Documenta Praehistorica L (2023)
36 DOI: 10.4312/dp.50.19
KLJUÈNE BESEDE – holocen; arheologija; nenadne podnebne spremembe; prilagoditvene strategije; 8.2 
ka klimatski dogodek; neolitizacija; mala ledena doba 
IZVLEÈEK – V èlanku predstavljamo koncepte ponavljajoèih se nizov hitrih podnebnih sprememb v
ho locenu, vkljuèno z nizi hitrega ohlajanja, hladnimi dogodki, dogodki s plavajoèim ledom in ne nad ni­
mi podnebnimi spremembami, zabeleženimi v paleoklimatskih arhivih. Predstavljamo in analiziramo 
tudi koncepte prilagoditvenih strategij, vgrajenih v katastrofiène scenarije kolapsa na eni strani ter 
panarhije, odpornosti in prilagoditvenega cikla na drugi strani, tj. procese transformacije družbenih 
hierarhiènih struktur v dinamiène, prilagodljive entitete. V seriji hitrih podnebnih sprememb se osre­
do toèamo na podnebne dogodke 9,2 ka in 8,2 ka, povezane s procesom neolitizacije in prehodom na 
poljedelstvo. Dogodek 5.9 IRD in/ali obdobje hitrih podnebnih sprememb od 6000–5200 kal pr. n. št. je
po vezano s kulturnim, gospodarskim in demografskim propadom zgodnje neolitske kulture linear­
ne keramike v srednji in zahodni Evropi. Omenjamo tudi triado nedavne oslabitve cirkulacije se ver­
noatlantskega oceana, zmanjšane Sonèeve aktivnosti in domnevnega prehoda v hladno obdobje, ki je
dobro znan zgodovinski scenarij, povezan s prehodom v malo ledeno dobo med leti 1450 in 1850.
Arheologija, hitre klimatske spremembe v holocenu
in prilagoditvene strategije
KEY WORDS – Holocene; archaeology; rapid climate changes; adaptation strategies; 8.2 ka climate 
event; Neolithisation; Little Ice Age
ABSTRACT - The article presents the concepts of repeating cycles of rapid climate variability in the Holo­
cene, including rapid cooling cycles, cold events, ice­rafting events, and rapid climate change recorded 
in palaeoclimate archives. It also discusses the concepts of adaptation strategies embedded in the cat­
astrophic scenarios of collapse on the one hand, and panarchy, resilience, and adaptation cycle on the 
other, i.e. the processes of transforming social hierarchical structures into dynamic, adaptive entities. 
In the rapid climate change series we focus on the 9.2 ka and 8.2 ka climate events associated with the 
Neolithisation process and the transition to farming. The 5.9 IRD event and/or period of rapid climate 
change from 6000–5200 cal yr BP are associated with the cultural, economic, and demographic col­
lapse of the Early Neolithic Linear Pottery culture in central and western Europe. We also discuss the 
triad of recent weakening of North Atlantic ocean circulation, decreased solar activity, and the hypoth­
esised transition to a cold period, the well­known historical scenario associated with the transition to 
Little Ice Age between 1450 and 1850.
Mihael Budja
Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, SI; Mihael.Budja@ff.uni-lj.si
Archaeology, rapid climate changes
in the Holocene, and adaptive strategies
37
Archaeology, rapid climate changes in the Holocene, and adaptive strategies
Introduction 
In current discussions* of present climate anomalies 
and predictions, past climate variability is often over-
looked. On the other hand, in archaeology the rapid 
climate changes of the past have not been properly 
contextualized or adequately conceptualized, and 
have often been simplistically and directly associat-
ed with the collapse of civilizations. In our paper we 
discuss the evolution of related concepts and inter-
pretations, the causes of rapid climate changes and 
subsequent human adaptations during the last 12 000 
years. Palaeoclimate archives reveal a succession of 
periods of varying length with cooling and droughts, 
warm periods, and regional heavy rainfall events. 
They include the well-known 8.2 ka and 4.2 ka events, 
the Late Antique Ice Age, the Little Ice Age, and the 
in tervening Mediaeval Warm Period. In archaeolog-
ical studies, these events are associated with global 
environmental catastrophes and collapses (econo-
mic, demographic, cultural, political) of cultures in 
pre history and later civilizations. More recent inter-
disciplinary explanations have shifted the focus from 
a global framework to regional climate activities and 
from collapse to other adaptation strategies.
The first interpretations linking climate change to 
civilizational and cultural developments emerged in 
the early 20th century in the context of geographical, 
cli matological, and archaeological studies. Sudden 
periods of drought and aridity were recognized as 
cli matic and environmental factors that were asso-
ciated with the catastrophic scenarios that afflicted 
Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Indian civilizations, as 
well as with the invasion of Europe by nomadic peo-
ples from Central Asia (Huntington, Simpson 1926; 
Brooks 1926). According to the adaptation scenario 
known as the oasis theory, climate determined the de-
velopment of economic strategies, including the cul-
tivation of plants and the domestication of animals, 
which were followed by agricultural development 
and cultural evolution (Childe 1928).
The catastrophe scenarios were recently replaced by 
the resilience and adaptive capacity scenarios, which 
include a society’s ability to “absorb energy and to 
redirect or to convert it, without losing the funda­
mental features and shape of the system as a whole” 
and to adapt “to actual or expected climate and its 
effects, in order to moderate harm or exploit bene­
ficial opportunities” (Degroot et al. 2021.543). The 
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change (IPCC) has played a key role in contextualiz-
ing and promoting both concepts (Matthews 2018). 
The concept of resilience is used in very different 
scientific fields and contexts. It first appeared in the 
psychology of the individual and then spread and 
evolved in interdisciplinary approaches in the envi-
ronmental sciences, human sciences and humanities 
(see below for details). The term is often understood 
as the opposite of vulnerability, namely, the suscepti-
bility of a social unit to existential threats from distur-
bances that may lead to its dissolution or destruction 
(see van Bavel et al. 2020). However, Martin Endreß, 
Lukas Clemens, and Benjamin Rampp (2020.1) sug-
gested that resilience and vulnerability can be simul-
taneously conceptualized as complementary – vul-
nerability is a necessary condition for resilience, and 
vice versa.
Toward the end of the 20th century, climatologists 
work ing on the Cooperative Holocene Mapping Pro-
ject (COHMAP) introduced the long-term climate change
model, which covers the last 18 000 years. Using ra-
diocarbon dated proxy data (water levels in lakes, pol-
len in lakes and plankton in marine sediments, chang-
es in the height and area of ice sheets), the project do -
cumented global climate changes at 3000-year inter-
vals. COHMAP concluded that these intervals were 
caused by changes in cosmic rays and decreased and 
consequently altered atmospheric air circulation on 
Earth (COHMAP members 1988). The first change, the
Holocene in terval between 13 000 and 10 000 years 
BP, was link ed to the Neolithic Revolution and the 
transition to farming in the Middle East. It was seen as 
human beings’ first response to “a unique sequence 
of climatic events” (Wright 1993.466).
In the 21st century the INTIMATE Project Group (INT-
egration of Ice-core, MArine, and TErrestrial records) 
and the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy 
(SQS) with the International Commission on Stratig-
raphy (ICS) suggested that two rapid climate change 
events – the 8.2 ka event and 4.2 ka event – represent 
the boundaries between early and mid-Holocene, 
and mid- and late Holocene. Using chemical proxy 
data (changes in the ratio of stable oxygen isotopes 
18O/16O and water evaporation D/H), the sudden and 
substantial cooling and drought of the first event is 
best documented in the Greenland ice core NGRIP1, 
* This is an amended and updated English version of the article published in Arheo (Budja 2022).
38
Mihael Budja
including rapid cooling cycles, (as well as ice-rafting 
events), rapid climate change, and cold events. Ge-
rard Bond et al. (1997; 1999) introduced the concept 
of cooling cycles as eight repeating cycles of rapid 
cooling. These were characterized as climate events 
associated with depositing ice-rafted debris, so-called 
IRD events, which occurred along the North Atlantic 
in the interval of ~1470 ± 500 years. Bond’s group 
associated these with influxes of large quantities of 
cold glacial water, impacting the circulation of the 
North Atlantic Gulf Stream. These influxes were doc-
umented using stone debris transferred by icebergs 
broken off from the Arctic ice caps and deposited 
in deep-sea sediments. Using radiocarbon dating of 
planktonic foraminifer shells from two North Atlantic 
deep-sea cores, the nine IRD events in the Holocene 
were dated in the core VM 29-191 in the following se-
quence: 12.5, 11.1, 10.3, 9.5, 8.2, 5.9, 4.3, 2.8 and 1.4 
cal 103 yr BP (Bond et al. 1997.Fig. 2.1). The increased 
influxes of glacial meltwater into the ocean were 
associated predominantly with periods of low solar 
activity (Bell 1971; Bond et al. 2001). However, new 
deep-sea cores in the eastern and western Mediterra-
nean have not confirmed Bond’s cycle model. Rapid 
cooling occurred in an interval of 2300–2500 years 
in the eastern Mediterranean (Rohling et al. 2002a), 
and in intervals of 1300, 1515, 2000 and 5000 years 
in the western (Rodrigo­Gámiz et al. 2014). These 
changes were exclusively associated with cycles of 
higher or lower solar activity and ultraviolet radia-
tion, as well as changes in the thickness of the ozone 
layer, which led to temperature changes in the lower 
parts of the stratosphere and consequently to occa-
sional outbreaks of polar air masses toward the south 
of the northern hemisphere. The consequences were 
increased activity of the Siberian anticyclone and the 
overflow of Arctic air during the winter and spring 
months in the Mediterranean. Rapid cooling has been 
documented in three deep-sea cores (south Adriatic 
Sea IN68-9, south-east Aegean Sea LC2 and the LC31 
core west of Cyprus) in a sequence of cold events 3.0–
3.8 (LC21 only), 5.8–6.7, 7.9–8.6, (9.5–10.0, Adriatic 
only), 11.0–13.4, and (poorly defined) 16–18 kyr cal 
BP (Rohling et al. 2002b.40). A concurrent sequence 
of is also documented in the Adriatic Sea (Siani et al. 
2013).
The model of rapid climate changes was developed by 
Paul A. Mayewski et al. (2004; see also Anderson et al. 
2007). Using more than fifty palaeoclimate archives, 
they modelled a series of six sudden, sharp, and rapid 
global temperature declines (rapid climate change or 
but is also documented globally in lake pollen and 
deep-sea plankton sediment records, as well as in 
cave speleothems. The second is not recorded in the 
ice core, but is well documented across all continents 
in pollen, lake diatom and deep-sea planktonic re-
cords, cave speleothems and altered monsoon cycles
(Lachniet 2009; Walker et al. 2012; 2018; Lowe, Wal­
ker 2015.428–433; see also Moossen et al. 2015).
In archaeological studies (details are below), the rela-
tions between prehistoric cultures and climate chang-
es were determined using various theoretical stand-
points and interpretative contexts, even ones that 
were mutually exclusive. First, the determinist model 
of unilinear cultural evolution and diffusion saw any 
change in human behavioural patterns, economic or 
technological development or cultural trajectories 
as directly associated with climate and environmen-
tal changes. On the other hand, there was also the 
ca tegorical denial of the environment as a possible 
cause of cultural change, and any attempt to link the 
two was seen as environmental determinism (Jones 
et al. 1999). Similarly, processual archaeology (New 
Archaeology) saw the development of prehistoric so-
cieties as entirely dependent on successfully adapting 
to climate and environmental changes (Binford 1968; 
Tainter 1988). Later, post-processual archaeology 
found studies of human-environment interaction to 
be determinist. This approach, according to post-pro-
cessual archaeology, was based on the assumption 
that external environmental processes were the main 
contributing factor to cultural change, which does not 
acknowledge the historic contingency of human ac-
tivity (Hodder 1982; 2000; Ingold 2000; for an exam-
ple of the transition to farming, see Gremillion et al. 
2014). More recent interdisciplinary approaches are 
often limited to temporal correlations between rapid 
climate change and archaeological cultural change 
(Rohling et al. 2019), and emphasize the continuum 
of interaction between cultural systems and environ-
mental processes, i.e. environmental and cultural co-
evolution (e.g., the concepts of a cultural niche and 
the archaeology of climate changes) (Izdebski et al. 
2016; Rockman, Hritz 2020; Rick, Sandweiss 2020; 
Burke et al. 2021).
Replacing long-term climate changes with the 
rapid changes
In palaeoclimatology, models of long-term chang-
es have been replaced by those focused on rapid 
changes with substantial decreases in temperature, 
39
Archaeology, rapid climate changes in the Holocene, and adaptive strategies
Related to Bond’s series of rapid cooling events is 
a model of cold events, a century-long set of global 
climate anomalies. The model is based on analysis 
of proxy data on temperature, precipitation, and 
glacial dynamics preserved in various palaeoclimat-
ic archives on land, in lakes, in the deep sea, and in 
ice cores (Wanner et al. 2008; 2011; 2012). During 
the Holocene, six events of sudden temperature de-
cline have been documented. The first, the 8.2 kyr BP 
event, took place 8300–8100 years ago. However, it 
is worth noting that the estimated temperature de-
clines related to this event occurred in different re-
gions over a longer period of 400 to 600 years (Roh­
ling, Pälike 2005). Three more follow in prehistory: 
the second event 6.5.–5.9, the third 4.8–4.5 and the 
fourth 3.3–2.5 took place 6400–6200, 4800–4600 
and 2800–2600 years ago. The fifth event 1.75–1.35
and sixth event 0.7–0.15 occurred 300–600 and 1200–
1800 years ago, and are associated with the so-called 
Dark Ages and Migration Period, and the Little Ice 
Age, respectively (Wanner et al. 2011).
In a parallel study, Shaun A. Marcott et al. (2013) 
used 73 palaeoclimate archives in the northern and 
southern hemispheres to track global temperature 
trends over the past 11 300 years. A warming phase 
in the early Holocene (10 000–5000 years BC) was 
followed by a cooling at ~0.7°C in the middle (<5000 
years BC) and late Holocene, reaching its lowest point 
during the Little Ice Age about 200 years ago. Two 
years later, Heiko Moossen et al. (2015) noted a sim-
ilar North Atlantic trend of declining land and ocean 
surface temperatures. Terrestrial temperatures were 
highest in the early Holocene (10.7–7.8 kyrs BP), 
while at sea level they were highest in the mid-Holo-
cene due to the influx of glacial meltwater (7.8–3.2 8 
kyrs BP) (Fig. 1). They identified two warm periods in 
the early Holocene between ~8.9–~8.5 kyrs BP and 
~8.1–~7.9 kyrs BP, both coinciding with periods of 
in tense solar activity. The 8.2 ka event is unfortunate-
ly poorly documented in the core of the Danish pen-
insula Vestfirdir in this context. Two periods of rapid 
warming were also noted in the mid-Holocene at ~7.6 
and ~7.3 kyrs BP. In the first, sea level temperatures 
increased by ~5°C (0.5°C per decade), while in the 
se cond period temperatures increased by ~4°C and 
persisted for 1400 years. The temperature increases 
were correlated with Bond cycles 5 and 4. Between 
~5.8 and ~3.2 kyrs BP there was a period of decreas-
ing temperatures and new glaciation. In the late Ho-
locene (~3.2–~0.3 millennia ago), two warm and 
two cold periods were documented, the first between 
RCC) that were repeated over periods of 2800–2000 
and 1500 years. In the Western Mediterranean, inter-
vals of 1300, 1515, 2000, and 5000 years were later 
included in the model, as mentioned above (Rodrigo­
Gámiz et al. 2014). They are embedded in radiocar-
bon calendar series between 9000–8000, 6000–5000,
4200–3800, 3500–2500, 1200–1000 and after 600 cal
yr BP or cal b2k. The first cooling in this series is 
known as the 8.2 ka event (Alley et al. 1997) or the 
8200 yr BP event (Mayewski et al. 2004.252). It was 
caused by a large influx of glacial meltwater into the 
North Atlantic. All other rapid climate changes are as-
sociated with changes in solar activity, radiation, and 
solar irradiance. They are all characterized by cooling 
of the northern hemisphere, tropical droughts, and 
changes in atmospheric circulation. 
A contrasting pattern has been documented in the 
Alps and part of central Europe in the latitudinal 
belt between 43° and 50° north. Pollen deposits, 
pa laeohydrological and other proxy data from lake 
sediments indicate a particularly wet period at the 
time of the first climate event. Lake water levels show 
fluctuations and a sequence of rising, falling, and 
rising again (Magny et al. 2003). A similar sequence 
in the Mediterranean has also been documented in 
relation to the 4.2 ka event. Humid periods and high 
lake levels during c. 4300–4100 and 3950–3850 BP 
were interspersed with periods of severe cooling and 
drought with low lake levels between c. 4100–3950 
BP, although it should be noted that this activity was 
regional and heterogeneous (Magny et al. 2009a; 
2012; Bini et al. 2019).
In their contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment 
Report a few years ago, Working Group I replaced 
the word ‘rapid’ with ‘abrupt’ in relation to climate 
change. They defined this as a “large­scale change in 
the climate system that takes place over a few de­
cades or less, persists (or is anticipated to persist) 
for at least a few decades and causes substantial dis­
ruptions in human and natural systems” (Stocker et 
al. 2013.1448). These changes are apparent in the col-
lapse of individual climate system components, such 
as the collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning 
circulation, glacier collapse, permafrost carbon re-
lease, methane clathrate release, the disappearance 
of tropical and boreal forests, the disappearance 
of summer Artic sea ice, prolonged droughts, and 
the collapse of monsoon circulation (Stocker et al. 
2013.1114–1118, Tab. 12.4).
40
Mihael Budja
Fig. 1. A comparison of the Icelandic climate records with other North Atlantic palaeoclimate records. The 
Little Ice Age (LIA), Mediaeval Climatic Anomaly (MCA), Dark Ages (DA), Roman Warm Period (RWP), 
neoglacial period, and 8.2 ka event are highlighted in shades of grey. Reprinted from Moossen et al. 2015. 
North Atlantic Holocene climate evolution recorded by high-resolution terrestrial and marine biomarker 
records.  Quaternary Science Reviews 129: 115, Fig.6. Reprinted with permission from Elsevier. For an expla-
nation of the figure legend, see https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.10.013.
41
Archaeology, rapid climate changes in the Holocene, and adaptive strategies
Similarly, interdisciplinary studies have consistently 
associated the dynamics of archaeological landscape 
change and cultural change during the Holocene with 
climate and environmental change at regional and 
global scales (reviewed in Berglund 2003; Brown, 
Bailey, Passmore 2015). The correlations were cre-
ated by 14C dating of archaeological settlement 
contexts and palaeoclimate archives. The latter are 
preserved in a variety of environments: glacial (ice 
cores), geological (marine and terrestrial), and bio-
logical. A key element in these archives is the proxy 
data on past climate fluctuations, including stable ox-
ygen and carbon isotopes, dust particles, various gas 
concentrations in air bubbles in ice; glacial and peri-
glacial deposits, surface erosion, palaeosols, volcanic 
eruptions; biochemical markers in animal and plant 
plankton fossils, stable oxygen and carbon isotopes in 
deep-sea sediments and sapropel deposits; pollen and 
plant macrofossil remains in marine and terrestrial 
sediments, diatoms, ostracods, insects, and stable 
isotopes in lake sediments; stable oxygen and carbon 
isotopes in dripstone; the circumference of tree rings 
and the stable carbon isotopes they contain; and sta-
ble carbon isotopes deposited in fossil cereal grains. 
The proxy data allow the reconstruction of long pre-
historic sequences of temperature and precipitation 
periods and shifts, solar irradiance and associated 
climate fluctuations, changes in sea and lake levels, 
and changes in vegetation cover (Bradley 1999; Brif­
fa 2000; Sachs et al. 2000; Barber et al. 2004; Jones, 
Man 2004; Magny et al. 2004; Marino et al. 2009; 
Steinhilber et al. 2012; Riehl et al. 2014). 
The first comprehensive correlation between rapid 
climate changes, archaeological cultures and past cul-
tural dynamics on a global scale appeared in a palae-
oclimate interpretative context. It was grounded by 
statistical analyses of anomalies in the distribution of 
815 radiocarbon dates related to pollen distribution, 
sea level changes, and peat accumulations in palaeo-
botanical records, and 3700 14C dates associated with 
155 archaeological settlement and cultural sequences 
(Wendland, Bryson 1974; Bryson 1988).
Deterministic catastrophe interpretations, which as-
sumed rapid climate change as the cause and demo-
graphic and civilizational collapse and dark periods 
as the consequences, remained dominant. The best 
known examples are the end of the Fifth and Sixth 
Dynasties in Egypt, the invasion of Egypt by the Sea 
Peoples in 1177 BC; the end of Mycenaean Greece, the 
decline of the Hittite and Akkadian empires, the end 
~2.2–~1.3 and ~1.1–~0.5 kyrs BP, and the second 
between ~1.3–~1.1 and ~0.5–~0.3 kyrs BP. The for-
mer was associated with the Roman Warm Period 
(RWP) and the latter with the Early Middle Ages (Dark 
Ages). A more recent Holocene palaeotemperature 
database is available in Darrell Kaufman et al. (2020) 
as well as online (Temperature 12k Database, www.
ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/27330, https://doi.org/ 
10.25921/4ry2­g808).
Corresponding with the rapid climate changes and 
the cold events is a sequence of fifteen events with 
higher lake levels documented in 26 lakes in the 
northern French Prealps, the Jura and the Swiss Pla-
teau. Radiocarbon dates determined the following se-
quences: 11 250–11 050, 10 300–10 000, 9550–9150, 
8300–8050, 7550–7250, 6350–5900, 5650–5200, 
4850–4800, 4150–3950, 3500–3100, 2750–2350, 
1800–1700, 1300–1100, 750–650 years BP (Magny 
2004; Magny, Haas 2004; Magny et al. 2006; 2009b).
Periods of high precipitation have been documented 
in the central Mediterranean at c. 10 200, 9300, 8200,
7300, 6200, 5700–5300, 4800, 4400–3800, 3300,
2700–2300, 1700, 1200 and 300 years BP. In the mid-
dle Holocene a contrasting pattern of precipitation re-
gimes is notable, with wet winters and dry sum mers 
documented north of the parallel 40° north, and wet 
winters and wet summers documented south of it. In 
the late Holocene the pattern reverses (Magny et al. 
2012; 2013; Peyron et al. 2013).
Rapid climate changes in archaeological studies 
In archaeology a variety of theoretical approaches 
and interpretive contexts have been used to establish 
links between prehistoric cultures and climate chang-
es (a detailed review and examples follow below, see
also Trigger 1971; 1996). From the beginning, these 
links were embedded in a deterministic view of un i-
directio nal cultural evolution and diffusion, in which 
any change in human behaviour patterns, economic 
or tech nological developments, and cultural trajec-
tories was seen as directly correlated to climate and 
environmental changes (Clark 1936; Childe 1958; 
Shen nan 2005). Similarly, the New Archaeology view -
ed the development of prehistoric societies as en ti re -
ly dependent on how successfully they adapted to
such changes (Binford 1968; Tainter 1988). In con-
trast, post-processual archaology assumes that it was 
human activities that triggered such changes, includ-
ing changes in the natural environment (Hodder 
1986; Tilley 1994). 
42
Mihael Budja
A paradigm shift
In the mid-1970s the palaeoclimatologist Wallace 
S. Broecker (1975) was already warning about pro-
nounced global warming, while the palaeo-ocea-
nographer John Imbrie and his daughter Katherine 
Palmer Imbrie (1979) were predicting that the use 
of fossil fuels would lead to a super-interglacial age, 
unlike anything experienced in the last million years. 
With the publication of the IPCC’s first report and as-
sessment of the state of the climate system, including 
projected future changes, in 1990, acceptance of the 
global warming scenario increased rapidly. The shift 
in paradigm from rapid global cooling to global warm-
ing was based on new proxy data, and the correlation 
between past gas concentrations in the atmosphere 
and the climate changes in ice and deep-sea palaeocli-
mate archives, the application of General Circulation 
Models (GCM) to atmosphere and ocean circulation, 
and the increase in global atmosphere temperatures 
in the last century (Chambers, Brain 2002; Alley et 
al. 2003). The IPCC’s fourth report, comprised of the 
working reports of three different work groups (the 
second dealt with impacts on the environment and 
human adaptation to climate change), emphasized 
that the growing concentrations of greenhouse gases 
after 1750 were the consequence of human activity. 
Neither the concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) or 
methane (CH4) in the past 650 000 years, nor the con-
centrations of nitrous oxide (N2O) in the past 16 000 
years, have ever been as high as they are now (Parry 
et al. 2007; Bernstein et al. 2008). The increased con-
centrations of carbon dioxide and methane in 8000–
5000 BC were linked to the Neolithic beginnings of 
agriculture, decreased forest areas in Europe, and the 
spread of rice fields and their irrigation systems in In-
dia and China (Ruddiman 2003).
In contrast, the rapid decline in average surface tem-
peratures and salinity in the Labrador Sea water col-
umn that began in the second half of the 20th century 
remains a major challenge in predicting rapid cooling 
(Lazier 1995; Dickson et al. 2002). The temperature 
and salinity declines indicate a weakening of the At-
lantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), 
which transports warm/cold water and low/high sa-
linity water from one part to another (thermohaline 
circulation). This circulation is key to heat redistribu-
tion on our planet and, together with the atmospher-
ic circulation (North At lantic Oscillation, NAO; Arctic 
Oscillation, AO; and Mediterranean Oscillation, MO), 
has been a major influence on global climate vari-
of the Third Dynasty of Ur in Mesopotamia (Carpen­
ter 1966; Bell 1971; Bryson et al. 1974; deMenocal 
2001; Cline 2021). These were all associated with 
sudden cooling and drought, and the desertification 
of the regions. The legitimacy of the perception of 
catastrophic events was based on the postulate that 
the dark ages and climate fluctuations were a factor 
in history (Bell 1971). 
Much attention has been focused on the Tell Leilan 
event, the gap in the settlement sequences in tell sites 
(Tell Leilan, Tell Brak, Tepe Garwa) in northern Mes-
opotamia about 2200 years ago that marks a rapid 
change in climate, desertification of the region, the 
collapse of the irrigation-based economy, and the re -
sulting collapse of the Akkadian Empire (Weiss et al. 
1993; Courty, Weiss 1997; Weiss, Bradley 2001; Cul­
len et al. 2000; deMenocal 2001.669). A similar sce na -
rio was assumed for the collapse of Classic Maya cul-
ture (Hodell et al. 1995; deMenocal 2001.670; Haug 
et al. 2003). 
However, Karl W. Butzer (1972; 1975; 2012; Butzer, 
Endfield 2012) pointed out the conceptual weakness 
and interpretive limitations of the deterministic ap-
proach. As an alternative to the postulate of climate 
as the sole cause of the collapse of past civilizations, 
he proposed an interdisciplinary approach, which he 
called cultural ecology, emphasizing pre-industrial 
societies still affected the ecological balance in their 
regions, leading to an economic, demographic and 
cultural slippage that resulted not in collapse but in 
cultural and economic adaptation to the new envi-
ronment. A similar view is also found in the French 
Annales approach, where it is emphasized that the im-
pacts of climate change on past societies were indirect 
and hardly noticeable. The Little Ice Age and the out-
break of the plague at the end of the 16th century, as 
well as the widespread crisis in 17th century Europe, 
were cited as examples. Le Roy Ladurie (1971.17) claim-
ed that famines, pandemics, migrations, insufficient 
food production, and high food costs are not and 
cannot be facts which are strictly climatic. Crawford 
S. Holling (1973), on the other hand, introduced to 
ecology the concept of resilience, emphasizing that 
all natural systems have the capacity to absorb envi-
ronmental and climatic disturbances without chang-
ing dramatically. However, resilience is limited, and 
when changes reach a critical point the system will 
transform and adapt to the new conditions.
43
Archaeology, rapid climate changes in the Holocene, and adaptive strategies
from proxy data, while the latter relates historical 
data and proxy data on a limited scale.
The collection of global proxy data and the region-
al reconstructions of rapid (decades-long) climate 
changes should also be mentioned (Goose et al. 2006; 
Ludwig et al. 2019; Pfister et al. 2018), since changes 
at the global scale are not necessarily synchronous. 
Awareness of their short- and long-term impacts on 
society (Mann 2012; Parker 2013; White et al. 2018) 
therefore remains as important as predicting trends 
in climate variability (Jones, Osborn, Briffa 2001; 
Bradley et al. 2003; National Research Council 
2006; PAGES 2k Consortium; Neukom et al. 2019). 
Indeed, it is hypothesized that the trajectory from 
the Mediaeval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age was a 
global scenario that could be repeated in the present, 
since the past increase in global surface temperature 
was certainly not due to human activity in the pre-in-
dustrial period (Lamb 1965; 1982). The trajectory 
can also be described as a transition from settling 
and dairy farming in Greenland and Iceland during 
the Medieval Warm Period, to famines and plague ep-
idemics in southeastern Europe during the Little Ice 
Age (Xoplaki et al. 2001; Mann 2002a).
Recent paleoclimatological studies have focused on 
the asynchronicity of climatic events and the fact that 
average surface temperatures during the Middle Ages 
in the northern hemisphere were never as high as in 
the second half of the 20th century and early 21st cen-
tury. The warmest period was between 950 and 1100, 
but temperatures at that time were between 0.1°C and 
0.2°C below the average temperatures measured be-
tween 1961 and 1990 (Jones et al. 1998. 468–469). 
The magnitude of warming today is global, but the 
Middle Age warm periods were asynchronous and 
regional. They occurred in the northern hemisphere 
between 830 and 1100, and between 1160 and 1370 
in the southern. Similarly, the cooling and transition 
to the Little Ice Age occurred first in the Arctic, Eu-
rope, and Asia, and only later in North America and 
the southern hemisphere, as indicated by paleocli-
mate proxy data. The major climate fluctuations and 
the onset of the Little Ice Age on a global scale, with 
variations in solar magnetic activity, changes in atmo-
spheric air circulation and ocean currents, and vol-
canic eruptions (Mann et al. 2008. 13255; PAGES 2k 
Consortium 2013.342; see also Bradley et al. 2003; 
Wanner et al. 2008). A solar activity cycle immediate-
ly before the Wolf Minimum between 1260 and 1270 
marks the beginning of the transition to a cold period.
ability in the past (see below). Changes in circulation 
have been associated with changes in solar activity 
(Usoskin 2008; 2017; Usoskin et al. 2016), on the 
one hand, and rapid changes between warm and cold 
periods in the Younger Dryas (12 900–11 600 years 
BP) (Rahmstorf 2002; Caesar et al. 2021), Medieval 
Cli mate Anomalies (c. 900–1300 AD), and the Little 
Ice Age (1450–1850 AD) (Bradley et al. 2003; Velas­
co Herrera et al. 2015; Zharkova et al. 2015; Fogt­
mann­Schulz et al. 2021), on the other.
It should be noted that glacial periods and intergla-
cial periods are not uniformly cold or warm. The 
Greenland palaeoarchives indicate considerable cli-
mate variability and a succession of cold and warm 
periods, but also transitions that may have been so 
brief that they were overlooked in earlier studies. 
Such transitions can last decades or a century, as can 
warm periods followed by cold periods of several 
centuries or millennia. More than ninety events, i.e. 
climate oscillations and abrupt climatic events that 
relate well to stratigraphic and temporal boundaries 
in the proxy data, have been documented in three 
chronologically synchronized Greenland ice core 
records – NGRIP, GRIP, and GISP2 – dating back to 
120ka b2k2 (i.e. 120 thousand years BP) with high 
stratigraphic and temporal resolution. All events oc-
cur in irregular succession, and 25 sudden and rapid 
transitions from cold to warm periods, which can last 
several decades, are particularly striking during the 
last glaciation. Temperatures range from 5°C to 16°C. 
Warm periods last from a century to several millen-
nia, and temperatures decrease gradually. Cold peri-
ods are characterized by a more stable climate, and 
their duration is similar to that of warm periods (Ras­
mussen et al. 2014). Macrofossil plant and animal re-
mains in the Lena River delta on the Arctic Ocean and 
sediments from Kotokel Lake near Lake Baikal in Si-
beria confirm high annual temperatures during warm 
periods of the last ice age. Chironomidae larvae prove 
that summer temperatures were between 1.5°C and 
3.5°C higher than today (Tarasov et al. 2021; Wetter­
ich et al. 2021).
The sequences of Medieval Climate Anomalies (known
as the Medieval Warm Period and Medieval Climatic 
Optimum) between 900 and 1300 AD and the Little 
Ice Age between 1450 and 1850 AD are also informa-
tive in the interpretative context of paleoclimatolo-
gy, historical climatology, and regional paleoclimate 
modelling. Interpretations of the former rely on sta-
tistical analysis and reconstruction of past climate 
44
Mihael Budja
tropospheric aerosols, solar and volcanic activity, 
and land use changes), and the global climate system 
are well presented in The Palgrave Handbook of Cli­
mate History (see Brönnimann 2018; Oreskes et al. 
2018; Zorita, Wagner 2018; Zorita, Wagner, Schenk 
2018).
 
We have already mentioned that the Little Ice Age 
between 1450 and 1850 was not a uniform cold pe-
riod. Large climatic variations are documented for 
the years 1675–1715 and 1780–1830. The largest are 
embedded between 1697–1708, in a period of ex-
tremely harsh climatic conditions and probably the 
coldest decade in the northern hemisphere during 
the last millennium. Average winter temperatures 
were 3–4°C and spring temperatures were 2°C lower 
than in the 20th century. Palaeoclimatological models 
of summer temperatures and dendrochronological 
data have shown that the summers of 1695, 1698, and 
1699 were among the coldest in the northern hemi-
sphere in the last 600 years. On the other hand, there 
were also extremely hot summers during this period, 
in 1707 and 1710. Long winters and frosts, as well as 
rainy summers and floods, posed many problems for 
agriculture. Snow, which lingered in the Balkans and 
eastern Mediterranean until late spring, made sow-
ing impossible and caused the loss of winter cereals, 
while crops were destroyed by droughts, early hoar-
frost, and autumn snow. Advancing glaciers covered 
several villages and pastures in the Alps. Fodder be-
came scarce and many livestock perished at this time. 
Famines in the British Isles, Scandinavia, western and 
southeastern Europe, and the eastern Mediterranean 
caused several plague epidemics and had a major im-
pact on demographic change (Jones et al. 1998; Brif­
fa et al. 1998; Luterbacher et al. 2001; Slonosky et 
al. 2001; Xoplaki et al. 2001; Mann 2002b.504–509; 
Bradley et al. 2003).
The beginning and end of the Little Ice Age coin-
cide with periods of low solar activity known as the 
Spörer Minimum (1440–1460) and Dalton Minimum 
(1809–1821). A period of great climate variability 
and extremely harsh climatic conditions in between 
coincides with the Maunder Minimum (1675–1715). 
Palaeoclimatologists have linked solar cycles and low 
solar activity to the weakening of the Atlantic Merid-
ional Overturning Circulation (Slonosky et al. 2001; 
Rahmstorf 2002; Steinhilber, Beer 2011; Velasco 
Herrera et al. 2015; Mörner 2015; Zharkova 2020; 
see also Mörner, Tattersall, Solheim 2013; Mörner et 
al. 2013), and altered atmospheric circulation (North 
We mentioned earlier the correlative processes of re-
cent weakening of North Atlantic ocean circulation, 
decreased solar activity, and the hypothesised tran-
sition to a cold period (Thompson, Wallace 2001; 
Rahmstorf 2002; Mör ner 2015; Velasco Herrera et 
al. 2015; Caesar et al. 2018.195). The triad contra-
dicts the claims that “[t]here is no impending little 
ice age” (Ask NASA Climate 2020) and that “[t]here 
were no globally synchronous multidecadal warm 
or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval 
Warm Period or Little Ice Age” (PAGES 2k Consor­
tium 2013.339). However, climate reconstructions 
of the past 2000 years based on palaeoclimate proxy 
data on surface temperatures (tree rings, pollen, cor-
als, lake and marine sediments, ice cores, stalagmites, 
and historical data) at 511 sites in different regions of 
the world show “a clear regional expression of tem­
perature variability on the multidecadal to centen­
nial scale, while a long­term cooling trend before 
the twentieth century is evident globally” (PAGES 2k 
Consortium 2013.344). 
Not to be overlooked is the critical commentary on 
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
(UN) reports on climate trends in the 21st century 
published by a group of interdisciplinary researchers 
in the special volume titled Pattern in Solar Variabil­
ity, their Planetary Origin and Terrestrial Impacts 
in the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics (2013; 
http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/special_issue2.
html).
They wrote that “[o]bviously, we are on our way into 
a new grand solar minimum. This sheds serious 
doubts on the issue of continued, even accelerated 
warming as claimed by the IPCC project” (Mörner 
et al. 2013.206). The journal was discontinued a year 
later, in 2014, by the publisher Copernicus Publicati-
ons for “malpractice in scientific publishing” (https:// 
www.pattern-recognition-in-physics.net/). It is noted 
that the co-editor of the journal was Sid-Ali Ouadfeul 
of the Algerian Petroleum Institute, the articles were 
considered scientifically questionable, and the edi-
tors corrupt. However, we have already entered a pe-
riod of decreased solar activity known as the Modern 
Grand Solar Minimum, which will last from 2020 to 
2053. It is believed to be similar to the Maunder Mi-
nimum associated with cold periods of the Little Ice 
Ages (Mörner 2015; Zharkova 2020).
The politicization of global warming, global warming 
models (including factors such as greenhouse gases, 
45
Archaeology, rapid climate changes in the Holocene, and adaptive strategies
route), famines, ectoparasites that decimated sheep 
and cattle herds, and plague epidemics in animals 
and humans. He characterized these processes as “in­
teractions between nature and society” and called
them “the great transition” (O.c. 1). He introduced
the perception of a global historical trajectory where 
natural processes are the main triggers for demogra-
phic, economic, social, political, and cultural change.
A year later, Geoffrey Parker (2013) also linked cli -
mate events and natural disasters in the 17th cen -
tury, during the Little Ice Age, to global econo mic, 
health, demographic, and political crises. In this 
con text it is also worth mentioning the connection 
between a cooling cycle in the Late Antique Little
Ice Age of 536–660 and the Justinian Plague, the trans -
formation of the Eastern Roman Empire, the migra-
tion of the Pannonian Avars and the Slavic peoples, 
the decline of the Sasanid Empire and the Eastern
Turkic Khaganate, and the political upheavals in Chi-
na (Büntgen et al. 2011; 2016) (Fig. 2).
Concerns about human impact on the recent warm-
ing of the Earth’s atmosphere and the growing knowl-
edge of the frequency, rate, and extent of climate 
changes in the past led to a series of reflections on past
environmental catastrophes and how humans re-
sponded to them. In this context, the catastrophe ap -
proach and the concept of collapse became very pop-
ular as a single-cause interpretive hypothesis, linking
rapid cooling cycles, droughts, and floods to the col-
lapses of earlier hunter-gatherer communities in south-
west Asia, Bronze Age civilizations in the Aegean, east -
ern Mediterranean, and southwestern Asia, the Ak-
kadian Empire in Mesopotamia, the Old Kingdom in 
Egypt, pre-Columbian Maya and Moche civilizations 
in Central and South America, and the Norse Green-
land societies (Arneborg et al. 1999; Cullen et al. 2000;
Gill 2000; deMenocal 2001; Van Buren 2001; Hodell 
et al. 2001; 2005; Williams 2002; Haug et al. 2003; 
Stanley et al. 2003; Dillehay et al. 2004; Fagan 2004; 
Diamond 2005; Rodning 2010; Parker 2013; Brooke 
2014; Campbell 2016; Kaniewski, Van Campo 2017;
Bar­Yosef, Bar­Matthews, Ayalon 2017). Jared Dia-
mond (2005.3,6,20) was the only one of these authors
to point out the complexity of these processes and the
overlooked fact that examples of past civilization col -
lapse (population decline and/or decline in political,
economic, and social complexity over a significant
area over an extended period of time) were not ne ces-
sarily the cases of true ecological collapse, but of col-
lapse caused by unsustainable survival strategies, 
poor management of natural resources, and ecosys-
tem degradation.
Atlantic, Arctic, and Mediterranean Oscillations). 
This relates to the fluctuation of atmospheric pres-
sure and air mass movement between the Icelandic 
low-pressure area (Icelandic cyclone) and the Azores 
and Siberian high-pressure area (Azores anticyclone 
and Siberian anticyclone), which affect the climate 
in Eurasia, the Mediterranean, and the Arctic. Fluc-
tuation indices describe the changes and differences 
in air pressure and intensity, as well as the direction 
of air mass movement in these areas. Positive North 
Atlantic Oscillation index values indicate that air pres-
sure over the Atlantic and western Europe is higher 
than average. Westerly winds are stronger and mov-
ing northward. Temperatures are significantly high-
er and western Europe is wetter, while most of the 
Mediterranean experiences periods of decidedly dry 
weather. With a negative index, the westerly winds 
are weaker and the influence on the climate reverses. 
During the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, air 
pressure is higher than average over the Arctic and 
lower over the North Atlantic. Cold polar air moves 
south across the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa. 
These two phenomena are particularly pronounced 
in the cold part of the year (Marshall et al. 2001; Shin­
dell et al. 2001; Thompson, Wallace 2001; Wanner et 
al. 2001; Dünkeloh, Jacobeit 2003; Toreti et al. 2010; 
Roberts et al. 2012; Tubi, Dayan 2013). 
We can see a similar climatic scenario the late Middle 
Ages. According to Bruce M. S. Campbell (Campbell 
2016), it was embedded in the period 1270–1470 
and had three key episodes. The first, between 1260/ 
70 and 1220, was associated with the Wolf Solar Mi -
nimum and the end of strong solar activity and 
above-average global temperatures. The second, mid-
dle episode occurred between 1340 and 1370 and is 
characterized by greatly reduced solar activity, sig-
nificantly narrower tree rings between 1342 and 
1354, and severe cooling in the northern hemisphere 
with an influx of polar air southward, weakening 
mon soons and drought in South Asia, and stronger
monsoons and floods in Africa. Similar climatic events 
continue in the third episode between 1370 and 1470, 
which partially coincided with the Little Ice Age and
was characterized by high and low solar activity (the 
Chaucerian Maximum and the Spörer Minimum). 
Campbell has linked this triad to significant econom-
ic decline, the Hundred Years’ War in western Europe, 
the collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire, the wars
of conquest of the Ottoman Empire, the end of the Silk
Road (an intercontinental economic, trade, techno lo-
gical, and cultural net work and long-distance travel 
46
Mihael Budja
plexity and centralization, the emergence of new bu-
reaucratic and other forms of power structures, and 
consequently the increased use of economic resourc-
es. The latter relates to the disintegration of central-
ized and socially structured complex societies and 
their regressive reformulation into fragmented and 
disjointed chiefdoms and tribal communities. In both 
cases, the key elements are bifurcations, points of sep-
aration where the system chooses its own trajectory, 
Conceptualization adaptation strategies 
Collapse is the most radical adaptation strategy used 
by past societies (Tainter 2000a.332). Using systems 
theory and catastrophe theory, Colin Renfrew (Ren­
frew 1979a; 1979b) defined it as an allactic type of 
cultural change characterized by two developmental 
trajectories: anastrophe and catastrophe. The former 
is associated with an increase in organizational com-
Fig. 2. Cooling and historical events during the Late Antique Little Ice Age. Reprinted from Büntgen et al. 
2016.  Cooling and societal change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to around 660 AD.  Nature 
Geoscience 9: 234, Fig. 4. https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2652. Reprinted with permission from Springer Na-
ture License. For an explanation of the figure legends a-b, see O.c. 234, Fig. 4. a–c Reconstructed summer 
temperatures from the Russian Altai (a) and the European Alps (b), together with estimated volcanic 
forcing14 (c). Blue lines highlight the coldest decades of the  Late Antique Little Ice Age that range among 
the ten coldest decades of the Common Era (AD). Horizontal bars, shadings and stars refer to major plague 
outbreaks, rising and falling empires, large-scale human migrations, and political turmoil. Black dash ed 
lines refer to the long-term reconstruction mean of the Common Era (AD).
47
Archaeology, rapid climate changes in the Holocene, and adaptive strategies
For Tainter complexity is therefore an economic func-
tion and a fundamental problem-solving tool. Com-
plexity in human social systems correlates to “struc­
ture and behavior, and/or degree of organization 
or constraint”, and the “variety of mechanisms for
organizing these into a coherent, functioning whole”
(Tainter 1988.23; 2006b.92). He defined sustainabil-
ity as “maintaining or fostering the development of 
the systemic contexts that produce the goods, ser­
vices, and amenities that people need or value, at 
an acceptable cost, for as long as they are needed 
or valued” (Allen, Tainter, Hoeckstra 2003.26). Ac-
cording to the economic principles of diminishing 
returns and marginal utility introduced by the neo-
classical school of economics, such problem solving 
can only be successful within a certain period. Grad-
ually, the point is reached where further investment 
in complexity no longer yields an adequate return, 
and higher input leads to lower output. When mar-
ginal utility is reached, each further investment in 
complexity contributes less to the total return than 
the previous investment. After an extended period of 
diminishing returns, problem solving becomes inef-
fective, sustainability becomes unstable, and societies 
become vulnerable. Problem-solving trajectories can 
span decades, generations, or centuries. They can 
lead to three outcomes: collapse, adaptation and re-
covery at a lower level of complexity, or maintenance 
of sustainability by increasing the level of complexity 
and using alternative resources. Sustainable develop-
ment, then, is the ability of a society to maintain the 
continued functioning of its political and social struc-
tures, its hierarchy, and its continued access to eco-
nomic resources (Tainter 2006b.92; 2014.202). As ex-
amples, he cites the collapse of the Akkadian Empire, 
the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Maya civilization 
on the one hand, and the resurgence of the Byzantine 
Empire and colonial Europe on the other.
An interpretative approximation to sustainability is 
resilience, or the ability of a system to adjust its con-
figuration. Timothy F. H. Allen, Joseph A. Tainter, and 
Thomas W. Hoekstra (2003.26) caution against dis-
tinguishing between these two terms, as sustainabil-
ity involves the ability to maintain the continuity of 
social systems and the conditions under which they 
function, whereas resilience is the ability to reconfig-
ure social systems and adapt them to function under 
new circumstances. Resilience, then, is the abandon-
ment of the principles of sustainable functioning. In
contrast, Fikret Berkes et al. (2003.2,6) erase the 
distinction by defining sustainability as a dynamic 
always bounded by the old systemic postulates of pol-
itics, economics, technology, and value. Bifurcations 
also mean points of destabilization, where even small 
internal and/or external triggers (climate change, po-
litical and economic aberrations, war, and migration) 
can produce large but gradual changes. Collapse is 
thus a transformational process that can take centu-
ries, returning to less structured and less connected 
tribal communities. However, Renfrew also predicted 
that in marginal areas some of the earlier social struc-
tures would survive, triggering a process of renewed 
transformation into complex and centralized commu-
nities.
Joseph A. Tainter (1988) also defined the collapse 
of complex prehistoric and historical societies as a 
political process in which the society rapidly loses 
its achieved level of social and political complexity 
within a few decades. This leads either to its demise 
or to a new cycle of development. Similar to Renfrew, 
Tainter also assumed that this process is related to 
the economic effect of marginal return and how so-
cietal elites can facilitate short-term adaptation to 
a changing natural environment through econom-
ic strategies and intensive resource use. However, 
through misguided economic policies and overde-
veloped social structures the elites can also trigger 
collapse (Tainter 2006a). Tainter built on James G. 
Miller’s (1978) Living Systems Theory, according to 
which living systems are organized into interacting 
and interconnected subsystems, their interaction and 
interplay and relationship with the environment. 
The basic premise is that nature is a continuum of 
complex life organized in different patterns that are 
repeated at all levels of the system. However, Tainter 
(2000b; Tainter, Crumley 2007) pointed out an im-
portant difference in this context. In contrast to eco-
logical systems, social systems develop a complexity 
and sustainability that are connected to the environ-
ment through an interface, e.g., the process of prob-
lem solving. Thus, sustainability depends not only on 
the stability of the ecological system, but primarily on 
successful problem-solving processes. Sustainability 
is not the passive maintenance of equilibrium (i.e. sta-
sis) in the sense of fewer and fewer people using few-
er and fewer natural resources, but the achievement 
of rapid development and continuous functioning of 
the systems, organizations, and technologies needed 
to solve problems. This, of course, leads to increased 
complexity and an increased expenditure of labour, 
time, money and energy.
48
Mihael Budja
to sudden, unpredictable, and prolonged events and 
processes that occur outside of these cycles, especial-
ly in the adjustment phase, complete collapse and 
per manent dis ruption of the system continuum is 
possible. Holling (2001.399) associates this with ex-
tended and cataclysmic events.
Panarchy is thus a model for the transformation of hi-
erarchical structures into dynamic adaptive units that 
respond to even small perturbations in the transition 
from the growth phase to the Ω-Phase of collapse and 
transformation, and in the transition to the α-Phase 
of rapid growth. Cross-scale dynamics and interac-
tions are emphasized, where revolt is followed by 
creative destruction and leads to a memory process. 
This leads to transformation and renewal. Memory 
preserves both history and experience about how the 
system works, providing “context and sources for 
renewal, recombination, innovation, novelty, and 
self­organization following disturbance” (Folke 
2006.259). In other words, social (collective) long-
term memory preserves information about under-
process and the ability of societies to adapt to climate 
and environmental changes. At the same time, they 
understand sustainability as “maintaining the ca­
pacity of ecological systems to support social and 
economic systems”. They link resilience to the abili ty 
to adapt to changes within cycles of growth and re-
newal.
We have mentioned elsewhere (Budja 2015) that 
Craw ford S. Holling introduced the concept of resil-
ience to ecology in the early 1980s. Later it was as-
sociated with the adaptive cycle and the hierarchy 
of ecological and social systems (Holling 1986). He 
called it panarchy1 and embedded it in the context of 
adaptive change theory (Holling, Gunderson, Lud­
wig 2002.21–22). For Holling and Lance H. Gunder-
son, panarchy is “a representation of a hierarchy as 
a nested set of adaptive cycles. The functioning of 
these cycles and the communication between them 
determines the sustainability of a system” (Holling 
2001.396; Gunderson, Holling 2002; Gunderson et 
al. 2002.14–16). In other words, we are talking about
a hierarchical structure in which natural and social 
systems are interconnected in a continuum of adap-
tive cycles of growth, accumulation, restructuring, and 
renewal that does not have a “rigid, predetermined 
path and trajectory” at the level of households, vil-
lages, or regions (Holling, Gunderson 2002.51; see 
also Gunderson et al. 1995; Folke et al. 1998).
Panarchy in this context objectifies a cycle with four
phases of processes and events (Fig. 3). The first, the
r-Phase, is characterized by exploitation, rapid migra -
tion to uninhabited or sparsely populated areas, ra-
pid population growth, new technologies, and survi-
val strategies. The second, the K-Phase, is cha rac te ri-
zed by a period of conservation or stagnation, mis-
management, and in creasing rigidity. The third, the 
Ω-Phase is a period of release or creative destruction 
and chaotic problem solving, economic disincenti ves,
collapse, and resettlement. The fourth and final phase,
the α-Phase, is a period of reorganization and renew-
al (Gunderson, Holling 2002; Berkes et al. 2003; 
Walker, Salt 2006.163; Folke 2006; Scheffer 2009; 
Aimers, Iannone 2014). It should be noted that due 
1 The term Panarchy was coined from the words ‘pan’ and ‘hierarchy’, illustrating the correlation between change and
permanence, the predictable and the unpredictable. Gunderson and Holling (2002.5) bring together the name of the 
Greek god Pan, representing change and unpredictability, and the word hierarchy, signifying structures that maintain 
system integrity and allow for adaptive evolution. It is worth pointing out that the term panarchy has been used in 
philosophy since as early as 1591. It was introduced by Franciscus Patricius in his work Nova de universis philosophia, 
which comprises four parts: Panaugia, Panarchia, Pampsychia, and Pancosmia. As part of the systems theory, it stands 
in contrast to hierarchy. See also Sundstrom and Allen (2019).
Fig. 3. Holling’s continuum of adaptive cycles (Hol-
ling 2001.394, Fig. 4). Four ecosystem and econom-
ic functions (r, K, Ω, α) and the cycle of events are 
shown. The Y-axis denotes the potential for resource 
accumulation and the X-axis denotes the de gree of 
linkage between the variables. The x marks the exit 
from the cycle and indicates the transition to a less 
productive and less organized system. Short, close-
ly spaced arrows indicate a slowly changing situa-
tion; a long dotted arrow indicates a rapidly chang-
ing situation.
49
Archaeology, rapid climate changes in the Holocene, and adaptive strategies
agrarian-urban societies. However, the latter become 
vulnerable again in overpopulated regions and when 
resource areas are overexploited. In the former, the 
collapse of the entire cultural-demographic system is 
the only response to climatic events. It is in the latter 
that the development of adaptive practices appeared, 
the beginning of which is associated with the onset of 
the agricultural revolution at the end of the 18th cen-
tury (Messerli et al. 2000). 
In the context of environment-culture interactions, 
Paul Coombes and Keith Barber (2005) present four 
different responses of past societies to climate and 
environmental change. The first is the collapse of set-
tlements and abandonment of marginal lands due to 
subsistence degradation, causing local populations to 
fall below minimum sustainable levels. In the second, 
there is a partial decline of settlements in marginal ar-
eas because the subsistence base deteriorates, so that 
the local population remains above the maximum sus-
tainable level. In the third scenario, environmental 
changes lead to a sudden change in modes of agricul-
tural production, accompanied by advances in techno-
logical and socioeconomic complexity. The scenario 
is based on the model of Ester Boserup (1965; 1988) 
in which demographic growth and limited economic 
resources (intensive use and/or loss of subsistence re-
sources due to climatic anomalies) forced past societ-
ies to innovate and reform their production methods. 
The fourth response predicts the general collapse of 
social structures in both core and peripheral regions. 
It is based on the cascading failure of past complex 
social systems, using the key concepts of fractals and 
self-organized criticality from theoretical physics. It 
involves a simple, repeating pattern of critical events 
in the natural environment, politics, economics, and 
social relations (Brunk 2002). Any of these events 
can cause the gradual decline of a social system. For 
this reason, Coombes and Barber (2005.309) believe 
that the general collapse of a self-organizing system 
can be caused by any critical event, but they agree 
that the collapse of the Mesopotamian and Central 
American civilizations was the result of rapid climate 
change and associated global cooling and drought.
There has been much discussion about the definitions 
and relationships among the concepts of vulnerabili-
ty, adaptation, and resilience, and it has been pointed 
out that the third has often been defined ambiguous-
ly or flexibly and cannot be related to the former two 
(Brand, Jax 2007; Haldon, Rosen 2018). The inter-
pretative context for all three remains dominated by 
standing the dynamics of past environmental change 
and also about experiences related to rapid climate 
change and subsequent adaptations (McIntosh et al. 
2000.24). Panarchy is simultaneously creative and 
con servative, striking a dynamic balance between ra -
pid changes and traditions on the one hand, and dis -
turbances and interactive cross-scale dynamics on the 
other. The system simultaneously conserves and evol-
ves (Holling 2001). Resilience thus means the ability 
to continually reformulate existing social structures, 
hierarchies, and economic practices and to restart the 
cycle again and again – that is, to preserve the capac-
ity for sustainable development (Smit, Wandel 2006; 
Nicoll, Zerboni 2020; for an overview and critique of 
these concepts see Soens 2020).
John Haldon and Arlene Rosen (2018) developed a 
new approach to Formal Resilience Theory (i.e. The-
ory of Adaptive Change) using examples from late 
antiquity and the early Middle Ages. The basis of the 
theory remains the adaptive cycle in which the Social-
Ecological System functions in several stages that 
range from “increasing complexity, interconnected­
ness, and conservatism (growth or r­phase)” to the
stage where “networks are over­connected (stabili­
ty, K­Phase), limiting the system’s ability to respond 
effectively to exogenous or endogenous stress points
of stress”. This is followed by the Ω-Phase (ca ta stro -
phic shift), a release that “opens the system to many
possible responses, new and/or traditional”. The Ω-
Phase quickly transitions to the α-Phase, which is
“highly resilient and loosely structured, resulting 
in reorganization of the system and leaning to a 
new equilibrium with different key characteristics 
from those that previously dominant” (Haldon, Ro ­
sen 2018.277). Catastrophic system-wide change oc-
curs only when most of the various cycles of adapta-
tion fail.
Historical geography and palaeoecology have also 
placed collapse into historical trajectories of vulnera-
bility and environment-culture interaction scenarios. 
These maintain the supposition that the collapse of 
past civilizations is the direct consequence of climate 
change, referring to different economic development 
and demographic models based on the evolution-
ary paradigm of the gradual, continual and unilin-
ear development of past societies. At the beginning 
of the vulnerability trajectory, they embedded the 
extremely vulnerable Mesolithic hunter-gatherers 
and Neolithic farmers, followed by less vulnerable 
complex and centralized and then highly productive 
50
Mihael Budja
systems. The study includes a human behavioural ecol-
ogy and a cultural niche construction (Fitzhugh et al. 
2019). Human ecodynamics is defined as “an umbrel­
la term to describe humans and their en vironments 
as made up of landscapes and seascapes, and it in­
volves collaboration between archaeologists … and 
researchers from other hu man, social, and natural 
sciences” (Holm 2016.307). It is not an interpretive 
model, although the authors and the editors of Hu­
man Ecodynamics in the North Atlantic: A Collabo­
rative Model of Humans and Nature through Space 
and Time (Harrison, Maher 2014.3–4) ambitiously 
assign it the role of a new paradigm that, through 
an interdisciplinary research approach, enables us 
to understand past human-environment interac-
tions and formulate predictions about how humans 
will respond to climate change, which could lead to 
various forms of adaptation and growth, but also to 
collapse. However, the approach can be characterized 
as an interdisciplinary study of the coevolution of 
natural and socioeconomic systems in different en-
vironments over time, with archaeology playing the 
central role in understanding the relationships be-
tween people and their environment and in identify-
ing problems related to the sustainable development 
of modern societies (Van der Leeuw, Redman 2002; 
Degroot et al. 2021). Most important in this context is 
the collection, comparison, and correlation of palae-
oclimate proxy data from archaeological records on 
local and regional levels (Kirch 2005; Fitzhugh et al. 
2019.1085–1086; Sandweiss 2017). 
It is also worth mentioning the attempt to define an 
archaeological event in the context of past climate 
changes and its importance in predicting an uncer-
tain future. Relying on the Badiou’s, Žižek’s, and 
Deleuze’s philosophical conceptual reflections and 
seven interpretive postulates, Lull et al. (2015.30) la-
belled the event as a concept that should be avoided 
in archaeology and, in particular, should not be in-
cluded in the prediction of future events because “it is 
not necessary to forecast an uncertain future, since 
the future of past events is also past to us”.
Finally, let us present the definitions of resilience and 
adaptation given by the IPCC, which should be gen-
erally accepted in interdisciplinary research. Here, 
resilience is defined as “[t]he capacity of social, eco­
nomic and environmental systems to cope with a 
hazardous event or trend or disturbance, respond­
ing or reorganizing in ways that maintain their es­
sential function, identity and structure while also 
collapse and disaster (Gallopín 2006; Endfield 2012; 
2014; Van Bavel et al. 2020.2–42).
Recent attempts to apply panarchy and adaptive cycles 
in archaeology have appeared in three publications. 
The first, Resilience and the Cultural Landscape 
(Plieninger, Bieling 2012), is a com pi la tion of studies 
on cultural landscapes shaped by human-nature inter-
action. The second, Adaptive Cycles in Archaeology 
(Bradtmöller, Riel­Salvatore, Grimm 2017), focuses 
on prehistoric archaeology, which “provides a wide 
spectrum of examples from which we can learn 
about sustainable and resilient behaviours of given 
groups as well as about the successful transforma­
tions of human systems that managed to maintain 
their integrity in the face of challenging ecological 
fluctuations and social turning points” (Grimm,
Riel­Sal va to re, Bradtmöller 2017.1). The editors warn
of the problems in correlating cultural and climate 
sequences on the one hand, and the definition of 
complexity on the other. Also problematic is the appli-
cation of two of Holling’s (2001) key parameters that 
allow the system to change in adaptive cycles, namely 
internal connectedness and potential. In archaeo-
logical interpretations, these are transformed into 
complexity within prehistoric mental and socio-eco-
logical systems. A later work proposed replacing the 
two parameters with complexity proxies: subsistence, 
demographic trends, social organization, and techno- 
logical development/innovation (Bradtmöller, Grimm,
Riel­Salvatore 2017.5–7). The third publication, Ar ­
chaeology, Climate, and Global Change, a special is-
sue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America (117/15, 
2020; http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m= 
25371&i=657377&p=1&ver=html5), contains five ar -
ticles on adaptation strategies related to climate change
in the past on a global level. The role of archaeology 
is discussed in the context of interdisciplinary studies 
of past, present, and future climate changes and re-
lated ecological challenges (Rick, Sandweiss 2020). 
Finally, it is worth noting a number of articles that use 
millennia of prehistoric and historic regional cultural 
trajectories and cli mate dynamics to critically consid-
er the validity and usefulness of Formal Resilience 
Theory and pro vide a new approach to the concept of
adaptive cycles (Allcock 2017; Haldon, Rosen 2018; 
Izdebski, Mordechai, White 2018; Xoplaki et al. 2018).
We have to mention resilience and the associated 
adaptive cycle in the context of human ecodynamics, 
i.e. the study of long-term change in socioecological 
51
Archaeology, rapid climate changes in the Holocene, and adaptive strategies
Of particular interest is on the other hand the rela-
tionship between the culture cycle and the theory of 
gene-culture coevolution and dual inheritance trans-
mission (Cavalli­Sforza, Feldman 1981; Boyd, Rich­
erson 1985), which is based on Darwin’s concept of
evolution and contrasts with Binford’s (Binford 1972. 
431) concept of culture as an extrasomatic adaptation 
to the environment, and thus also with Spencer’s con-
cept of evolution (Budja in preparation).
In prehistoric archaeology and palaeoclimatology, 
more attention has been paid to the correlative pro-
cesses of Neolithisation and the sudden cool ing events 
9.2 ka and 8.2 ka, and the related pala eoclimatic ar-
chives in the eastern Mediterranean, western Asia 
Minor, southern Balkan Peninsula and Apennine 
Peninsula (Magny et al. 2003; 2013; Rohling, Pälike 
2005; Rohling et al. 2009; Pross et al. 2009; Dormoy 
et al. 2009; Peyron et al. 2011; Tubi, Dayan 2013; 
Magny, Combourieu­Nebout 2013; Francke et al. 
2013; Siani et al. 2013). The 8.2 ka event is radiocar-
bon dated in the Greenland ice core between 8300 
+10/–40 and 8140 +50/–10 BP (Rasmussen et al. 
2014). In explaining the correlation between the 8.2 
ka climate event and the appearance of the Neolithic 
in Asia Minor and Europe, two scenarios have been 
proposed. The first assumes that rapid cooling cycles 
and droughts caused cultural, economic, and demo-
graphic collapse, the abandonment of settlements 
in the Levant, southwestern Anatolia (Catalhüyük), 
and Cyprus, and the migration of Neolithic farmers to 
southeastern Europe (Clare et al. 2008; Weninger et 
al. 2009; 2014; Özdoğan 2014; see also Budja 2007). 
In the second, settlement abandonment and interrup-
tion do not occur as frequently, and are documented 
in only a few Neolithic settlements (four out of 83). 
It is assumed that Early Neolithic farmers developed 
new social and adaptive strategies and that there 
was no migration to distant areas (Flohr et al. 2016). 
Both scenarios are based on stratified Neolithic set-
tlements and associated radiocarbon dates, as well as 
on the relevant palaeoclimate archives. The first sce-
nario includes 42 settlements and 735 radiocarbon 
dates (Weninger et al. 2014), and the second includes 
83 settlements and 3397 radiocarbon dates (Flohr 
et al. 2016). Parallel studies focused on regional pre-
cipitation regimes during the otherwise dry and cold 
period of the 8.2 ka event and the presumed coloniza-
tion of Europe in the Early Neolithic (Gauthier 2016), 
as well as palaeohydrological and sedimentological 
transformations (erosion) of settlement deposits and 
stratigraphic superpositions directly linked to the 
maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning 
and transformation”, and adaptation is the human 
“process of adjustment to actual or expected climate 
and its effects, in order to moderate harm or exploit 
beneficial opportunities” (Matthews 2018.1812). In -
terestingly, similar definitions of resilience as a com-
munity’s ability to withstand and recover from stress-
es, and the postulate that the resilience of societies 
and their ecosystems plays a key role in ensuring our
continued development in the future, appeared de-
cades ago in an archaeological study of Aegean pre-
history (Weiberg 2012.150). The concepts of panar-
chy, adaptive cycles, and resilience are presented in 
this study as a substitutes for systems theory, and as a 
conceptual tool to bridge the gap between processual 
and post-processual archaeology.
Rapid climate changes, prehistoric cultures and 
the collapses or adaptations 
Little thought has been given to equating the adaptive 
cycle with the cultural cycle and introducing the lat-
ter into archaeology. Andreas Zimmermann (2012) 
introduced the cultural cycle as a proxy for external 
factors (climate change) associated with the mobility 
of agrarian, pre-state societies. He placed it in the con-
text of cultural evolution and linked it to the concepts 
of developmental stages, cultural transformations, 
and Childe’s (1936) revolutionary trajectory of civili-
zation, known as the Neolithic-Urban-Industrial Revo-
lutions. For central Europe, therefore, cultural cycles 
and epochs are assumed to overlap with a four-stage 
demographic model with the population growth from 
1 person per 100km2 in Mesolithic hunter-gatherer so-
cieties to 0.6 to 1.8 persons per 1km2 in the Neolithic, 
Bronze Age, and Iron Age to 24 to 25 in the Roman pe-
riod, after the Migration Period and before the Indus-
trial Revolution, and to 50 persons after the Industrial 
Revolution (Zimmermann 2012.251, Fig. 1; see also 
Widlok et al. 2012). The Neolithic Pfyn and the Linear 
Pottery cultures contributed a few years later to the 
description of the cultural cycle as a succession of four 
panarchic phases. Demographic trends, which can be 
deduced from the number of coexisting settlements, 
houses and wooden palisades, served as a variable to 
delimit and confine the phases. They were correlated 
with rapid climate fluctuations, i.e. the IRD 5b event 
(Gronenborn 2012; Gronenborn et al. 2014) that is 
well documented in palaeoclimate archives but con-
sidered insignificant (Peters, Zimmermann 2017).
52
Mihael Budja
with population declines and increased risk of crop 
failure, marking upheavals such as the dissolution of 
Late Neolithic societies and the emergence  of a strati-
fied society with great social inequality.
Bernhard Weninger et al. (2009.48–49; see also 
Jung, Weninger 2015) linked Mayewski’s periods of 
rapid climate change in 6000–5200 and 3000–2930 
BP with the collapse of Copper and Bronze Age cul-
tures (abandonment of settlement VIIb9 at Troy) in 
southeastern Europe and parts of Anatolia. In Meso-
potamia, the periods are associated with the absence 
of seasonal monsoons, droughts, and cooling cycles. 
The first of these periods is thought to have caused the 
collapse of the Uruk culture in Mesopotamia and, two 
centuries later, the collapse of the Jemdet Nasr culture 
(Brooks 2006; 2011; 2013). In the central Sahara, the 
collapse of livestock and transhumance is noticeable, 
and settlement patterns disintegrated, as the number 
of settlements found above 23° latitude decreases sig-
nificantly, and they are only in oases (Vernet, Faure 
2000; di Lernia 2002; Brooks 2011; di Lernia et al. 
2020). In central China, along the Yellow River, and 
also in Inner Mongolia, the above anomalies have 
been associated with a series of rapid and severe 
cooling cycles, changes in the South Asian monsoon 
regime, and the collapse of the agriculture and live-
stock cultures Liangzhu, Shijiahe, Shangdong-Long-
shan, and Laohushan (Zhang et al. 2000; Wu, Liu 
2004; Xiao et al. 2004). In contrast, the collapse of 
Bronze Age culture occurred in radiocarbon-dated 
Ireland after rapid climate change had ended, and is 
associated with economic and social disintegration 
caused by the transition to a new technology (iron 
metallurgy) and the formation of new economic prac-
tices and social networks (Armit et al. 2014). 
At the theoretical level, there have been some attempts 
to conceptualize an archaeology of climate change 
based on the premise that societies have faced more 
than climate and environmental change in the past, 
and therefore this cannot be the only explanation for 
their collapse. Regional environmental variability 
and the economic, social, and emotional responses 
of past societies were emphasized. These can be seen 
in changing subsistence strategies and the formation 
of sacred sites and ritual landscapes (Van de Noort 
2011a; 2011b). In contrast, Toby Pillatt (2012.31) 
pro posed moving away from climate and society. His 
proposed key terms are weather, landscape, and so-
cial memory. He refers to weather as “the material 
condition of landscape” and landscape as “the mate­
process of Neolithisation in the eastern Mediterra-
nean (Berger et al. 2016).
Bond’s 5.9 IRD event (e.g., Gronenborn’s IRD 5b event)
and Mayewski’s 6000–5200 cal yr BP period of rapid 
climate change are also associated, on the one hand, 
with the cultural, economic, and demographic col-
lapse of the first agricultural communities (Early Neo-
lithic Linear Pottery culture) in central and western 
Europe (Shennan, Edinborough 2007). On the oth-
er hand, the application of the theory of adaptation, 
resilience, and adaptive cycles (Gronenborn et al.
2014; 2017; Peters, Zimmermann 2017) has shown 
that rapid climate change did not have an immediate 
and catastrophic effect, but was only one of seve ral 
destabilizing factors. For example, periods of drought
and changing precipitation regimes coincide with po-
pulation declines and changing settlement patterns 
(smaller settlements and fewer houses). The periods
with more precipitation coincide with population 
growth. The periods with the strongest climatic fluc -
tuations (5140/30 and 5090/80 den BC), when droughts
alternate with periods of mostly heavy rainfall and 
periods of unusually high temperatures (5106/05 
den BC), are associated with the construction of en-
closures (i.e. village fortifications), social unrest, and 
violence in the eastern regions of the Linear Pot tery
culture cultures. In the western regions, the wetter pe-
riods after 5098 den BC also coincide with the great-
est population growth. Cultural decline and popula-
tion collapse follow the end of climatic fluctuations, 
the IRD 5b event (Gronenborn et al. 2014; 2017; Pe­
ters, Zimmermann 2017). In the southern Carpathi-
an Basin, the event was identified as the 7.1 ka BP rap-
id climate change and associated with the collapse of 
the Starèevo culture, the migration of the Linear Pot -
tery and Vinèa cultures, and the emergence and aban-
donment of the tell sites (Botiæ 2021).
The most recent approach is based on the assumption
that more people = more sites = more 14C dates, and
on the statistical correlations between population
fluctuations and  palaeoclimate  records derived from
high-resolution speleothems in Central Europe from 
the Late Neolithic to the beginning of the Middle 
Bronze Age (5500–3500 cal BP) (Großmann et al. 
2023). The authors suggest that they found statisti-
cal correlations between population fluctuations and 
climate. Warm and humid periods, which incre ase 
subsistence yields and reduce the risk of crop fai lure, 
are associated with increases in population. Colder 
and drier climates, on the other hand, are associated 
53
Archaeology, rapid climate changes in the Holocene, and adaptive strategies
rial manifestation of the relation between humans 
and the environment” (O.c. 42). Social memory is 
directly related to resilience theory, which serves as 
a conceptual and symbolic foundation that allows for 
the transmission of environmental behaviours from 
one generation to the next. Past human actions have 
thus always depended on how the environment was 
Fig. 4. The years 1675–1715 and 1780–1830 with crop failures, famines and plagues, and weather/climate 
events. Italics indicate the historical events and the extreme weather/climate events that the authors 
associate with the strong Siberian anticyclone and the westward Arctic air flow in winter and spring in 
the Mediterranean region. Reprinted from Xoplaki E., Maheras P. , and  Luterbacher J. 2001. Variability of 
Climate in Meridional Balkans During the Periods 1675–1715 and 1780–1830 and Its Impact on Human Life. 
Climatic Change 48: 597, Tab. II. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005616424463. Reprinted with permission 
from Sprin ger Nature License.
Spring 1676 Balkans: severe cold
Winter 1679/80–April 1680 Ionian Sea: continuous rainfall, litanies
South Aegean: severe cold, snowfalls
Winter-spring 1682 West Greece: drought, lack of grain, famine
Winter 1682/83 Greece: severe cold, frost, death of animals, destruction of crops, high prices, famine
Winter 1684/85 Ionian Sea: continuous rainfall, floods, destruction of buildings, high prices
Winter 1686/87 Greece: harsh cold, freezing of lake of Ioannina for 3 months, famine
1690 Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina: high prices, famine
Athens: long dry period
1691 Crete: harsh cold, drought, grain did not grow
1691–1694 Crete: bad harvest, famine, high prices olive-oil
Autumn 1695–winter 1696 Aegean Sea: drought, no harvest, church litanies
1699/1700 Greece: very cold and long-lasting snow cover, snow cover over the Cretan mountains 
the whole 1700; bad harvest
Thessaly: death of animals
Winter 1708/09 Serbia: severe cold, famine, plague, death of people
1710 Former Yugoslavia: bad harvest, famine
Autumn 1710–winter 1711 Ionian Sea: warm and dry, drying up of wells Ioannina; Arta: locusts
November 1712–summer 1714 Greece: drought, bad harvest, high prices, famine
Thessaloniki: plague
Winter 1713/14 North Greece: drought, severe cold, bad grain harvest
Serbia: severe cold, death of people
1715 Greece: great famine
1780 West-north Greece: heavy rainfalls, flooding, destruction of buildings (mostly mud 
constructions), high prices
Crete: famine, plague
Winter 1782 Greece: harsh cold, freezing of lake Karla, destruction of olive-trees, fruit trees, death 
of animals
Bosnia-Herzegovina: plague, death of people
Winter 1789/90 Serbia: excessive snow cover, death of people and animals
Winter-spring 1805 North Greece: heavy rainfall, death of cattle, deficient harvest
Winter 1807/08 North-central Greece: severe cold, freezing of lake Kastoria
Winter 1828/29 Greece: severe cold, long-deep snow cover, freezing of lake Kastoria, destruction of 
trees, death of animals
perceived, which then became collective knowledge 
based on past experiences and stored in collective 
memory.
Finally, the modern archaeological-environmental 
approach recognises archaeology and cultural heri-
tage not only as a source of information about man’s 
54
Mihael Budja
they point out that their approach is key to explaining 
events in the past and predicting future events.
In place of a conclusion 
 The historical record of rapid climate anomalies and 
their consequences in the Balkans and eastern Med-
iterranean during the Little Ice Age in the 17th, 18th, 
and 19th centuries, which coincided with periods of 
lower sunspot activity (Maunder Minimum), North 
Atlantic ocean circulation, altered atmospheric cir-
culation and strong volcanic eruptions, is instruc-
tive. Eleni Xoplaki et al. (2001) presented sequences 
of extreme events in different regions described as 
harsh and long winters and long periods of hot and 
dry and/or cold and wet periods with floods, during 
which crops did not grow; fields, orchards, pastures 
and meadows were destroyed; and domestic animals 
died. Food shortages, famines, plague epidemics, 
population decline and even depopulation of some 
regions were the result (Fig. 4). On the one hand, we 
can see these events as a sequence that occurred sev-
eral times in the past and that are usually noted in ar-
chaeological records as interruptions in 14C sequenc-
es and population and cultural trends. On the other 
hand, it allows us to verify the theoretical concepts of 
panarchy, and the cycles of adaptation and resilience 
that are thought to have been developed by pre-indus-
trial societies.
environment in the past, but also as a “guide for ex­
panding the capacity of modern global climate re­
sponses to address the complexity of man’s social 
environment today” (Rockman, Hritz 2020.8296). 
In this context, archaeology is not the only discipline 
that Dagomar Degroot et al. (2021) embed in the in-
terdisciplinary package of science they call the histo-
ry of climate and society, it also includes geography, 
history, and palaeoclimatology. The authors argued 
that interpretations of past climate are often based 
on fragmented and disconnected historical records, 
data on past climate fluctuations (i.e. proxy data in 
palaeoclimate archives), and estimates based on dif-
ferent statistical models that may differ substantially 
with respect to different time and space scales on a 
global scale. This can lead to a misperception of the 
causal mechanisms, magnitude, timing, and evolu-
tion of past climate changes. The authors rejected cat-
astrophic scenarios but acknowledged that climate 
changes have had disastrous impacts on societies in 
the past (see also Degroot 2018). Using the concept 
of resilience and archaeological and historical exam-
ples from the Late Antique Little Ice Age and Mediae-
val Little Ice Age, the authors present five pathways 
(strategies) of resilience that allowed societies in 
different regions to survive and thrive. These are: (i) 
the exploitation of new opportunities, (ii) resilient 
energy systems, (iii) trade and empire resources, (iv) 
political and institutional adaptations, and (v) migra-
tion and transformation (see also Degroot et al. 2021.
Supplementary Information, Fig. 2). The similarities 
with the panarchy model are of course not coinciden-
tal, although the authors do not mention it. However, 
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