A new paper in WIREs Climate Change reviews the state of the field for paleoclimate and archaeology in Southwest Asia, 6500-4000 BP. Striking a middle path between models proposing differential access to agricultural resources as the mechanism driving the growth of hierarchical systems and those which stress climate change as the cause of purported urban “collapses,” the study’s authors propose that the development of urbanism be seen as an adaptation to climate and other stressors. Read the full article here.
Climate History Network