The Maghrib and the Medieval Mediterranean

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Fromherz
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Business Partnerships ◽  
Architectural Styles ◽  
Mediterranean Culture ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
High Level

According to traditional medieval histories—those that focus on the European West as a distinct civilization from North Africa and the Middle East—the advent of Islam in the 7th century was the final blow to the hope of a restored Rome, one that split the Mediterranean in two. In this version of the past, the Muslim conquests of the 7th century permanently divided Islamic North Africa and the Maghrib from the culture, society, and thinking of Christian Western Europe. In fact, the Maghrib was a major port of the culture, architecture, society, religious development, commerce, and politics of a common, medieval western Mediterranean zone. It is true that Christian and Muslim dynasties and states on both sides of the Mediterranean regularly saw themselves as enemies and rivals. The dogmatic and violent use of religion to justify enslavement, forced conversion, and conquest was common practice throughout this period. It is also true, however, that infidel Christian kings and unholy Muslim warriors formed alliances with one another, both across the sea and across faiths.1 The existence of a “convenient enemy” was often used as a means of gaining political or military advantage within Muslim or Christian lands. Popes and kings signed agreements with Muslim caliphs and Muslim sultans sought protection of Christian kings. In addition to high-level political alliances, ties between the Maghrib and Western Europe ran deep through the medieval economy. Commerce and business partnerships prospered and the 12th-century Commercial Renaissance lifted all boats. Christian, Muslim, and Jewish merchants took advantage of flows of trade and gold from Africa to the Mediterranean and into Europe. Dreams of conversion fostered unintended cultural interactions and exchanges, as was the case with the Franciscans and Christian mercenaries who journeyed deep into the Maghrib during this period. More than religion or politics, common artistic and architectural styles make perhaps the most compelling argument for a common, trans-Mediterranean culture.

Pressure Knapping and the Timing of Innovation: New Chrono-Cultural Data on Prehistoric Groups of the Early Holocene in the Maghreb, Northwest Africa

Radiocarbon ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. e1-e51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Perrin ◽  
Tiphaine Dachy ◽  
Colas Guéret ◽  
David Lubell ◽  
Yasmina Chaïd-Saoudi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Early Holocene ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Northwest Africa ◽  
Lithic Industry ◽  
Eastern Algeria ◽  
Cultural Entities ◽  
Cultural Data

ABSTRACTThe early Holocene in North Africa remains a poorly known period, documented unequally by region. Eastern Algeria and Tunisia have the greatest number of deposits, but most were excavated decades ago without the controls and recording required for modern interpretation. The chronological framework is based on radiocarbon (14C) dates that are also old, for the most part. Recent work on Mesolithic lithic industries of Western Europe has enabled us to revive the hypothesis of the existence of contacts between the northern and southern shores of the western Mediterranean at least by the 6th millennium cal BC. A collective research program was conducted in 2016–2017 to test this hypothesis with a particular focus on documenting the technological traditions in the lithic industry and situating them precisely in time. We have 46 new radiocarbon dates that were recently carried out on previously excavated Algerian sites, some of which contain several levels, allowing the construction of Bayesian models. These new measures reinforce the hypothesis of contacts between Europe and Africa by demonstrating the contemporaneity of similar technological processes. Above all, they make it possible to accurately refine the chronology of the main cultural entities of the Maghreb at the beginning of the Holocene.

scholarly journals The European 2015 drought from a climatological perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 1397-1419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Ionita ◽  
Lena M. Tallaksen ◽  
Daniel G. Kingston ◽  
James H. Stagge ◽  
Gregor Laaha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Ocean ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Geopotential Height ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
North Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Daily Maximum ◽  
Summer Drought ◽  
Drought Conditions ◽  
The Mediterranean

Abstract. The summer drought of 2015 affected a large portion of continental Europe and was one of the most severe droughts in the region since summer 2003. The summer of 2015 was characterized by exceptionally high temperatures in many parts of central and eastern Europe, with daily maximum temperatures 2 °C higher than the seasonal mean (1971–2000) over most of western Europe, and more than 3 °C higher in the east. It was the hottest and climatologically driest summer over the 1950–2015 study period for an area stretching from the eastern Czech Republic to Ukraine. For Europe, as a whole, it is among the six hottest and driest summers since 1950. High evapotranspiration rates combined with a lack of precipitation affected soil moisture and vegetation and led to record low river flows in several major rivers, even beyond the drought-hit region. The 2015 drought developed rather rapidly over the Iberian Peninsula, France, southern Benelux and central Germany in May and reached peak intensity and spatial extent by August, affecting especially the eastern part of Europe. Over the summer period, there were four heat wave episodes, all associated with persistent blocking events. Upper-level atmospheric circulation over Europe was characterized by positive 500 hPa geopotential height anomalies flanked by a large negative anomaly to the north and west (i.e., over the central North Atlantic Ocean extending to northern Fennoscandia) and another center of positive geopotential height anomalies over Greenland and northern Canada. Simultaneously, the summer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were characterized by large negative anomalies in the central North Atlantic Ocean and large positive anomalies in the Mediterranean basin. Composite analysis shows that the western Mediterranean SST is strongly related to the occurrence of dry and hot summers over the last 66 years (especially over the eastern part of Europe). The lagged relationship between the Mediterranean SST and summer drought conditions established in this study can provide valuable skill for the prediction of drought conditions over Europe on interannual to decadal timescales.

scholarly journals Scenarios in the development of Mediterranean cyclones

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 59-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Romem ◽  
B. Ziv ◽  
H. Saaroni
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Ocean ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Sahara Desert ◽  
Sea Level Pressure ◽  
Mediterranean Cyclones ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Mediterranean Basin

Abstract. The Mediterranean is one of the most cyclogenetic regions in the world. The cyclones are concentrated along its northern coasts and their tracks are oriented more or less west-east, with several secondary tracks connecting them to Europe and to North Africa. The aim of this study is to examine scenarios in the development of Mediterranean cyclones, based on five selected winter seasons (October–March). We detected the cyclones subjectively using 6-hourly Sea-Level Pressure maps, based on the NCAR/NCEP reanalysis archive. HMSO (1962) has shown that most Mediterranean cyclones (58%) enter the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean (through Biscay and Gibraltar), and from the south-west, the Sahara Desert, while the rest are formed in the Mediterranean Basin itself. Our study revealed that only 13% of the cyclones entered the Mediterranean, while 87% were generated in the Mediterranean Basin. The entering cyclones originate in three different regions: the Sahara Desert (6%), the Atlantic Ocean (4%), and Western Europe (3%). The cyclones formed within the Mediterranean Basin were found to generate under the influence of external cyclonic systems, i.e. as "daughter cyclones" to "parent cyclones" or troughs. These parent systems are located in three regions: Europe (61%), North Africa and the Red Sea (34.5%) and the Mediterranean Basin itself (4.5%). The study presents scenarios in the development of Mediterranean cyclones during the winter season, emphasizing the cyclogenesis under the influence of various external forcing. The large difference with respect to the findings of HMSO (1962) is partly explained by the dominance of spring cyclones generating in the Sahara Desert, especially in April and May that were not included in our study period.

scholarly journals Lagrangian matches between observations from aircraft, lidar and radar in a warm conveyor belt crossing orography

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 5477-5498
Author(s):  
Maxi Boettcher ◽  
Andreas Schäfler ◽  
Michael Sprenger ◽  
Harald Sodemann ◽  
Stefan Kaufmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Conveyor Belt ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
The Alps ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. Warm conveyor belts (WCBs) are important airstreams in extratropical cyclones, often leading to the formation of intense precipitation and the amplification of upper-level ridges. This study presents a case study that involves aircraft, lidar and radar observations in a WCB ascending from western Europe towards the Baltic Sea during the Hydrological Cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment (HyMeX) and T-NAWDEX-Falcon in October 2012, a preparatory campaign for the THORPEX North Atlantic Waveguide and Downstream Impact Experiment (T-NAWDEX). Trajectories were used to link different observations along the WCB, that is, to establish so-called Lagrangian matches between observations. To this aim, an ensemble of wind fields from the global analyses produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Ensemble of Data Assimilations (EDA) system were used, which allowed for a probabilistic quantification of the WCB occurrence and the Lagrangian matches. Despite severe air traffic limitations for performing research flights over Europe, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Falcon successfully sampled WCB air masses during different phases of the WCB ascent. The WCB trajectories revealed measurements in two distinct WCB branches: one branch ascended from the eastern North Atlantic over southwestern France, while the other had its inflow in the western Mediterranean. Both branches passed across the Alps, and for both branches Lagrangian matches coincidentally occurred between lidar water vapour measurements in the inflow of the WCB south of the Alps, radar measurements during the ascent at the Alps and in situ aircraft measurements by Falcon in the WCB outflow north of the Alps. An airborne release experiment with an inert tracer could confirm the long pathway of the WCB from the inflow in the Mediterranean boundary layer to the outflow in the upper troposphere near the Baltic Sea several hours later. The comparison of observations and ensemble analyses reveals a moist bias in the analyses in parts of the WCB inflow but a good agreement of cloud water species in the WCB during ascent. In between these two observations, a precipitation radar measured strongly precipitating WCB air located directly above the melting layer while ascending at the southern slopes of the Alps. The trajectories illustrate the complexity of a continental and orographically influenced WCB, which leads to (i) WCB moisture sources from both the Atlantic and Mediterranean, (ii) different pathways of WCB ascent affected by orography, and (iii) locally steep WCB ascent with high radar reflectivity values that might result in enhanced precipitation where the WCB flows over the Alps. The linkage of observational data by ensemble-based WCB trajectory calculations, the confirmation of the WCB transport by an inert tracer and the model evaluation using the multi-platform observations are the central elements of this study and reveal important aspects of orographically modified WCBs.

scholarly journals An odyssey out of Africa: an integrative review of past and present invasions by the Mediterranean tree frog (Hyla meridionalis)

2020 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-290
Author(s):  
Christophe Dufresnes ◽  
Bérénice Alard
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Integrative Review ◽  
Dispersal Ability ◽  
Tree Frog ◽  
Niche Modelling ◽  
African Species ◽  
Human Footprint ◽  
High Dispersal ◽  
The Mediterranean

Abstract An illustration of the human footprint on biodiversity are the faunal movements that have accompanied commercial and cultural exchanges between civilizations throughout history. In this article, we provide an integrative review of biogeographical and archaeological knowledge to understand these processes for the Mediterranean tree frog (Hyla meridionalis), an African species that has reached several regions of south-western Europe and associated islands. By re-analysing molecular (multilocus mitochondrial and genome-wide markers) and bioclimatic (ecological niche modelling) data, we give a comprehensive picture of the genetic diversity, structure and environmental suitability of H. meridionalis across its natural and exotic ranges, which in turn offer specific clues to the putative routes of colonization and associated events. Long-term monitoring efforts suggest northwards shifts of local range margins, potentially due to global warming, and we further demonstrate that this species is the most frequent amphibian to travel via the food supply chain in Western Europe. High dispersal ability, ecological tolerance and proximity to human settlements have made H. meridionalis a recurrent witness to the complexity and diversity of the civilizations that ruled the Western Mediterranean.

scholarly journals Xylella fastidiosa invasion of new countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa: Ranking the potential exposure scenarios

NeoBiota ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 77-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Frem ◽  
Daniel Chapman ◽  
Vincenzo Fucilli ◽  
Elia Choueiri ◽  
Maroun El Moujabber ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Xylella Fastidiosa ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Summer Temperatures ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Level Of Risk

After the recent high-impact European outbreaks of Xylella fastidiosa (Xf), a xylem-limited plant pathogenic bacterium native to the Americas, this research aims to rank the risks of potential entry, establishment and spread of Xf in new countries across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. A novel risk-ranking technique is developed, based on combining entry risk drivers (imported plants, direct flights and ferry connections) with risk factors related to establishment and spread (presence of potential insect vectors, vulnerable economic crops, alternative hosts and climate suitability) of this pathogen. This reveals that western European countries have the highest risk for entry, but that the Mediterranean basin runs the highest risk for establishment and spread of Xf. Lebanon in particular has the highest level of risk for Xf dispersal within its suitable territory. Countries without current outbreaks combining high risks of Xf arrival and establishment are mainly in the Mediterranean basin: Turkey is at the highest level of risk, followed by Greece, Morocco and Tunisia, which are ranked at the high level. The ranking model also confirms the vulnerability, in terms of invasion by Xf, of southern European countries (Italy, Portugal and Spain) in which the pathogen has already been reported. High summer temperatures in these southern countries are likely to be the significant determinant for the overall invasion process, while northern European countries have a high level risk for the arrival of the pathogen, but relatively low summer temperatures may limit establishment and spread of major outbreaks. In general, our study provides a useful approach for mapping and comparing risks of invasive non-native species and emerging pathogens between countries, which could be useful for regional horizon scanning and phytosanitary and biosecurity management.

Neolithic of Northwest Africa

Antiquity ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 48 (192) ◽  
pp. 273-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Gilman
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Northwest Africa ◽  
Staging Area ◽  
Wide Acceptance ◽  
Southern Mediterranean

For prehistorians of an earlier generation North Africa was an important staging area for the diffusion of neolithic arts into Western Europe, The light of Egyptian civilization was diffused along the southern Mediterranean until it dimly illuminated the cave dwellers of the Maghreb and Iberia (e.g. Vaufrey, 1955, Forde-Johnston, 1959). Spanish prehistorians, beginning with Bosch-Gimpera, were particularly fervent Africanists: even Martínez Santa Olalla's (1946) terms, ‘Hispanomauritano’ (for the Impressed Ware Culture) and ‘Iberosahariano’ (for the Almeria Culture), gained wide acceptance for a time. Under the influence of Tarradell (1959), Africanism has lost ground even in Spain and more recent syntheses (such as McBurney, 1960) have emphasized the continuing mesolithic tradition in North Africa. Still, the idea of close North AfricanISpanish ‘connexions’ persists even among anti-diffusionists (Renfrew, 1967). A brief review of the Neolithic of the Maghreb is appropriate, therefore, in order to indicate its true importance for Western Mediterranean prehistory.

Pollen morphology of some Tamarix (Tamaricaceae) species of Iran

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-161
Author(s):  
T. Shagholi ◽  
M. Keshavarzi ◽  
M. Sheidai
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Pollen Grains ◽  
Ecological Niches ◽  
Multivariate Statistical Methods ◽  
Multivariate Statistical ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Petal Length ◽  
Electron Microscopes ◽  
High Level ◽  
Scanning Electron Microscopes

Tamarix L. (Tamaricaceae) is a halophytic shrub in different parts of Asia and North Africa. Taxonomy and species limitation of Tamarix is very complex. This genus has three sections as Tamarix, Oligadenia, and Polyadenia, which are mainly separated by petal length, the number of stamens, the shape of androecial disk and attachment of filament on the androecial disk. As there was no palynological data on pollen features of Tamarix species of Iran, in the present study 12 qualitative and quantitative pollen features were evaluated to find diagnostic ones. Pollen grains of 8 Tamarix species were collected from nature. Pollen grains were studied without any treatment. Measurements were based on at least 50 pollen grains per specimen. Light and scanning electron microscopes were used. Multivariate statistical methods were applied to clarify the species relationships based on pollen data. All species studied showed monad and tricolpate (except some individuals of T. androssowii). Some Tamarix species show a high level of variability, in response to ecological niches and phenotypic plasticity, which make Tamarix species separation much more difficult. Based on the results of the present study, pollen grains features are not in agreement with previous morphological and molecular genetics about the sectional distinction.

Danaus chrysippus chrysippus (Linnaeus, 1758) ff. 'alcippus' and 'alcippoides' (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae, Danainae) from Cyprus

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eddie John ◽  
Richard I. Vane-Wright
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Recent Observation ◽  
Old World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Old World Tropics ◽  
Vast Range ◽  
Previous Occasion

We report a recent observation of D. c. chrysippus f. 'alcippus' in Cyprus, a variant of the Plain Tiger or African Queen butterfly infrequently seen in the Mediterranean, especially in the east of the region. D. c. chrysippus f. 'alcippus' appears to have been recorded from Cyprus on just one previous occasion, by R. E. Ellison, in 1939. However, a specimen of the similar f. 'alcippoides' collected by D. M. A. Bate in Cyprus in 1901 could perhaps be the source of Ellison's otherwise undocumented claim. These records are assessed in relation to the known distributions of the various forms of D. chrysippus across the Mediterranean, North Africa and Middle East, and more briefly with respect to the vast range of this butterfly across much of the Old World tropics and subtropics. The ambiguity and potential confusion caused by using an available name to designate both a geographically circumscribed subspecies or semispecies, and a genetically controlled phenotype that can be found far beyond the range of the putative subspecies or semispecies, is also discussed.

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