TY - JOUR
T1 - Modifying the marsh
T2 - Evaluating Early Epipaleolithic hunter-gatherer impacts in the Azraq wetland, Jordan
AU - Ramsey, Monica
AU - Jones, Matthew
AU - Richter, Tobias
AU - Rosen, Arlene
PY - 2015/10/22
Y1 - 2015/10/22
N2 - The ecological impacts of human activities have infiltrated the whole of the ‘natural world’ and precipitated calls for a newly defined geological epoch – the Anthropocene. While scholars discuss tipping-points and scale, viewed over the longue durée, it is becoming clear that we have inherited the compounding consequences of a constructed environment with a long history of human landscape modification. By linking phytolith and micro-charcoal evidence from sediments in the Azraq Basin, Jordan, we discuss potential Early Epipaleolithic (23,000–17,400 cal. BP) human–environment interactions in this wetland. Our analyses reveal that during the Last Glacial Maximum, Levantine hunter-gatherers could have had a noticeable and increasing impact on their environment. However, further work needs to be undertaken to assess the range, frequency, intensity, and intentionality of marsh disturbance events. We suggest that the origin of ‘persistent places’ and larger aggregation settlements in the Azraq Basin may have been, in part, facilitated by human–environment interactions in the Early Epipaleolithic that consequently enhanced the economic and, subsequently, social meaning of that landscape. Through their exploitation of the sensitive wetland environment, hunter-gatherers were modifying the marshes and initiating long-term changes to the already dynamic and changing landscape at the close of the Pleistocene. These findings challenge us to further reconsider the way we see early hunter-gatherers in the prehistory of the Levant and in the development of the ‘Anthropocene’.
AB - The ecological impacts of human activities have infiltrated the whole of the ‘natural world’ and precipitated calls for a newly defined geological epoch – the Anthropocene. While scholars discuss tipping-points and scale, viewed over the longue durée, it is becoming clear that we have inherited the compounding consequences of a constructed environment with a long history of human landscape modification. By linking phytolith and micro-charcoal evidence from sediments in the Azraq Basin, Jordan, we discuss potential Early Epipaleolithic (23,000–17,400 cal. BP) human–environment interactions in this wetland. Our analyses reveal that during the Last Glacial Maximum, Levantine hunter-gatherers could have had a noticeable and increasing impact on their environment. However, further work needs to be undertaken to assess the range, frequency, intensity, and intentionality of marsh disturbance events. We suggest that the origin of ‘persistent places’ and larger aggregation settlements in the Azraq Basin may have been, in part, facilitated by human–environment interactions in the Early Epipaleolithic that consequently enhanced the economic and, subsequently, social meaning of that landscape. Through their exploitation of the sensitive wetland environment, hunter-gatherers were modifying the marshes and initiating long-term changes to the already dynamic and changing landscape at the close of the Pleistocene. These findings challenge us to further reconsider the way we see early hunter-gatherers in the prehistory of the Levant and in the development of the ‘Anthropocene’.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - Anthropocene
KW - Azraq wetland
KW - early Epipalaeolithic
KW - human-environment interactions
KW - hunter-gatherers
KW - phytoliths
KW - micro-charcoal
UR - http://hol.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/10/0959683615594240.abstract
U2 - 10.1177/0959683615594240
DO - 10.1177/0959683615594240
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0959-6836
VL - 25
SP - 1553
EP - 1564
JO - Holocene
JF - Holocene
IS - 10
ER -