a lot of different factors to consider when investigating the collapse of cultures, but the paradigm that tends to receive the most focus is environmental collapse (Middleton 2012). While it is a given that climate change and diversity would have had an impact on human societies, the extent to which societal collapse seen throughout Crete's past can be equated to shifts in the climate might be somewhat exaggerated.As of right now, we have palaeoclimate records from Crete that document significant climate shifts and events during the last 10,000 years. Likewise, we also know that human occupation on the island played an important role in shaping the ecosystem of the region. However, there is a still a need for well-dated, high-resolution, and spatially distributed palaeoclimatic records for the region. Often conclusions drawn between societal shifts and climate are based on palaeoclimate reconstructions with large chronological uncertainties or using low-resolution records due to the deficiency of the paleoclimate data that currently exists for Crete. So, in the pursuit to better understand the connection between societal shifts and climatic shifts and to what extent we can equate societal collapse in Crete to environmental factors, we must further investigate climate variations throughout the region.Project Aims:Produce high-resolution, well-dated climate records using speleothems from Crete that cover the last 10,000 years.Constrain the seasonal to decadal-scale extreme climate events (droughts, wildfires) that are more likely to have impacted human societies on Crete.Synthesizing the existing climatic and archaeological data for the island.Research question: Did climate play a role in shaping Cretan civilization?