front cover of Climate and Culture Change in North America AD 900–1600
Climate and Culture Change in North America AD 900–1600
By William C. Foster
University of Texas Press, 2012

Climate change is today’s news, but it isn’t a new phenomenon. Centuries-long cycles of heating and cooling are well documented for Europe and the North Atlantic. These variations in climate, including the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), AD 900 to 1300, and the early centuries of the Little Ice Age (LIA), AD 1300 to 1600, had a substantial impact on the cultural history of Europe. In this pathfinding volume, William C. Foster marshals extensive evidence that the heating and cooling of the MWP and LIA also occurred in North America and significantly affected the cultural history of Native peoples of the American Southwest, Southern Plains, and Southeast.

Correlating climate change data with studies of archaeological sites across the Southwest, Southern Plains, and Southeast, Foster presents the first comprehensive overview of how Native American societies responded to climate variations over seven centuries. He describes how, as in Europe, the MWP ushered in a cultural renaissance, during which population levels surged and Native peoples substantially intensified agriculture, constructed monumental architecture, and produced sophisticated works of art. Foster follows the rise of three dominant cultural centers—Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, Cahokia on the middle Mississippi River, and Casas Grandes in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico—that reached population levels comparable to those of London and Paris. Then he shows how the LIA reversed the gains of the MWP as population levels and agricultural production sharply declined; Chaco Canyon, Cahokia, and Casas Grandes collapsed; and dozens of smaller villages also collapsed or became fortresses.

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front cover of Culture Change and Shifting Populations in Central Northern Mexico
Culture Change and Shifting Populations in Central Northern Mexico
William B. Griffen
University of Arizona Press, 1969
Historical investigation of culture contact between raiding aboriginal Indian groups and Spanish colonists. Significant insights concerning conflicting concepts of ownership and property.
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front cover of Culture Change in a Bedouin Tribe
Culture Change in a Bedouin Tribe
The ‘arab al-?gerat, Lower Galilee, A.D. 1790-1977
Rohn Eloul
University of Michigan Press, 2010
Against the historical dynamics of this complex region, this richly documented volume reconstructs the growth of the ‘arab al-Ḥǧerāt of the Galilee from some five herding households at the end of the Ottoman eighteenth century into a thriving sedentary tribe of regional importance nearly 200 years later.
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logo for Harvard University Press
El Niño, Catastrophism, and Culture Change in Ancient America
Daniel H. Sandweiss
Harvard University Press, 2008
El Niño is an extreme climate perturbation that periodically changes weather throughout the globe, often with dire consequences. First recognized in Peru, El Niño events are best known and documented there. This book summarizes research on the nature of El Niño events in the Americas and details specific historic and prehistoric patterns in Peru and elsewhere. By also looking at other catastrophic natural events in the ancient New World, the book illustrates how scientific archaeology can serve pure research as well as provide information for contemporary issues.
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front cover of Theory of Culture Change
Theory of Culture Change
THE METHODOLOGY OF MULTILINEAR EVOLUTION
Julian H. Steward
University of Illinois Press, 1955
 "In a collection of papers spanning
      some 20 years of work, Steward argues persuasively that cultural change
      consists of complex, continuing processes, rather than isolable acts or
      events of unitary character ('diffusion'  versus 'independent invention')....
      With the increasing preponderance of studies of cultural change in archaeology
      as well as anthropology this volume assumes as much importance for the prehistorian
      as for the student of contemporary societies."
      -- American Antiquity
 
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