Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-l4dxg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-09T01:24:22.061Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dating Climatic Episodes of the Holocene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Wayne M. Wendland  and
Reid A. Bryson
Wayne M. Wendland
Affiliation:
Department of Meteorology and Geography, Center for Climatic Research, Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706 USA.
Reid A. Bryson
Affiliation:
Department of Meteorology and Geography, Center for Climatic Research, Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706 USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Monitoring evidence indicates that the Holocene embraced a sequence of rather discrete climatic episodes. The transitions between these environmental episodes apparently were abrupt and globally synchronous. This paper reports on statistical analyses of radiocarbon dates associated with environmental change and cultural change.

Over 800 14C dates associated with pollen maxima and minima, sea level maxima and minima, and top and bottom surfaces of peat beds were simultaneously analyzed to identify times of globally synchronous environmental discontinuities.

Some 3700 14C dates associated with 155 cultural continua of the world were collectively analyzed to identify worldwide synchroneities in appearance and termination of the cultures.

Significant globally synchronous discontinuities were identified in each independent analysis. The dates of environmental and cultural discontinuities are rather similar, particularly during the recent half of the Holocene. The fact that the cultural discontinuities mostly follow rather closely those of the paleobotanical record suggests that there has been a distinct climatic impact on the cultural history of man.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 9 - 24
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baerris, D.A., Bryson, R.A., (1965). Climatic episodes and the dating of the Mississippian cultures. Wisconsin Archaeology 46, 203–220.Google Scholar
Baerreis, D.A., Bryson, R.A., (1967). Mississippian cultural developments in the light of historical climatology. Paper presented at 32nd annual meeting, Society for American Archaeology. Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 4–6, 1967.Google Scholar
Bergthorsson, P., (1965). Unpublished data presented at Conference on Climate of the 11th and 16th Centuries. Boulder, Colorado, July 1965.Google Scholar
Brooks, C.E.P., (1949). Climate Through the Ages. McGraw-Hill Book Co, New York.Google Scholar
Bryson, R.A., (1965). Recent climatic episodes in North America. Proceedings, 21st Southeastern Archaeologic Conference, Bulletin 3, 78–81.Google Scholar
Bryson, R.A., Baerreis, D.A., (1968). Introduction and project summary. Henning, D.R., Climatic Change and the Mill Creeek Culture of Iowa, Part I. Journal of the Iowa Archaeologic Society 15, 1–34.Google Scholar
Bryson, R.A., Baerreis, D.A., Wendland, W.M., (1970). The character of late-Glacial and post-Glacial climatic changes. Dort, W. Jr., Jones, J.K. Jr., Pleistocene and Recent Environments of the Central-Great Plains Univ. of Kansas Press, Lawrence 53–74.Google Scholar
Bryson, R.A., Wendland, W.M., (1967). Tentative climatic patterns for some late-Glacial and post-Glacial episodes in central North America. Mayer-Oakes, W.J., Lite, Land and Water Univ. of Manitoba Press, Winnipeg 271–298.Google Scholar
Butzer, K.W., (1966). Climatic changes in the arid zones of Africa during early to mid-Holocene times. World Climate from 8000 to 0 B.C. Royal Meteorologic Society, London 72–83.Google Scholar
Cole, H.S., (1969). Objective Reconstruction of the Paleoclimatic Record through the Application of Eigenvectors of Present-Day Pollen Spectra and Climate to the Late-Quaternary Pollen Strateigraphy. Ph.D. thesis Dept. of Meteorology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.Google Scholar
Frenzel, B., (1966). Climatic change in the Atlantic/sub-Boreal transition on the Northern Hemisphere: botanical evidence. World Climate from 8000 to 0 B.C. Royal Meteorologic Society, London 99–123.Google Scholar
Godwin, H., (1966). Introductory address. World Climate from 8000 to 0 B.C. Royal Meteorologic Society, London 3–14.Google Scholar
Godwin, H., (1970). The contribution of radiocarbon dating to archeology in Britain. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series A 269, 57–75.Google Scholar
Goldthwait, R.P., (1966). Evidence from Alaskan glaciers of major climatic changes. World Climate from 8000 to 0 B.C. Royal Meteorologic Society, London 40–53.Google Scholar
Johnson, D., (1966). Non-linear parameter estimation for the partial collective model of airmass analysis. Technical Report 24, Nonr 1202(07). Department of Meteorology, University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Kalnicky, R.A., (1971). Changes in Atmospheric Circulation over the Northern Hemisphere in the Twentieth Century. M.S. thesis Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin, Madison.Google Scholar
Knox, J.C., (1972). Valley alluviation in Southwestern Wisconsin. Annals of the Association of the American Geographer 62, 401–410.Google Scholar
Lamb, H.H., (1966). The Changing Climate. Methuen & Co, London.Google Scholar
Lamb, H.H., Lewis, R.P.W., Woodroffe, A., (1966). Atmospheric circulation and the main climatic variable between 8000 and 0 B.C.: Meteorological evidence. World Climate from 8000 to 0 B.C. Royal Meteorologic Society, London 174–217.Google Scholar
Lund, I.A., Wahl, E.W., (1955). An Objective System for Preparing Operational Weather Forecasts. Air Force Cambridge Res. Center, Bedford, MassAir Force Surveys in Geophysics No. 75. AFCRC TN-55-219. GRD.Google Scholar
McKern, W.C., (1939). The Midwestern taxonomic method as an aid to archeological culture study. American Antiquity 4, 301–313.Google Scholar
Mercer, J.H., (1970). Variation of some Patagonian glaciers since the late-Glacial: II. American Journal of Science 269, 1–25.Google Scholar
Nichols, H., (1967a). Central Canadian palynology and its relevance to north-western Europe in the late Quaternary period. Reviews of Paleobotany and Palynology 2, 231–243.Google Scholar
Nichols, H., (1967b). The post-glacial history of vegetation and climate at Ennadai Lake, Keewatin, and Lynn Lake, Manitoba (Canada). Eiszeitalter und Genewart 18, 176–197.Google Scholar
Pearson, K., (1900). On the criterion that a given system of deviations from the probable in the case of a correlated system of variables is such that it can be reasonably supposed to have arisen from random sampling. Philosophical Magazine 5, 157–172.Google Scholar
Porter, S.C., Denton, G.H., (1967). Chronology of Neoglaciation in the North American Cordillera. American Journal of Science 265, 177–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snedecor, G.W., (1946). Statistical Methods. Iowa State College Press, Ames, Iowa.Google ScholarPubMed
Wendland, W.M., Donley, D.L., (1971). Radiocarbon-calendar age relationship. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 11, 135–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willey, G.R., Shimkin, D.B., (1971). Why did the pre-Columbian Maya civilization collapse?. Science 173, 656–658.Google Scholar
Zeuner, F.E., (1952). Dating the Past. Methuen & Co., Ltd, London.Google Scholar
Zoller, H., (1960). Pollenanalytische Untersuchungen zur Vegetationsgeschichte der Insubrischen Schweiz. Denkschriften Schweizerischen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft 83, 45.Google Scholar