Daniel A. CONTRERAS, "From Paleoclimate Variables to Prehistoric Agriculture" 12 mai 2017

"Modeling complex adaptive systems in Archaeology: Insights and feedbacks from the modeling of past socio-ecosystems"

"Modéliser des systèmes complexes en Archéologie : Retours d’expériences sur la modélisation des systèmes socio-environnementaux passés"

Séminaire du Projet "ModelAnSet - Modelling the role of socio-environmental interactions on Ancient Settlement Dynamics", Idex UCA-JEDI « Complex Systems » Academy of Excellence

Daniel A. Contreras (Ph.D, Department of Anthropological Sciences, Stanford University, USA ; Visiting Scientist, IMBE, Aix-Marseille Université), "From Paleoclimate Variables to Prehistoric Agriculture: Settlement Patterns, Human Environments, and Process-Based Agroecosystem Modeling in Holocene Provence"

Résumé :

Past climatic changes are often cited as drivers of societal change in the Mediterranean Basin.  While Holocene climate variability in the region is certainly sufficient to raise questions about how and if inhabitants responded, the mechanisms of this supposed influence are generally little explored, reflecting the interdisciplinary challenge of integrating paleoclimatic and archaeological data (and models) that are of varying and often incommensurate scales and resolutions.  Here I discuss the integration of two tools – agro-ecosystem modeling of potential yields and spatial analysis of archaeological settlement pattern data – in order to examine the human consequences of past climatic changes. Focusing on a case study in Provence (France), I examine the changing influence over time of agricultural productivity on settlement location, and consider how these analyses can be coupled with agent-based modeling in order to assess the societal impacts of climate changes.