Arlene Rosen - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Arlene Rosen

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2019

The climate record of the Mid-Holocene southern Levant indicates a period of rapid climate change... more The climate record of the Mid-Holocene southern Levant indicates a period of rapid climate change and erratic rainfall. An unpredictable rainfall regime would have posed a considerable risk to societies dependent upon crops and livestock that require a plentiful and consistent supply of water. In this paper, we first examine an assemblage of pig remains from Hartuv, a small settlement occupied during the Early Bronze Age, and then interpret these data alongside palaeohydrological evidence. We reconcile seemingly contradictory data—high relative taxonomic abundance of pigs and climatic conditions characterized by a general aridification trend and rainfall instability—by considering zooarchaeological assemblages from nearby sites in the context of their hydrological settings. On the basis of geoarchaeological evidence from Hartuv, we conclude that the effects of variable rainfall were mitigated by a locally marshy environment and an anthropogenic landscape feature, which may have been used to store water.

... A LA FIN DU TROISIEME MILLENAIRE : UNE CRISE AT-ELLE EU LIEU EN ... Studies of Holocene valle... more ... A LA FIN DU TROISIEME MILLENAIRE : UNE CRISE AT-ELLE EU LIEU EN ... Studies of Holocene valley fills along the Euphrates and its tributaries provide a general frame-work for long-term dynamics against which to contextualise these specific events. ...

Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research, 2004

Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, 1991

Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, 1997

Bulletin of the American Schools of …, 2006

Nature and Culture, 2007

Not too long ago, concerns about changing climate were relegated to the realm of academia and the... more Not too long ago, concerns about changing climate were relegated to the realm of academia and the laboratories of meteorologists, oceanographers, and atmospheric scientists. However now the debate has reached not only the open forums of world politics and policy makers, it has trickled down to the household level through popular media such as science fiction novels and Hollywood films. At the risk of making a bad pun, climate change is a hot topic. As we collectively scrutinize changing climate in the modern world, and its projected effect on the societies that exist today, there is a natural curiosity among the informed public about the state of the climate in the past, the magnitude of these current changes vis-à-vis past fluctuations in climate, and how these might have impacted some of the ancient societies that preceded ours. As a result there have been a number of recent books, for the most part written by geographers and climate scientists, that explain the workings of the world climate in a way that is comprehensible to the educated public.

Archaeology International, 2001

Phytolith Systematics, 1992

... confusers. However, within Levantine archaeological sites, strong suggestions of these cultig... more ... confusers. However, within Levantine archaeological sites, strong suggestions of these cultigens can be proposed based on phytolith evidence. INTRODUCTION Phytoliths are abundant in archaeological sediments in the Near East. ...

Quaternary Research, 2015

Investigations of the relationships between climate and human history often place more emphasis o... more Investigations of the relationships between climate and human history often place more emphasis on the science of climate change than on understanding human socio-economic processes, and therefore suffer from superficial results and an unbalanced perspective. This is partly due to the lack of high-resolution data concerning long-term socio-economic processes. Here, we base our study of climate and society on a series of 2130-yr-long economic proxy data from China with decadal resolution. The economy was associated significantly with temperature and precipitation at the two predominant bands of 100 and 320 yr. The phase transition of economic states was influenced positively by long-term temperature change combined with triggering effects of short-term changes in precipitation. However, climatic impact on economy should not be recognized as simple causality but some driving-response relation coupled with meditation by human agency at multiple scales. A model of ‘adaptive cycles’ impl...

Antiquity, 2003

This new view of Iron Age society in Kazakhstan breaks away from the old documentary and ethnic f... more This new view of Iron Age society in Kazakhstan breaks away from the old documentary and ethnic framework and offers an independent archaeological chronology. Excavated house types and new environmental data show that nomadism and cultivation were practised side by side. Scholars had previously tended to emphasise the ability of documented Saka leaders to plunder and collect tribute from sedentary agriculture groups through military aggression. But what really gave them a political and economic edge over other steppe groups was a dual economy based upon farming and herding.

Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 2009

Rockshelter Baaz in the Damascus region of Syria provided a variety of botanical remains from the... more Rockshelter Baaz in the Damascus region of Syria provided a variety of botanical remains from the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene period. These remains provide new information about the vegetation evolution in this region. The earliest occupational levels correspond with a moisture peak during the Late Pleistocene, between ca. 34-32 kyr B.P., when pine expanded. The next occupations took place during extreme arid conditions, ca. 23-21 kyr B.P., and probably during the Last Glacial Maximum when a steppe vegetation was established. The occupation level of the Younger Dryas, represented by Natufian remains, suggests that the area had been covered by almond-pistachio steppe, similar to later periods of the Early Holocene, and was probably located just outside the range of dense wild cereal stands. There is no drastic impact of the Younger Dryas visible on the vegetation in the botanical remains. The lack of fruits and seeds at Baaz indicates that the site was more likely to have been a temporary hunting post rather than a plant processing site for much of its history. It is ideally suited to this purpose because of its location over the Jaba 0 deen Pass and the associated springs. However, archaeological remains from the Natufian period, suggest that the site was more permanently occupied during this time.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013

The Biblical Archaeologist, 1991

ABSTRACT Artifacts like amphorae, terracottas, inscribed bowls and structural remains garner much... more ABSTRACT Artifacts like amphorae, terracottas, inscribed bowls and structural remains garner much attention from archaeologists, who learn much about the history of a particular site and era from these relics. Often overlooked, however, are microartifacts, or pebble- and sand-sized artifactual remains. Microartifacts are a great source of information about building functions, the delineation of activity areas and the processes involved in site formation.

The Biblical Archaeologist, 1995