Climate Change in Prehistory
The End of the Reign of Chaos

Weaves together climate research with anthropological and archaeological studies showing how climate change has made us who we are today.

William James Burroughs (Author)

9780521070102, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 July 2008

372 pages, 29 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.512 kg

' … well illustrated. It includes sections on prehistoric rock art, civilisations based on agriculture, and impacts of climatic change … Climate Change in Prehistory can be strongly recommended to students interested in the effect of climate change on human populations within the Late Quaternary … well written and serves to promote public awareness of the significance of climatic change in modern and prehistoric contexts.' South African Archaeological Bulletin

How did humankind deal with the extreme challenges of the last Ice Age? How have the relatively benign post-Ice Age conditions affected the evolution and spread of humanity across the globe? By setting our genetic history in the context of climate change during prehistory, the origin of many features of our modern world are identified and presented in this illuminating book. It reviews the aspects of our physiology and intellectual development that have been influenced by climatic factors, and how features of our lives - diet, language and the domestication of animals - are also the product of the climate in which we evolved. In short: climate change in prehistory has in many ways made us what we are today. Climate Change in Prehistory weaves together studies of the climate with anthropological, archaeological and historical studies, and will fascinate all those interested in the effects of climate on human development and history.

1. Introduction
2. The climate of the last 100,000 years
3. Life in the Ice Age
4. The evolutionary implications of living with the Ice Age
5. Emerging from the Ice Age
6. Recorded history
7. Our climatic inheritance
8. The future
Appendix
Bibliography
References.

Subject Areas: Meteorology & climatology [RBP], Popular science [PDZ]