![Page 1: Climate and Human Civilization over the last 18,000 years · smoothed line is a 37 month moving average. Prior to that, uneven surface readings are used to estimate global temperatures](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022081607/5ecc6e1d6f6c4c43fc3bc92b/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
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Years BP, thousands
Air Temp, Central Greenland, Deg C
Present Warm Period
14,500 yrs BP, the world begins to warm after the glaciation.
“Last Glacial Maximum” or LGM: Peaked from 26,500 yrs BP to 19,000 yrs BP. It was about 100,000 yrs. long. Characterized by a much lower sea level (120 m below current levels, Church and Gregory, “Sea Level Change,” Encyclopedia of Oceans), cold temperatures (3.5°C to 5.8°C cooler than today, von Diemling, Ganopolski, Held, and Rahmstorf, “How Cold was the Last Glacial Maximum,” Geophysical Research Letters, vol 33, 2006) and a very dry and dusty climate (von Diemling, et. al.).
8200 yrs BP Temp drops 3.3°C in 20 yrs in Greenland (Alley, et. Al., 1997, cool temps last 150 yrs. This marks the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic “B” period.
Sahara is a savanna or prairie, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data6.html
Sahara is a desert
Younger Dryas, Raimund, et al. 2008, National Geographic
12,800 11,500
Sahara is a savanna or prairie Sahara is a desert
Late Uruk period, cuneiform script begins.
Minoan Warm Period
Roman Warm Period
Medieval Warm Period
1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10,000 11,000 12,000 13,000 14,000 15,000 16,000 17,000 18,000
Alley, R.B. 2000. The Younger Dryas cold interval as viewed from central Greenland. Quaternary Science Reviews 19:213-226.
Neolithic Chalcolithic Bronze Age Iron Age
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Years BP
Vostok, Antarctica Air Temperature, relative to present, Petit, et al, 2001, Nature
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De
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Years BP
Agassiz/Renland Holocene Greenland temperature reconstruction (Vinther, et al.,2009, Nature)
Holocene Thermal Optimum
Agriculture begins in the Levant region of SW Asia (Syria and Israel) by the Natufians. Possibly the earliest “sedentary” culture. (21)
Climate and Human Civilization over the last 18,000 years
Years BP 0
Paleolithic
Earliest dates for Gobekli Tepe in Anatolia (Southern Turkey), this settlement is often considered the beginning of the Neolithic period.
Beginning of the Neolithic B culture. Houses are rectangular, with plaster floors. More domesticated animals.
7400 BP, Tartaria tablets, simple writing, Haarmann, 2002
19,000
Graph of reconstructed temperature (blue), CO2 (green), and dust (red) from the Vostok ice core for the past 420,000 years, notice the 95,800 year cycle of temperatures2
Temperature: www.scotese.com/climate.htm CO2: R. A. Berner, 2001, Am J of Science, vol 301, p 182-204
Immediate right: This is the monthly global temperature anomaly data from NOAA’s Tiros-N satellite. The graph is by Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy, Global Hydrology and Climate Center, U of Alabama. We only have true global atmospheric data since 1979. The smoothed line is a 37 month moving average. Prior to that, uneven surface readings are used to estimate global temperatures. These estimates (as anomalies) are shown, since 1850, in the far right graph. There is far less warming in the southern hemisphere.
1998 El Nino
1991 Mt. Pinatubo
+0.2°C or 0.36°F
-0.15°C or -0.27°F
Black Sea fills (8)
Gobekli Tepe, oldest city/monument known
Gobekli Tepe, abandoned and deliberately buried
Gobekli Tepe deliberately buried
Catalhoyuk a city of 8,000 exists near present day Cumra Konya, Turkey. They were agricultural and domesticated animals
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1874 1894 1914 1934 1954 1974 1994 2014
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Year
Mean Sea Level, mm, 1874 to 2014
Recent sea level data from CSIRO (Australia) and Church and White
Andy May 11/9/2013
Present Warm Period
Minoan Warm Period
Roman Warm Period
Medieval Warm Period
http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter/paleoclimate.htm
http://www.schauungen.de/forum/index.php?id=15102
Robert Rohde (15)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
Stonehenge built (37)
Pyramid of Djoser constructed by Imhotep in Egypt
Homo floresiensis goes extinct, Morwood, Soejono, 2004
Black Sea fills and connects to Mediterranean according to Ryan and Pittman, 1997 (2)
Uruk period begins, the beginning of large scale cities
Ubaid period begins, large scale irrigation of crops begins and cotton is domesticated in India (2)
5.9 kiloyear event, Sahara becomes a desert. Caused a huge migration from central Africa to the Nile valley. This event ended the Ubaid empire.
Actual Temp
Δpresent Temp
Δpresent Temp
This data is unsmoothed. Each point is a 20 year average. The zero point is from a smoothed (filter is 2700 years wide) curve. Zero point is from 60 years ago to present.
Earliest Harappa (India) cities
In China (Jiahu culture) the earliest farming (millet and rice) settlements in China, Jiahu culture, also earliest Chinese writing and the earliest wine. http://www.world-archaeology.com/more/oldest-wine-from-jiahu-china/#.UmupLvmshcY
Earliest Mayan cities in Central America
Severe drought strikes Middle East, ends Bronze age civilization in Egypt, Israel and for the Hittites. (43)
Pottery being made in China, Wu, Science, 2012
Earliest Indian agriculture, Indus Valley (34)
Jericho, Israeli occupied Palestine, founded. The worlds oldest currently occupied city (2 and Encyclopedia Britannica)
4.2 Kiloyear event
Bond Events, Bond, G.; et al. (1997). "A Pervasive Millennial-Scale Cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and Glacial Climates". Science 278 (5341): 1257–1266.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Ref. (54)
Rice cultivation in China?? (34)
Ref. (56)
Late Glacial Interstadial