LATE-HOLOCENE ADAPTATION TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES IN IRAQ BASED ON PHYTOLITH RECORDS

The semi-arid region of Western Asia experienced significant environmental changes during the Holocene. Variable trends of environmental conditions, plant communities, subsistence strategies, plant exploitation, human-environment interaction, and water management are still an ongoing debate and phytolith is an ideal proxy in addressing these issues. Using significant new microbotanical phytolith evidence from Kurdistan region in Northern Iraq, this study provides a novel analyze on environmental condition, micro-environments, land-management, rain-fed and local water management, and plant exploitation during the first millennium B.C. in the Late-Holocene.

The regional paleoclimatic differences make local paleoclimatic data collection vital and Phytolith data is a very important yet less employed proxy which provides regional paleoclimatic information. Few studies with limited geographical coverage have been conducted on subsistence strategies and risk management which necessitates more research especially in the more neglected areas such as the peripheries during the Iron Age. Despite studies on the relation between the climatic conditions and the subsistence strategies from the Neolithic until the end of the Bronze Age, there is a lack of such discussions for the Iron age societies in the region. This paper covers that through a unique approach using phytolith evidence to discuss environmental condition, water management, landscape management, plant exploitations and micro-environments. The microbotanical evidence using phytoliths data are studied due to their high ability in addressing paleoenvironmental and economic questions.

Due to lack of off-site evidence to reconstruct the environment this on-site dataset enables reconstruction of environments. The data is also implemented to understand the use of micro-environments. We discuss that the evidence demonstrates land-management, rainfed and local water management, and plant exploitation and suggest that the inhabitants used diversification of micro-environments, environments, and plants, rainfed and local irrigation as some of the vital methods to manage environmental and agricultural issues and subsistence strategies.