Climate & Ancient Societies > Program

Program:

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Conference Sessions

1. Holocene Climate Reconstruction

Keynote speaker and organiser: Neil Roberts, University of Plymouth
Invited speaker: Miryam Bar-Matthews, The Geological Survey of Israel

This session adopts a holistic and global approach to reconstructing Holocene climates. Ways of measuring and assessing climatic variation are considered thematically and methodologically, drawing on material from a variety of sources such as ice core pollen, deep sea sediment cores, lacustrine sediments, and faunal and floral studies. Methods and approaches to Holocene climate reconstruction will range from general, world-wide perspectives to more focussed studies on the Mediterranean area and the Near East.

2.  Responses of Complex Societies to Climatic Variation

Keynote speaker and organiser: Jason Ur, Harvard University
Invited speaker: Harvey Weiss, Yale University

The complex and continuing changing relationship between complex societies and the environment in which they exist is the focus of this session. With an emphasis on human response to climatic change, special attention will be paid to exploring social change, resilience and collapse in the face of climate change in the past. It is expected that this session will range from case studies to regional analyses with an unambiguous Mediterranean and Middle Eastern focus.

3.  Archaeological Evidence for Pollution and its Ecological Implications

Keynote speaker and organiser: Richard Meadow, Harvard University
Invited speaker: Fiona Marshall, Washington University

The subject of the direct or indirect impact of human behaviour on plant and animal communities is central to contemporary archaeological research. This session will explore this topic, notably the adverse effect of human activity on the environment, for example the depletion of game animals seen in shifts in the abundance of certain species. Special focus will be paid to investigating the severe and sometimes destructive pollution of the environment through human behaviour. It is expected that this session will have a clear Mediterranean and Middle Eastern focus.

4.  Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East

Keynote speaker and organiser: Nanna Noe-Nygaard,  University of Copenhagen
Invited speaker: Abdulla Al-Shorman, Yarmouk University

This session takes as its core subject new perspectives and possible problems in stable isotope analysis in the field of environmental studies. Papers will explore the potential of stable isotope analysis in archaeological research and the many new avenues of approach it offers, without disregarding the prospective problems associated with the application of the still emergent fields of ancient DNA and stable isotope analysis to archaeology.