Long-term Landscape, Environment and Climate Change Studies, from the Past through to Predictive Models for Future Developments

Abstract

The last glacial-interglacial transition (LGIT), between 20 and 10 ka BP, saw a global reorganization of climate, as ice caps melted, and a revolution in the way people lived, as agriculture developed. Understanding the spatial and temporal patterns of environmental change over this time period is therefore of interest to a range of disciplines. There are few long-term continuous records of environmental change from Jordan, or the natural archives where these may be found, and yet the eastern desert contains evidence of a long, and sometimes complex, occupation history, suggesting environments in the past were signifi cantly different to those of today. Such evidence indicates that a resource base was available for these communities to survive, or that ancient cultural economies were signifi cantly more advanced than we currently give them credit for. From a palaeoclimate perspective, spatial patterns of environmental change differ through the LGIT in regions north and west of Jordan compared to Arabia and North Africa so understanding where Jordan sits in this regional divide is important for understanding global climate structure through this transition.