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Megadrought and Collapse is the first book to treat in one volume the current palaeoclimatic and archaeological evidence of megadrought events coincident with major prehistoric and historical examples of societal collapse. Previous works have offered multi-causal explanations for collapse, from overpopulation, overexploitation of resources, and warfare to poor leadership and failure to adapt to environmental changes. In earlier synthetic studies of major instances of collapse, the full force of climate change has often not been considered.
Megadrought and Collapse includes nine case studies that span the globe and stretch over fourteen thousand years, from the palaeolithic hunter-gatherer collapse of the 12th millennium BC to the 15th century AD fall of the Khmer capital at Angkor. Together, the studies constitute a primary source book in which principal investigators in archaeology and palaeoclimatology present their original research. Each case study juxtaposes the latest palaeoclimatic evidence of megadrought (so-called for its severity and its decades – to centuries-long duration) with available archaeological records of synchronous societal collapse. The megadrought data are derived from all five archival paleoclimate proxy sources: speleothems (cave stalagmites), tree rings, and lake, marine, and glacial cores. The archaeological records in each case are the most recently retrieved.
With Megadrought and Collapse, Harvey Weiss and his team of expert contributors have assembled an authoritative investigation that is certain to engage environmental history readers across disciplines in the sciences and social sciences.
Contributors
Introduction
Harvey Weiss
1. 12,000-11,700 cal BP: The Collapse of Foraging and Origins of Cultivation in Western Asia
Ofer Bar-Yosef, Miryam Bar-Matthews, and Avner Ayalon
2. 6600-6000 cal BP Abrupt Climate Change and Neolithic Dispersal from West Asia
Bernard Weninger and Lee Clare
3. 4.2 ka BP Megadrought and the Akkadian Collapse
Harvey Weiss
4. 3.2 ka BP Megadrought and the Late Bronze Age Collapse
Daniel Kaniewski and Elise Van Campo
5. AD 550-600 Collapse at Teotihuacan: Testing a Climate Forcing from a 2400-Year Mesoamerican Rainfall Reconstruction
Matthew S. Lachniet and Juan Pablo Bernal-Uruchurtu
6. AD 750-1100 Climate Change and Critical Transitions in Classic Maya Sociopolitical Networks
Douglas J. Kennett and David A. Hodell
7. Twelfth Century AD: Climate, Environment, and the Tiwanaku State
Lonnie Thompson and Alan L. Kolata
8. Thirteenth Century AD: Implications of Seasonal and Annual Moisture 0 Reconstructions for Mesa Verde, Colorado
David W. Stahle, Dorian J. Burnette, Daniel Griffin, Edward R. Cook, and Larry V. Benson
9. Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries AD: The Case of Angkor and Monsoon Extremes in Mainland Southeast Asia
Roland Fletcher, Brendan M. Buckley, Christophe Pottier, and Shi-Yu Simon Wang
Index
Harvey Weiss is Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Environmental Studies at Yale University. For the past thirty years, he has directed archaeological and palaeoenvironmental investigations of the ca. 2200 BC Akkadian site at Tell Leilan, Syria. Weiss has edited several volumes and published numerous articles and essays in Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other journals.
"Environmental vulnerability in the face of climate change is often discussed in the context of future climate; as such, the perspective on past societal disruption presented in this volume is extremely valuable. The contributing authors are all first-rate experts in their fields. This thorough collection will be of broad interest to archaeologists, paleoclimatologists, anthropologists, social scientists, and many more."
– Raymond S. Bradley, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
"Richly documented and wide-ranging, this compelling interdisciplinary history of megadrought and societal collapse stresses the subject of long-term human and environmental interaction, a topic constantly on our minds today due to global warming. With his selected mix of global case studies, Weiss provides us with an important and timely rejoinder against those who question or dismiss the potential impact of major climate change on humans and other organisms."
– Tom D. Dillehay, Vanderbilt University
"There has been much speculation that drought has been a key driver leading to the collapse of ancient societies but corroboration of theory has often been less than robust. In this masterful and much-needed book, edited by Harvey Weiss, we at least have the opportunity to see all the evidence brought together and crystallized in one place. At a time when global warming is once again raising the prospect of widespread and catastrophic drought, no one who reads this book should have any doubt of the immense power of drought to devastate and destroy."
– Bill McGuire, University College London
