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The consequences of human land-use strategies during the PPNB-LN transition: a simulation modeling approach

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This dissertation investigates the long-term consequences of human land-use practices in general, and in early agricultural villages in specific. This pioneering case study investigates the "collapse" of the Early (Pre-Pottery) Neolithic lifeway, which was a major transformational event marked by significant changes in settlement patterns, material culture, and social markers.…

This dissertation investigates the long-term consequences of human land-use practices in general, and in early agricultural villages in specific. This pioneering case study investigates the "collapse" of the Early (Pre-Pottery) Neolithic lifeway, which was a major transformational event marked by significant changes in settlement patterns, material culture, and social markers. To move beyond traditional narratives of cultural collapse, I employ a Complex Adaptive Systems approach to this research, and combine agent-based computer simulations of Neolithic land-use with dynamic and spatially-explicit GIS-based environmental models to conduct experiments into long-term trajectories of different potential Neolithic socio-environmental systems. My analysis outlines how the Early Neolithic "collapse" was likely instigated by a non-linear sequence of events, and that it would have been impossible for Neolithic peoples to recognize the long-term outcome of their actions. The experiment-based simulation approach shows that, starting from the same initial conditions, complex combinations of feedback amplification, stochasticity, responses to internal and external stimuli, and the accumulation of incremental changes to the socio-natural landscape, can lead to widely divergent outcomes over time. Thus, rather than being an inevitable consequence of specific Neolithic land-use choices, the "catastrophic" transformation at the end of the Early Neolithic was an emergent property of the Early Neolithic socio-natural system itself, and thus likely not an easily predictable event. In this way, my work uses the technique of simulation modeling to connect CAS theory with the archaeological and geoarchaeological record to help better understand the causes and consequences of socio-ecological transformation at a regional scale. The research is broadly applicable to other archaeological cases of resilience and collapse, and is truly interdisciplinary in that it draws on fields such as geomorphology, computer science, and agronomy in addition to archaeology.
ContributorsUllah, Isaac (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Thesis advisor) / Banning, Edward B. (Committee member) / Clark, Geoffrey (Committee member) / Arrowsmith, J. Ramon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Assessment of environmental change in the Near Eastern Bronze Age

Description
This dissertation research investigates both spatial and temporal aspects of Bronze Age land use and land cover in the Eastern Mediterranean using botanical macrofossils of charcoal and charred seeds as sources of proxy data. Comparisons through time and over space using seed and charcoal densities, seed to charcoal ratios, and…

This dissertation research investigates both spatial and temporal aspects of Bronze Age land use and land cover in the Eastern Mediterranean using botanical macrofossils of charcoal and charred seeds as sources of proxy data. Comparisons through time and over space using seed and charcoal densities, seed to charcoal ratios, and seed and charcoal identifications provide a comprehensive view of island vs. mainland vegetative trajectories through the critical 1000 year time period from 2500 BC to 1500 BC of both climatic fluctuation and significant anthropogenic forces. This research focuses particularly on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus during this crucial interface of climatic and human impacts on the landscape. Macrobotanical data often are interpreted locally in reference to a specific site, whereas this research draws spatial comparisons between contemporaneous archaeological sites as well as temporal comparisons between non-contemporaneous sites. This larger perspective is particularly crucial on Cyprus, where field scientists commonly assume that botanical macrofossils are poorly preserved, thus unnecessarily limiting their use as an interpretive proxy. These data reveal very minor anthropogenic landscape changes on the island of Cyprus compared to those associated with contemporaneous mainland sites. These data also reveal that climatic forces influenced land use decisions on the mainland sites, and provides crucial evidence pertaining to the rise of early anthropogenic landscapes and urbanized civilization.
ContributorsKlinge, JoAnna M (Author) / Fall, Patricia L. (Thesis advisor) / Falconer, Steven E. (Committee member) / Brazel, Anthony J. (Committee member) / Pigg, Kathleen B (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Craft production and socio-economic marginality: living on the periphery of urban Teotihuacan

Description
This dissertation investigates socio-economic strategies adopted by a small craftworking community situated on the edge of one of the earliest, largest and most complex cities in Mesoamerica. The focus of investigation is San Jose 520, a hamlet located on the southeastern margin of Teotihuacan and occupied primarily during the Tlamimilolpa…

This dissertation investigates socio-economic strategies adopted by a small craftworking community situated on the edge of one of the earliest, largest and most complex cities in Mesoamerica. The focus of investigation is San Jose 520, a hamlet located on the southeastern margin of Teotihuacan and occupied primarily during the Tlamimilolpa and Xolalpan phases (ca. A.D. 200-500). Its inhabitants were potters of low socio-economic status living in small, architecturally simple residential structures. The investigation complements much more numerous studies of higher-status groups residing in Teotihuacan's famous apartment compounds, much larger and architecturally more formal structures clustered primarily within built-up parts of the city. The founding residents of San Jose 520 might have initially been immigrants, arriving at Teotihuacan after most of the city was already filled in and occupied, and therefore settling in a spatially marginal area with limited potential for farming. Archaeological field and lab investigations demonstrate that they adopted ceramic production as a strategy of economic survival in a competitive urban system. They specialized in the manufacture of the outcurving bowl--a vessel widely used at Teotihuacan for food service and certain ritual activities. At smaller scales of production, these potters also made other types of serving and ritual vessels and figurines. Evidence relating to mortuary and domestic rituals indicates participation in a number of the rituals typical of other sectors of Teotihuacan society, but not all. The most general goal of this investigation is to improve understanding of how socially and spatially marginal peoples possessing low economic status developed and exploited viable economic niches in pre-industrial urban systems. The San Jose 520 potters appear dynamic in their economic adjustment--in part by enhancing their production system over time through the adoption of various specialized pot-making tools (some as yet undocumented for Teotihuacan), and to some extent by modifying their product line, they survived for many generations. Nevertheless, they never succeeded in significantly raising their economic status; at the time of their apparent disappearance sometime in the Xolalpan phase, these potters and their households continued to constitute a case study of urban poverty in a massive pre-industrial city.
ContributorsCabrera Cortes, Mercedes Oralia (Author) / Stark, Barbara L. (Thesis advisor) / Cowgill, George L. (Thesis advisor) / Falconer, Steven E. (Committee member) / Spielmann, Katherine A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011

Land Cover Change in the Southern Levant: 1973 to 2007

ContributorsSoto-Berelov, Mariela (Author) / Fall, Patricia L. (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Author) / Falconer, Steven E. (Author) / Sarjoughian, Hessam S. (Author) / Arrowsmith, J. Ramon (Author)
Created2007

Coupled Models for Coupled Systems: Land-Use and Landscape Dynamics in the Mediterranean

ContributorsBarton, C. Michael (Author) / Ullah, Isaac I. T., 1979- (Author) / Mayer, Gary R. (Author) / Sarjoughian, Hessam S. (Author) / Bergin, Sean M. (Author) / Miller, Alexandra E. (Author) / Mitasova, H. (Author)
Created2010

Field Investigations of Landscape Development in Southeast Spain for Use in Modeling Holocene (8,000-1,500 yr) Agropastoral Landuse and Landscape Interactions

Description

Dramatic changes in land use were associated with the rise of agriculture in the mid Holocene in the Mediterranean region. Both surface properties and drainage networks were changed along with direct modifications to surface properties (vegetation removal and change, sediment liberation and compaction); consequent drainage alteration (terracing, canals) and u…

Dramatic changes in land use were associated with the rise of agriculture in the mid Holocene in the Mediterranean region. Both surface properties and drainage networks were changed along with direct modifications to surface properties (vegetation removal and change, sediment liberation and compaction); consequent drainage alteration (terracing, canals) and up and downstream responses in the watersheds communicated these changes throughout the landscape.

The magnitude, rate, and feedbacks with the growing human populations are critical questions in our effort to assess human-landscape interactions. To investigate these relationships, recent field work in the Penaguila Valley of southeast Spain included landform mapping, alluvial deposit description, and sample collection emphasizing areas of active erosion, remnant land surfaces and their relation to archaeological sites.

We have updated our geomorphic maps by refining the delineation of alluvial terraces, steep-walled (40m deep) drainages ("barrancos"), and hollows ("barrancos de fondo plano"). Hollows are curved, elongate, flat-bottomed gullies with steep walls (2-30m tall) and extend headward from the main barrancos. This work enables more accurate terrace correlations necessary for both landscape evolution modeling and interpretation of the development history of the basin.

Alluvial terraces are crucial to this research because they record periods of past stable topography. In the Penaguila, sites dating back to late Mesolithic and early Neolithic (around 6600 BP) and subsequent periods (Chalcolithic and Bronze Age) are exposed on a prominent terrace surface mapped as Terrace A. This broad low relief surface is scarred by deep barrancos and hollow formation that expose bedrock marls and overlying alluvial deposits. Stratigraphic profiles and texture analyses of Terrace A deposits reveal overland flow facies and channel networks in reworked and CaCO3-encrusted marls, and several organic-rich paleosols. Small remnant surfaces mapped as Terrace Z (below Terrace A) were observed within the main barrancos and indicate a later, brief accumulation period with subsequent incision to the modern channel.

Holocene landscape development in the Penaguila appears to have progressed from a period of stability to slope denudation with aggradation (stream infilling) followed by rapid incision which initiated sometime near the time of occupation. This change from a low relief alluvial surface to one cut by narrow channels may have been an important shift for local populations. Their response to that environmental modification may be associated with the horticulturalist to agricultural intensification noted in the archaeological record. Tighter chronology and better understanding of the driving processes for barranco incision and hollow formation will improve our ability to correlate the changing landscape with land use practices. Such an improved correlation leads to better understanding of human-landscape interactions.
ContributorsDiMaggio, E. N. (Author) / La Roca, N. (Author) / Arrowsmith, J. Ramon (Author) / Diez-Castillo, A. (Author) / Bernabeu, J. (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Author)

Geomorphic Mapping and Paleoterrain Generation for Use in Modeling Holocene (8,000-1,500 yr) Agropastoral Landuse and Landscape Interactions in Southeast Spain

Description

Poster presented at the American Geophysical Union, 2006, San Francisco.

ContributorsDiMaggio, E. N. (Author) / Arrowsmith, J. Ramon (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Author) / Sarjoughian, Hessam S. (Author) / Fall, Patricia L. (Author) / Ullah, Isaac I. T., 1979- (Author)

Coupled ABM-GIS Modeling of Agro-Pastoral Systems in Eastern Spain

ContributorsBergin, Sean M. (Author) / Ullah, Isaac I. T., 1979- (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Author) / Mayer, Gary R. (Author) / Sarjoughian, Hessam S. (Author)
Created2010

Modeling Impacts of Landuse Practices on Mediterranean Landscapes

ContributorsBarton, C. Michael (Author) / Ullah, Isaac I. T., 1979- (Author)
Created2006

Alternative Futures of the Past: Modeling Neolithic Landuse and its Consequences in the Ancient Mediterranean

ContributorsUllah, Isaac I. T., 1979- (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Author)
Created2007