Coping with climate change presents a number of challenges, but we may be able to get some hints from our ancestors. A study of tools from an archaeological site outside Jerusalem provides new information about land use patterns at the times of extreme climate change that may have helped the population adapt to their changing environment.
In the Mid-East, climate change is not the big factor for past cultural change, like it was for Europe. The primary cause of cultural changes that shaped the Neolithic Revolution was human landscape degradation, population growth, socioeconomic adjustments, and conflict.
Even if there is chronological correlation between climate changes and cultural developments, what is important is to understand how Neolithic societies dealt with these improving or deteriorating environments. Changes in bifacial stone tools provide a framework for examining some of these interactions by focusing on changing land use practices during the Neolithization process. The results of microwear analysis of 40 bifacial artifacts from early Pre-Pottery Neolithic (EPPNB) levels at Motza in the Judean hills document changes during the PPNA–PPNB transition at the onset of the Levantine Moist Period (ca. 8000 cal B.C.) when conditions for agriculture improved. EPPNB villagers added heavy-duty axes to a toolkit they had used for carpentry and began to clear forests for fields and grazing lands.
The authors of the study, led by Richard Yerkes of Ohio State University and Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University, write that around 8,000 B.C., villagers added heavy-duty axes and began to clear forests for fields and grazing lands until these activities seem to have led to land degradation and a related transition to a colder, drier climate around 6,600 to 6,000 BC. The samples from this site provide valuable information about how early humans interacted with their changing environment and were able to establish sustainable resource management systems.
Citation: Yerkes RW, Khalaily H, Barkai R (2012) Form and Function of Early Neolithic Bifacial Stone Tools Reflects Changes in Land Use Practices during the Neolithization Process in the Levant. PLoS ONE 7(8): e42442. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042442