Environmental Archaeological Studies on THE Collapse of Past Human Civilizations
by An examination of the collapse of past civilizations with an environmental scope.
The Indus Valley Civilizations
The changing climate of Earth can be thought of as a catalyzing event for human civilizations, both in their creation and destruction (Farooqui & Guar 2007). The climate influences physical landscape of the environment during times of prosperity and downfall all recorded by archaeological proxies such as amoeba and pollen as different arrangements of each are found under different climatic conditions (Farooqui & Guar 2007). Palynological studies with testate amoebas have been successful in revealing the changes in sea-level changes and changes in water chemistry at the aquatic and terrestrial interface (Farooqui & Guar 2007). This information is very useful in understanding the demise of many civilizations that were highly dependent on the stability of waterways upon which they were built.
One such civilization in the Indus Valley was the Harappan, whose’ civilization collapsed due to climatic changes in the river courses upon which these people were highly dependent (Farooqui & Guar 2007). Reduced sea levels, recorded with the use of amoeba and pollen proxies allowed Farooqui and Guar (2007) to hypothesize that changing water and terrestrial interface and dry arid conditions lead the Harappan civilization to inevitably be destroyed.
Plant phytoliths have also been used to model climatic conditions in the late Holocene and the relationship to the collapse of Indus Valley civilizations (Singh et al. 2007). Because phytoliths are representative of grass compositions their recovery from archaeological sites can be used to identify the local terrain and thereby indirectly measure the climate (Singh et al. 2007). Changes in the monsoons and moisture regimes in these areas (recorded in the grass/phytolith compositions and morphologies), have led environmental archaeologists to hypothesize that variations in rainfall and droughts (of critical importance to subsistence) were responsible for the collapse of the Indus Valley civilizations (MacDonald 2011; Singh et al. 2007; Wang et al. 2004).
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