Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
during warfare. h is evidence, uncovered by anthropologists Patricia
Lambert and Phillip Walker, indicates that deteriorating environmental
conditions and dwindling food and water resources led to conl icts between
the growing population.
On the whole, coastal groups appear to have fared better than inland
groups because most of their food came from the ocean. Increased upwelling
of nutrient-rich waters along the coast during this time increased marine
productivity and expanded resources such as i sher and shelli sh.
Freshwater was scarce, however, and all along California's coast, includ-
ing San Francisco Bay, sites were abandoned as the desperate populations
wandered in search of new water sources. Kent Lightfoot and Ed Luby
have speculated that coastal groups began moving over larger territories as
resources became scarcer, perhaps alternating between inland and coastal
sites on a seasonal basis. h e mobility of these populations allowed them to
endure this dii cult period.
the medieval climate anomaly:
a global phenomenon?
Across the globe, the archaeological record contains examples of societies ris-
ing or falling during the Medieval period. h e Ancestral Pueblo culture did
not survive these changes, as we have discussed above, whereas others thrived.
h e fate of each culture seems to have been tied to its unique local situation.
But the fact that so many regions experienced upheavals in the same period
raises questions about larger-scale external inl uences during this period of
history.
Paleoclimate studies throughout the Northern Hemisphere continue to
i ll in the details of regional climate from the ninth to the fourteenth centu-
ries. While societies in the American Southwest were suf ering catastrophic
decline caused by drought, societies in northern Europe, where average tem-
peratures were about 1.8°F warmer than today, were l ourishing. h is seem-
ingly small increase in temperature was sui cient to unleash major historic
events. Eric the Red was leading Norse settlers to Iceland and Greenland to
establish colonies, and European farmers were expanding into new lands pre-
viously too cold to support agriculture—even planting vineyards in England.
h is era featured the growth of towns and city-states; science and art blos-
somed; trade expanded; and communication improved among countries. In
