ASYMMETRY AT THE NEXUS OF GLOBAL LANDESQUE CAPITAL DURING THE EARLY-MIDDLE HOLOCENE:HUMAN ARRIVALS IN IRELAND VS. THE EMERGENCE OF THE HARAPPAN POLITIES OF SOUTH ASIA

Post-Pleistocene deglaciation had major repercussions in setting the stage for contemporary human landscapes. Globally, glacio-eustasy and isostatic rebound resulted in uplift, sea level rise, and initiated the primary drainageways in upper latitudes. Complex stream nets fashioned terraces and floodplains that stabilized during the Early-Middle Holocene as sea-level rise slowed. By the Middle Holocene archaeological records show that while northern Euro-Asian landscapes remained rugged and less populous, complex societies emerged along the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates and eastward to the Indus and beyond.

This presentation reflects how climate and hydrography impacted natural landscapes across physiographic zones. While environmentally triggered transformations initiated re-alignments to landforms and biomes, expanding populations across ecological zones developed adaptive strategies to harness water resources and the biota structuring subsistence bases. We show how new technologies in geoarchaeology and mapping result in precise landscape reconstructions. They also pinpoint how human engineering of landscapes has advanced.

We posit that a global threshold of ca. 6000 B.P. affected the human interactive balance of climate, hydrography, and subsistence. Our studies draw on human ecological examples from diverse macro-environments: glaciated Ireland and the urban Harappan heartland.

In southeast Ireland, while settlements date to 10,000 B.P. population density exploded along the coast during the Bronze-Iron ages as sea-level rise slowed. Resource rich estuarine environments fed growing populations. Burning and forest clearance exposed the richest floral and faunal foodstuffs as well as diverse shell populations.

Our second example moves to the Indus Valley heartland at Harappa and Moheniodaro. Complex irrigation systems and crop rotations responded to the cyclicity, intensity and seasonality of the monsoon net. Over the long-term, diminishing impacts and northern migration of the monsoon is reflected in the landward migration of settlements and the disaggregation of urban centers as the society collapsed.

In both cases, eco-tourism centers inform national citizenry of the contributions that environmental and archaeological studies have in previewing climate change and the need for sustainability programs to maintain planetary health.