4. The long-term history of Europe and Asia

2018 ◽  
pp. 42-64
Author(s):  
Chris Gosden
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Novel Technologies ◽  
Steppe Ecosystem ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Europe

‘The long-term history of Europe and Asia’ explains how the fluctuating climatic systems between cold and warm periods provided the context in which the global expansion of our ancestors occurred. It discusses the mammoth steppe ecosystem, the relationships between plants and animals, and the introduction of tool use, language, and farming systems across Europe and east Asia. The last great global warming—shifting vegetation zones, the territories of animals, and sea levels—was one of the most challenging periods in planetary history since the evolution of Homo sapiens. Yet from this period came a mass of novel technologies, skills, and relationships that provided the basis for life.

Settlement and Sea-Levels on the Central Coast of British Columbia: Evidence from Shell Midden Cores

2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aubrey Cannon
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
High Tide ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Shell Midden ◽  
Central Coast ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cost Effective Alternative ◽  
Strong Linear Relationship

AbstractCoring of shell-midden sites provides a regional chronology of site settlement in the Namu vicinity on the central coast of British Columbia. Coring proved an accurate and cost-effective alternative to traditional test-excavation, and its application in only two short field seasons doubled the number of sites tested in this region. The dating of basal cultural deposits from the cores shows initial occupation of sites ranging from 10,000 to 800 B.P. These dates exhibit a strong linear relationship with the current elevation of deposits above average high tide, suggesting that the settlement history of known shell-midden sites in this region is strongly linked to gradual long-term decline in relative sea levels.

The Emerald Planet

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Beerling
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Computer Models ◽  
Dynamic Evolution ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Atmospheric Change ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Global warming is contentious and difficult to measure, even among the majority of scientists who agree that it is taking place. Will temperatures rise by 2ºC or 8ºC over the next hundred years? Will sea levels rise by 2 or 30 feet? The only way that we can accurately answer questions like these is by looking into the distant past, for a comparison with the world long before the rise of mankind. We may currently believe that atmospheric shifts, like global warming, result from our impact on the planet, but the earth's atmosphere has been dramatically shifting since its creation. This book reveals the crucial role that plants have played in determining atmospheric change - and hence the conditions on the planet we know today. Along the way a number of fascinating puzzles arise: Why did plants evolve leaves? When and how did forests once grow on Antarctica? How did prehistoric insects manage to grow so large? The answers show the extraordinary amount plants can tell us about the history of the planet -- something that has often been overlooked amongst the preoccuputations with dinosaur bones and animal fossils. David Beerling's surprising conclusions are teased out from various lines of scientific enquiry, with evidence being brought to bear from fossil plants and animals, computer models of the atmosphere, and experimental studies. Intimately bound up with the narrative describing the dynamic evolution of climate and life through Earth's history, we find Victorian fossil hunters, intrepid polar explorers and pioneering chemists, alongside wallowing hippos, belching volcanoes, and restless landmasses.

Love’s Evolution

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-94
Author(s):  
Celia E. Deane-Drummond
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Severe Disabilities ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reasonable Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of

The relationship between empathy, love, and compassion has long been contested in the history of moral theory. Drawing on Martha Nussbaum’s definition of compassion as a form of judgement, and its relationship to empathy as both emotive and cognitive, this chapter seeks to uncover some of the reasons why empathy and compassion are still contested by scientists working in moral psychology as being relevant for the truly moral life. It also draws on fascinating work by archaeologists that shows reasonable evidence for the existence of deep compassion far back in the evolutionary record of early hominins, even prior to the appearance of Homo sapiens. The long-term care of those with severe disabilities is remarkable and indicates the importance of empathy and compassion deep in history. This is not so much a romanticized view of the past, since violence as well as cooperation existed side by side, but an attempt to show that the rising wave of anti-empathy advocates have missed the mark. Compassion is the fruit of cooperative tendencies. Primatologist Frans de Waal has also undertaken important work on empathy operative in the social lives of alloprimates. The Thomistic concept of compassion in the framework of his approach to the virtues in the moral life is also discussed.

The Great Convergence from a West-European Perspective: Some Thoughts and Hypotheses

Itinerario ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 24 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 9-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Luiten Van Zanden
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The West ◽  
System Perspective ◽  
History Of ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
History Of Europe ◽  
New Generation

Between 1995 and 2000 a number of synthetic studies on the economic history of Asia in the Early Modern Period were published which have changed – or should change – our ideas and perceptions of the ‘rise of the west’ and the parallel ‘decline of the east’ in a fundamental way. The potential impact of these studies is comparable to that of a previous brief spell of brilliance in our profession, the early 1970s, with the pioneering publications by, amongst others, Wallerstein, Brenner, and North and Thomas. Whereas these studies proposed fundamentally new views on the long term dynamics of the ‘rise of the west’, and concentrated heavily on the economic and socio-political history of Europe (albeit sometimes within a ‘world system perspective’), the new generation of innovative works focuses on a new analysis of the economic history of parts of Asia - on China and India in particular. Much of the detailed empirical research on which this revisionism is based, was done before the books of Goody, Frank, Wong, Pomeranz, and Lee and Wang were published, and forerunners of the revisionism can be identified. But only now the movement has created a clear set of hypotheses that challenges the accepted wisdom about die economic and institutional contrasts between both sides of the Eurasian Continent.

Plio-Pleistocene decline of African megaherbivores: No evidence for ancient hominin impacts

Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 362 (6417) ◽  
pp. 938-941 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Tyler Faith ◽  
John Rowan ◽  
Andrew Du ◽  
Paul L. Koch
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Large Mammal ◽  
Meat Eating ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mammal Communities ◽  
Herbivore Communities

It has long been proposed that pre-modern hominin impacts drove extinctions and shaped the evolutionary history of Africa’s exceptionally diverse large mammal communities, but this hypothesis has yet to be rigorously tested. We analyzed eastern African herbivore communities spanning the past 7 million years—encompassing the entirety of hominin evolutionary history—to test the hypothesis that top-down impacts of tool-bearing, meat-eating hominins contributed to the demise of megaherbivores prior to the emergence ofHomo sapiens. We document a steady, long-term decline of megaherbivores beginning ~4.6 million years ago, long before the appearance of hominin species capable of exerting top-down control of large mammal communities and predating evidence for hominin interactions with megaherbivore prey. Expansion of C4grasslands can account for the loss of megaherbivore diversity.

The uncertain case for human-driven extinctions prior to Homo sapiens

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 88-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Tyler Faith ◽  
John Rowan ◽  
Andrew Du ◽  
W. Andrew Barr
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Large Mammal ◽  
History Of ◽  
Faunal Diversity ◽  
Biodiversity Decline ◽  
Made In

AbstractA growing body of literature proposes that our ancestors contributed to large mammal extinctions in Africa long before the appearance of Homo sapiens, with some arguing that premodern hominins (e.g., Homo erectus) triggered the demise of Africa's largest herbivores and the loss of carnivoran diversity. Though such arguments have been around for decades, they are now increasingly accepted by those concerned with biodiversity decline in the present-day, despite the near complete absence of critical discussion or debate. To facilitate that process, here we review ancient anthropogenic extinction hypotheses and critically examine the data underpinning them. Broadly speaking, we show that arguments made in favor of ancient anthropogenic extinctions are based on problematic data analysis and interpretation, and are substantially weakened when extinctions are considered in the context of long-term evolutionary, ecological, and environmental changes. Thus, at present, there is no compelling empirical evidence supporting a deep history of hominin impacts on Africa's faunal diversity.

scholarly journals The new political geography of migration in Europe between external borders and internal freedom of movement

2016 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfonso Giordano
Keyword(s):  
Political Geography ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
European Area ◽  
Illegal Migrants ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
History Of Europe ◽  
The One

The creation of the Schengen area has modified the political geography of migration with important implications from a variety of perspectives, all of which affect the migration management policies of EU member States as well as those of third countries. On the one hand, the Schengen area established the first supranational border in the history of Europe; on the other hand, it obliged a small group of countries (those bordering non-EU States) to monitor the new border, manage refugee flows and repatriate illegal migrants from third countries, despite often being unprepared to tackle the migration phenomenon. The policies implemented in both the Mediterranean and continental countries have revealed a lack of long-term vision in dealing with several migration related issues. Currently, the absence of a single EU migration policy, the egocentric approach of some non-Mediterranean European countries and the re-emergence of border walls characterize the context. Nevertheless, migration flows and terrorism in Europe represent significant opportunities to strengthen the common European area, rather than weakening it. Moreover, evidence suggests that such global phenomena are better addressed at a supranational level rather than on a national basis.

scholarly journals The effects of World War I on marriages between 1914 and 1918 in Hungary

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 115-122
Author(s):  
Attila Rácz
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Europe

The 20th century has entered the history of Europe as a constant era of wars, crises and dictatorships. This century also marked a series of trials for Hungary. The imprint and long-term effects of the historical events of the period can be well traced with the help of statistical data, therefore the aim of our study is to show how serious and difficult to remedy social, economic and demographic problems can be when people attack people, either with weapons or by another method. In the present study, we analyze the effects of World War I on marriages between 1914 and 1918.

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