A5011343458- Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
- Archaeology and Historical Studies
- Archaeological Research and Protection
- Marine and environmental studies
- Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History
- Archaeology and Rock Art Studies
- Historical Economic and Social Studies
- Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Landslides and related hazards
- Ancient Near East History
- Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies
- Isotope Analysis in Ecology
- Geological Modeling and Analysis
- Soil erosion and sediment transport
- Culture, Economy, and Development Studies
- Tree-ring climate responses
- Climate change and permafrost
- Hydrology and Sediment Transport Processes
- Astro and Planetary Science
- Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies
- Image Processing and 3D Reconstruction
- Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies
Durham University
2015-2025
National Museum of Natural History
2015
Smithsonian Institution
2015
Ricardo (United Kingdom)
2011
Summit (United Kingdom)
2011
Geological Survey of Canada
1999-2002
Université du Québec à Montréal
2002
Université de Montréal
2002
Université Laval
2002
Natural Resources Canada
1997
A synthetic history of human land use Humans began to leave lasting impacts on Earth's surface starting 10,000 8000 years ago. Through a collaboration with archaeologists around the globe, Stephens et al. compiled comprehensive picture trajectory worldwide during Holocene (see Perspective by Roberts). Hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists transformed face Earth earlier greater extent than has been widely appreciated, transformation that was essentially global 3000 before present....
Long-entrenched grand narratives have tied inequality in large human aggregations to generally linear trends, a direct outcome of domestication, then fostered by population growth and/or stepped scalar transitions the hierarchical complexity institutions. This general pattern has been argued short-circuit or reverse only context cataclysmic disasters societal breakdowns. Yet, for most part, these universal deterministic frameworks constructed from historical ethnographic snapshots time and...
Humans often live in neighborhoods, nested socio-spatial clusters within settlements of varying size and population density. In today’s cities, neighborhoods are characterized as relatively homogenous may exhibit segregation along various socioeconomic dimensions. However, even similar social or economic status, there is residential disparity, which turn impacts perceived inequality. Drawing on the Global Dynamics Inequality (GINI) project database, we study housing inequality a sample using...
Here, we assess the extent to which land use relating food acquisition (farming, herding, foraging) and associated value regimes shaped past economic inequality. We consider hypothesis that land-use systems in production was limited by heritable material wealth (such as land) sustained higher levels of inequality than those (free) human labor. address this using Global Dynamics InequalIty (GINI) project database, estimating inequalities based on disparities residential unit area storage...
Defining wealth broadly to include in people, relational connections, and material possessions, we examine the prehistory of inequality at level residential units using consistent proxy Gini coefficients calculated across areas contemporaneous units. In a sample >1,100 sites > 47,000 spanning >10,000 y, persistent typically lags onset plant cultivation by more than millennium. It accompanies landscape modifications subsistence practices which land (rather labor) limits production,...
Understanding the relationship between inequality and economic growth is a critical science problem that hinders sustainable development. In 1955, Simon Kuznets hypothesized rising raises inequality, which levels off as continues. Kuznets’ “curve,” cornerstone of development economics, was based on data from small sample rich capitalist economies. Here, we draw GINI database, includes area measurements 53,464 residences 1,176 settlements dating 21,000 BC to present, published Spatial...
We address three basic issues regarding the long-term dynamics of inequality in society. First, we consider interpretation residence sizes socioeconomic terms by comparing statistical patterns extracted from Global Dynamics Inequality (GINI) Project database with those 21st-century United States. Second, examine degree to which size and productivity human networks is systematically related inequality. Finally, investigate relationships between growth distributions for development across...
Scholars are divided over the long-term effects that war has had on inequality. Some have argued conflict grows gap between rich and poor. Others counter violence levels out wealth differences. The GINI Project Database is a large global sample of archaeological data house sizes created to investigate what factors influenced economic inequality long periods time, including warfare. Over 39,000 individual residential units were coded as having fortifications present or absent, with about...
This paper employs data from selected sample survey areas in the northern Fertile Crescent to demonstrate how initial urbanization developed along several pathways. The first, during Late Chalcolithic period, was within a dense pattern of rural settlement. There followed profound shift settlement that resulted formation large walled or ramparted sites ('citadel cities') associated with more dynamic phase exemplified by short cycles growth and collapse. By later third millennium BC,...
Over the last 8000 years Fertile Crescent of Near East has seen emergence urban agglomerations, small scale polities and large territorial empires, all which had profound effects on settlement patterns. Computational approaches, including use remote sensing data, allow us to analyse these changes at unprecedented geographical temporal scales. Here we employ techniques examine compare long term trends in urbanisation, population climate records. Maximum city size is used as a proxy for...
This paper illustrates long-term trends in human population and climate from the Late Pleistocene to Holocene (14,000–2500 cal. yr. BP) order assess what degree change impacted societies Near East. It draws on a large corpus of archaeo-demographic data, including anthropogenic radiocarbon dates (n = 10,653) archaeological site survey 22,533), 16 hydro-climatic records cave speleothems lake sediments. Where possible, inferred dynamics climatic have been made spatially congruent, their...
In the 12,000 years preceding Industrial Revolution, human activities led to significant changes in land cover, plant and animal distributions, surface hydrology, biochemical cycles. Earth system models suggest that this anthropogenic cover change influenced regional global climate. However, representation of past use earth is currently oversimplified. As a result, there are large uncertainties current understanding state system. order improve variety scale impacts had on system, effort...
The rise and fall of ancient societies have been attributed to rapid climate change events. One the most discussed these is 4.2kya event, a period increased aridity cooling posited as cause societal changes across globe, including collapse Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia. Studies seeking correlate social climatic around event tended focus either on highly localized analyses specific sites or surveys more synthetic overviews at pan-continental scales, temporally its aftermath. Here we take an...
Definitions of sustainability commonly stress both systemic continuity and equality over time. However, the degree to which these two sides might be related has not been systematically investigated. Recent theoretical methodological insights have provided archaeologists with new tools for investigating in premodern societies. Here, we use Gini coefficients on residence size measurements as an estimate material inequality information persistence settlements a measure continuity. Persistence...
Abstract
Abstract Historical maps present a unique depiction of past landscapes, providing evidence for wide range information such as settlement distribution, land use, natural resources, transport networks, toponymy and other cultural data within an explicitly spatial context. Maps produced before the expansion large‐scale mechanized agriculture reflect landscape that is lost today. Of particular interest to us great quantity archaeologically relevant these recorded, both deliberately incidentally....
Some human settlements endure for millennia, while others are founded and abandoned within a few decades or centuries. The reasons variation in the duration of site occupation, however, rarely addressed. Here, authors introduce new approach analysis settlement longevity persistence. Using seven regional case studies comprising both survey excavation data, they demonstrate how median persistence individual varies widely among regions. In turn, this variability is linked to effects...
A series of novel 2-arylbenzoxazoles that upregulate the production utrophin in murine H2K cells, as assessed using a luciferase reporter linked assay, have been identified. This compound class appears to hold considerable promise potential treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Following delineation structure-activity relationships series, number potent upregulators were identified, and preliminary ADME evaluation is described. These studies resulted identification 1, has progressed...
Investigating how different forms of inequality arose and were sustained through time is key to understanding the emergence complex social systems. Due its long-term perspective, archaeology has much contribute this discussion. However, comparing in societies time, especially prehistory, difficult because comparable metrics value are not available. Here we use a recently developed technique which assumes correlation between household size wealth investigate ancient Near East. If assumption...
Human beings are an active component of every terrestrial ecosystem on Earth. Although our local impact the evolution these ecosystems has been undeniable and extensively documented, it remains unclear precisely how activities altering them, in part because dynamic systems structured by complex, non-linear feedback processes cascading effects. We argue that is only studying human–environment interactions over timescales greatly exceed lifespan any individual human (i.e., deep past or longue...
Historically, urban centres are seen as consumers that draw in labour and resources from their rural hinterlands. Zooarchaeological studies of key sites Southwest Asia demonstrate the movement livestock, but region-wide application these findings has not been tested logistics provisioning remain poorly understood. Here, authors analyse zooarchaeological data 245 Levant Mesopotamia to examine patterns livestock production consumption over a 5000-year period. They find although preferences...
Evaluating archaeobotanical data from over 3.9 million seeds and 124,300 charcoal fragments across 330 archaeological site phases in Southwest Asia, we reconstruct the history of olive grape cultivation spanning a period 6,000 years. Combining seed enables investigation into both production consumption grape. The earliest indication for appears southern Levant around ca. 5000 BC 4 th millennium respectively, although may have been practiced prior to these dates. Olive Asia was regionally...
From Rousseau onward, scholars have identified the transition to sedentary agriculture as crucial history of wealth inequality. Here, using GINI project’s global database on disparities in residential size, we examine effects important innovations plant cultivation, animal husbandry, and traction Over a series regional case studies, find no evidence major changes disparity before or after these technological became widespread, where systemic change are recognizable, they ambiguous. The...