landscapes and societies - springer978-90-481-9413-1/1.pdf · downtown florence with (a) on the...

Landscapes and Societies

Siena: Details of the fresco (1338–39) by Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted inside the Palazzo Pubblico (City Hall of Siena). The fresco shows the effects of ‘good government’ in town (upper large part) and in the countryside (lower left), and during ‘bad government’ in the countryside (lower right).

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I. Peter Martini • Ward ChesworthEditors

Landscapes and Societies

Selected Cases

ISBN: 978-90-481-9412-4 e-ISBN: 978-90-481-9413-1DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-9413-1Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010937238

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

Cover illustrations: Views of landscapes and traces of human activities through time. Main upper frame: downtown Florence with (a) on the left (book spine) the fortress-like Town Hall (Palazzo Vecchio) built by the architect Arnolfo di Cambio between 1299 and 1304, and (b) in the center, the cathedral (Duomo) built between 1296 and 1436, designed by Arnolfo di Cambio, with the famous dome (cupola) engineered by Filippo Brunellechi, and the bell tower built between 1334 and 1359 to the design of Giotto di Bondone. Lower frames from left to right: (1) The Wadi Afar cave occupied in early Holocene, Acacus Mountains, Western Lybia desert; (2) The Roman Dam at Harbaqa in central Syria; (3) Terraced upper river valley with village on adjoining hillside, AsukaTanada, Japan (the ‘tanada’ are watered from a diverted moun-tain stream); (4) Reclaimed land from the North Sea: artificial seaward shift of the coastline south of the Hague, The Netherlands

Cover design: deblik, Berlin

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Editors I. Peter MartiniWard ChesworthUniversity of GuelphSchool of Environmental SciencesAxelrod BuildingN1G 2W1 Guelph, OntarioCanadapmartini@uoguelph.ca

wcheswor@uoguelph.ca

Dedicated with love to our children—the next generation – Anthony� and Lisa Martini and Aaron, Delia, Iona and Amanda Chesworth.

� Anthony died suddenly at 45 in 2008. He was responsible for bringing the editors together on this book.

Preface

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Relationships between societies and environments have spawned an extensive lit-erature going back at least to Plato. Some fundamental concepts crop up repeatedly, yet individual societies have their idiosyncrasies in adapting to or in modifying their environments to meet their needs. Collateral damage is a constant accompaniment to our modifications. History shows that a relationship between society and landscape that proved successful in one era, may fail at a later time. Because of factors such as climate, economics, political and strategic conditions, to say nothing of pestilence, war and conquest, adaptation is a continuing process. Human history is punctuated by the continual need to adjust to fire, flood, earthquake, and volcanic eruption, to name only the most obvious. In fact, at this late stage in our history we do not so much as adapt to changing circumstances, as constantly readapt.

As societies evolve and enlarge they may reach the Malthusian limit of the human carrying capacity of the local landscape. In the past when the human population was small and there was lots of room we commonly escaped the problem by moving on. If we stayed put, the options were to increase our ecological footprint to bring in the resources of a wider area by trade, theft or war, the most highly organized form of theft. Alternatively, we have found technological solutions to the problem, though on a finite planet with our numbers still growing, we are forever looking for newer and better technological fixes. Society is always a work in progress.

The simplest societies, at least in theory, have the greatest adaptability. Societies that become increasingly stratified and custom-bound have a harder time. The more evolved a society, the greater its impact on the Earth. History is unequivocal, complex societies fail—whether by exhausting resources (soils most critically), fouling their nests with wastes, or simply by failing to adapt to change in a sustainable way. Rise, decline, sometimes rejuvenation, and fall is the pattern. Erstwhile successful societ-ies have continually disappeared in history, only to be replaced by equally ephemeral ones. While the second law of thermodynamics remains un-repealed, no culture or civilization will last forever.

Consequently, this book presents the work of various scholars who were asked to describe and analyze their respective examples in a multidisciplinary way. Such analyses of the relationships between landscapes and societies at different times and in different places is useful not only in its intrinsic value in contributing to the history of Homo sapiens, but potentially in informing our present situation and helping us to recognize opportunities and risks in planning for a more sustainable future than we appear to be facing at present.

viii Preface

The various chapters examine changes in selected landscapes and societies from early Holocene times to the Present. In Part I we favor the Mediterranean centered area because in a relatively small area a great variety of landscapes have interacted with all manner of societies from simple nomadic and agrarian ones to the great civi-lizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome. The interaction has been so great and so pro-longed that an entire natural biome has become anthropic. Part II contains analyses of societies from other parts of the globe. From Asia there are reports from the source of eastern civilizations, China, as well as Japan, and Sri Lanka. There is also together with a novel analysis of the effect of disease, particularly malaria, on the expansion of the human footprint into the Pacific. Central America provides the example of one of the great civilizations of the world, the Maya, which developed independently of the founding civilizations of the Old World, and met its demise as a result of envi-ronmental change, internecine conflict and finally invasion from Europe. From North America the extremely variable, harsh Arctic landscape capable of sustaining only relatively small number of people, comes the example of highly resilient Inuit com-munities dealing with one of the world’s most extreme landscapes in the Arctic, as well as an examination of the modern technological civilization of the western USA, where societies survive for the present by transferring water across mountain chains. All these cases reveal the mutability of human societies and their dynamic, reciprocal relationship with changing landscapes.

We are grateful for the enthusiasm, hard work and scholarship of our collaborators, and for the patient and graceful way they dealt with reviewers and editors. A volume like this would not have been possible without the help of many people—colleagues, students, technicians, family members—and supporting organizations, and we sin-cerely thank them all. In particular, we would like to thank the scientific review-ers who helped considerably in focusing the message of the various chapters, Mario Panizza who helped during the early stages in the selection of a few contributors, and the editorial staff of Springer and the Publishing Editors in charge of this volume, in particular Petra D van Steenbergen and Cynthia de Jonge among them, for support during the preparation of the book and in seeing it successfully published. We also thank all publishers who allowed the reproduction of various figures as noted in the appropriate captions.

I.P. Martini and W. Chesworth

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Part I Introduction........................................................................................... 1

1 Summaries of the Contributions and a Few Considerations .................. 3I. Peter Martini and Ward Chesworth

2 A Semantic Introduction ........................................................................... 19Ward Chesworth

3 Womb, Belly and Landscape in the Anthropocene ................................ 25Ward Chesworth

Part II The Mediterranean and European World–Arid Mediterranean Lands .................................................................................................. 41

4 Human Responses to Climatically-driven Landscape Change and Resource Scarcity: Learning from the Past and Planning for the Future .............................................................................................. 43Nicholas Brooks

5 Human Communities in a Drying Landscape: Holocene Climate Change and Cultural Response in the Central Sahara ......................... 67Mauro Cremaschi and Andrea Zerboni

6   The Desertification of the Egyptian Sahara during the Holocene  (the Last 10,000 years) and Its Influence on the Rise of Egyptian  Civilization .................................................................................................. 91Michael Brookfield

7 Paleoenvironments and Prehistory in the Holocene of SE Arabia ........... 109Andrew S. Goudie and Adrian G. Parker

8 Human Paleoecology in the Ancient Metal-Smelting and Farming Complex in the Wadi Faynan, SW Jordan, at the Desert Margin in the Middle East ...................................................................................... 121Chris Hunt and Hwedi el-Rishi

9 Empire and Environment in the Northern Fertile Crescent ................ 135Tony J. Wilkinson

Contents

� Contents

Part III The Mediterranean and European World–Warm-Temperate Mediterranean Lands ...................................................................... 153

10 The Interplay between Environment and People from Neolithic to Classical Times in Greece and Albania ............................................ 155Eric Fouache and Kosmas Pavlopoulos

11 The Nuragic People: Their Settlements, Economic Activities and Use of the Land, Sardinia, Italy ...................................................... 167Anna Depalmas and Rita T. Melis

12   Floods, Mudflows, Landslides: Adaptation of Etruscan–Roman  Communities to Hydrogeological Hazards in the Arno River Catchment (Tuscany, Central Italy) ....................................................... 187 Marco Benvenuti, Cristina Bellini, Gianfranco Censini, Marta Mariotti-Lippi, Pasquino Pallecchi, and Mario Sagri

13   Landscape Influences on the Development of the Medieval–Early  Renaissance City-states of Pisa, Florence, and Siena, Italy ................ 203 I. Peter Martini, Giovanni Sarti, Pasquino Pallecchi, and Armando Costantini

14 Paleo-Hazards in the Coastal Mediterranean: A Geoarchaeological Approach .............................................................. 223Christophe Morhange and Nick Marriner

15 Mount Etna, Sicily: Landscape Evolution and Hazard Responses in the Pre-industrial Era ......................................................................... 235David K. Chester, Angus M. Duncan, and Peter A. James

Part IV The Mediterranean and European World–Cool-Temperate European Lands ............................................................................... 255

16 Romanian Carpathian Landscapes and Cultures ................................ 257Adrian Cioacă and Mihaela S. Dinu

17 Sea-Level Rise and the Response of the Dutch People: Adaptive Strategies Based on Geomorphologic Principles Give Sustainable Solutions ...................................................................... 271Pieter D. Jungerius

18 Perception of Volcanic Eruptions in Iceland ......................................... 285Thorvaldur Thordarson

Part V South and East Asia .......................................................................... 297

19 Holocene Environmental Changes and the Evolution of the Neolithic Cultures in China ......................................................... 299Duowen Mo, Zhijun Zhao, Junjie Xu, and Minglin Li

20 Landscape and Subsistence in Japanese History ................................. 321Gina L. Barnes

Contents �i

21 Evolution of Hydraulic Societies in the Ancient Anuradhapura Kingdom of Sri Lanka ............................................................................. 341P. B. Dharmasena

22 Disease in History: The Case of the Austronesian Expansion in the Pacific .............................................................................................. 353Robert Sallares

Part VI Central and North America ............................................................ 367

23 Farms and Forests: Spatial and Temporal Perspectives on Ancient Maya Landscapes ................................................................. 369Nicholas P. Dunning and Timothy Beach

24 Water Follows the People: Analysis of Water Use in the Western Great Plains and Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA ....................... 391Ellen Wohl

25 Frozen Coasts and the Development of Inuit Culture in the North American Arctic ............................................................................ 407Robert W. Park

Glossary ............................................................................................................. 423

Index ................................................................................................................... 441

Color Plate Section ........................................................................................... 469

Barnes Gina L. Department of Art & Archaeology at SOAS (School of Oriental & African Studies), University of London, Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG, UK – gb11@soas.ac.uk

Beach Timothy Center for the Environment School of Foreign Service,Georgetown University, 37th and O Streets, NW Washington, DC 20057 USA – beacht@george-town.edu

Bellini Cristina Dipartimento di Biologia Vegetale, Università di Firenze, Via G. La Pira 4, 50121, Firenze, Italy – cri_mini@yahoo.com

Benvenuti Marco Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Firenze, Via G. La Pira 4, 50121 Florence, Italy – oredep@unifi.it

Brookfield Michael Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei 11529, Taiwan – mailing address: 45 Dean Avenue, Guelph, On N1G 1K6, Canada – mbrookfi@hotmail.com

Brooks Nicholas Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Environ-mental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK – nick.brooks@uea.ac.uk

Censini Gianfranco Georisorse Italia, Via E. Fermi, 8, 53048 Sinalunga, Siena, Italy –g.censini@georisorse.it

Chester David K. Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK – jg54@liverpool.ac.uk

Chesworth Ward School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1 Canada – wcheswor@uoguelph.ca

Cioacă Adrian  Faculty of Geography and Geography of Tourism, Universitatea “Spiru Haret”, Bucharest, Romania – acioaca@gmail.com

Costantini Armando Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Siena, Via Laterina 8, 53100 Siena, Italy – acostantini@unisi.it

Cremaschi Mauro Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra “A. Desio”, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Mangiagalli 34, I-20133 Milano, Italy – mauro.cremas-chi@unimi.it

List of Contributors

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�iv List of Contributors

Depalmas Anna Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche e dell’Antichità, Università di Sassari, Piazza Conte di Moriana 8, 07100 Sassari, Italy – depalmas@uniss.it

Dharmasena P.B. Field Crop Research and Development Institute, Mahailluppal-lama, Sri Lanka – dharmasenapb@ymail.com

Dinu Mihaela S. Romanian American University, Bucharest, Romania – mihae-ladinu2003@yahoo.com

Duncan Angus M. Research Driectorate, University of Bedforshire, Park Square, Luton, LU 1 3 JU, UK – angus.duncan@beds.ac.uk

Dunning Nicholas P. Department of Geography, University of Cincinnati 401 Braunstein Hall, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0131 USA – nicholas.dunning@uc.edu

el-Rishi Hwedi Benzaid Department of Geography, University of Garyounis, Beng-hazi, Libya – hamerrishi@yahoo.com

Fouache Eric Département de Géographie, Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense (Paris 10), Paris – mailing address: 38 rue Louis Ricard, 76000 Rouen, France – eric.G.fouache@wanadoo.fr

Goudie Andrew S. Mater, St Cross College, St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LZ Great Brit-ain – andrew.goudie@stx.ox.ac.uk

Hunt Chris School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology, Queen’s Univer-sity Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK – c.hunt@qub.ac.uk

James Peter A. Department of Geography, University of Liverpool,Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK – p.a.james@liv.ac.uk

Jungerius Pieter D. Stichting Geomorfologie en Landschap, Oude Bennekomseweg 31, 6717 LM Ede, The Netherlands – p.d.jungerius@uva.nl

Junjie Xu College of Environmental and Urban Sciences, Peking University, Bei-jing, 100871, China – tonyjjxu@163.com

Li Minglin College of Environmental and Urban Sciences, Peking University, Bei-jing, 100871, China – lml0906@163.com

Mariotti-Lippi Marta Dipartimento di Biologia Vegetale, Università di Firenze, Via G. La Pira 4, 50121, Firenze, Italy – mariotti@unifi.it

Marriner Nick Aix Marseille University, CEREGE Europôle méditerranéen de l’ARBOIS, F 13555 Aix-en-Provence, France – marriner@cerege.fr

Martini I. Peter School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1 Canada – pmartini@uoguelph.ca

Melis Rita T. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Cagliari, Via Tren-tino 51, 09127 Cagliary,Italy – rtmelis@unica.it

Mo Duowen College of Environmental and Urban Sciences, Peking University, Bei-jing, 100871, China – dmo@urban.pku.edu.cn

Morhange Christophe Aix Marseille University, CEREGE Europôle méditerranéen de l’ARBOIS, F 13555 Aix-en-Provence, France– morhange@cerege.fr

List of Contributors �v

Pallecchi Pasquino MiBAC, Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana, Largo del Boschetto, 3, 50143 Firenze, Italy – pasquino.pallecchi@beniculturali.it

Park Robert W. Department of Anthropology, University of Waterloo, 200 Univer-sity Ave. West, Waterloo ON, N2L 3G1 Canada – rwpark@uwaterloo.ca

Parker Adrian G. Department of Anthropology and Geography, School of Social Sciences and Law, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, Oxford, UK – agparker@brookes.ac.uk

Pavlopoulos Kosmas Faculty of Geography, Harokopio University, 70 El. Venizelou str., 17 671 Athens, Greece – kpavlop@hua.gr

Sagri Mario Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Firenze, Via G. La Pira 4, 50121 Firenze, Italy – sedim@unifi.it

Sallares Robert UMIST, 184 Albert Avenue, Prestwich, Manchester M25 0HF, UK – RSallares@aol.com

Sarti Giovanni Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa, Via S. Maria 53, 56126 Pisa, Italy – sarti@dst.unipi.it

Thordarson Thorvaldur Earth and Planetary Sciences, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Grant Institute, The Kings Buildings, West Mains Road, EH9 3JW, Edinburgh, UK – Thor.Thordarson@ed.ac.uk

Wilkinson Tony J. Dept. of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK – t.j.wilkinson@durham.ac.uk

Wohl Ellen Department of Geosciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, 80523-1482 USA – ellenw@warnercnr.colostate.edu

Zerboni Andrea Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra “A. Desio”, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Mangiagalli 34, I-20133 Milano, Italy – Andrea.Zerboni@unimi.it

Zhao Zhijun Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 27 Wangfujing Street, Beijing, 100710, China – zzzhangy@public3.bta.net.cn

Adams Russell McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada – radams@mcmaster.ca

Beach Timothy Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA – BeachT@George-town.edu

Bintliff John Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands – J.L.Bintliff@arch.leide-nuniv.nl

Bloomfield Gerry University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada – gbloomfi@uoguelph.ca

Brenner Mark Department of Geological Sciences, University of Florida, Gaines-ville, Florida, USA – brenner@ufl.edu

Brookfield Michael Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei 11529, Taiwan – mbrookfi@hotmail.com

Brown Robert University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada – rbrown@uoguelph.ca

Castaldini Doriano Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy – oriano.castaldini@unimore.it

Chesworth, Ward School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1 Canada – wcheswor@uoguelph.ca

Clarke Joanne University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK – Joanne.Clarke@uea.ac.uk

Cremaschi Mauro Università Statale di Milano, Milano, Italy – mauro.cremaschi@unimi.it

Dahlin Bruce H. Shepherdstown University, Shepherdstown, WV, USA – dahlin.bruceh@gmail.com

De Dapper Morgan Ghent University, Gent, Belgium – Morgan.DeDapper@ UGent.be

Demarest Arthur A. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA – Arthur.A.Demarest @vanderbilt.edu

Dibben Christopher University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland – cjld@st-andrews.ac.uk

List of Reviewers

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�viii List of Reviewers

Dodson John Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization, Sydney, Australia – jdd@ansto.gov.au

Ellis Christ Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario, Canada – cjellis@uwo.ca

Groenevelt Peter University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada – pgroenev@lrs.uoguelph.ca

Guðrún Larsen University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland – glare@raunvis.hi.is

Kilburn Christopher University College London, London, UK – c.kilburn@ucl.ac.uk

Li Xiaoqiang State Key Lab of Loess & Quaternary Geology, Xi’an, China – lxq@loess.llqg.ac.cn

Madduma Bandara C.M. University of Peradanaya, Peradanaya, Sri Lanka – madduband@yahoo.com

Martinez Cortizas Antonio Santiago University, Santiago de Compostela, Spain – antonio.martinez.cortizas@usc.es

Martini I. Peter University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada – pmartini@uoguelph.ca

Montgomery David Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Washing-ton DC, USA – dave@ess.washington.edu

Panizza Mario Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy – pit@unimore.it

Pearson Richard Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Culture, Norwich, UK – pearsonrj@shaw.ca

Pirazzoli Paolo A. CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique), Paris, France – pirazzol@cnrs-bellevue.fr

Sarti Giovanni Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy – sarti@dst.unipi.it

Usai-Salvatori D. Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (Is.I.A.O.), Rome, Italy – usai.salvatori@alice.it

van der Meulen Michiel J. Geological Survey of the Netherlands, Utrecht, The Netherlands – michiel.vandermeulen@tno.nl

Wilkinson Tony J. Durham University, UK – t.j.wilkinson@durham.ac.uk