Abstract
Emerging societal complexity is closely linked to water systems within archaeology. When studying water-based societies, climate is usually conceptualized as an external force. Such an perspective risks missing how societal agents change both meaning and effects of climatic changes. This chapter proposes to develop an model-approach based on continuous interactions between humans and landscapes. The examples come from three case studies outside the Roman world: the Hohokam (500–1500 AD, current Arizona), the Zerqa Triangle, Jordan, during the Late Bronze Age (c. 1300–1100 BC), and the Maya city of Tikal (250 AD–900 AD, current Guatemala). The ideas that can be developed through these cases are compared to conceptualizations from recent publications discussing modelling of/in the Roman world. In general, this chapter argues that larger-scale and longer-term correlations have to be explained in terms of causalities between short-term agencies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The title of this text is a modification of an African proverb “Who follows the elephant will have no problems”.
Bibliography
Abbott, D., ed. 2003. Centuries of decline during the Hohokam classic period at Pueblo Grande. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Braswell, G.E., J.D. Gunn, M. del Rosario Dominguez Carrasco, et al. 2004. Defining the terminal classic at Calakmul, Campeche. In The terminal classic in the Maya lowlands: Collapse, transition, and transformation, ed. A.A. Demarest, P.M. Rice, and D.S. Rice. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. 162–194.
Brughmans, T., J.W. Hanson, M.J. Mandich, et al. 2019. Formal modelling approaches to complexity science in Roman studies: A manifesto. Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal 2: 1–19.
Brughmans, T., and J. Poblome. 2017. The case for computational modelling of the Roman economy: A reply to Van Oyen. Antiquity 91: 1364–1366.
Brughmans, T., and J. Poblome. 2016a. MERCURY: An agent-based model of tableware trade in the Roman East. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 19: 3.
Brughmans, T., and J. Poblome. 2016b. Roman bazaar or market economy? Explaining tableware distributions through computational modelling. Antiquity 90: 393–408.
Costanza, R., L.J. Graumlich, and W. Steffen, eds. 2011. Sustainability or collapse? An integrated history and future of people on earth. MIT Press, Cambridge.
Crabtree, S.A., B. Davies, I. Romanowska, and K. Harris. 2019. Outreach in archaeology with agent-based modeling. Advances in Archaeological Practice 7: 194–202.
Davies, B., I. Romanowska, K. Harris, and S.A. Crabtree. 2019. Combining geographic information systems and agent-based models in archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Practice 7: 185–193.
Dermody, B.J., R.P.H. van Beek, E. Meeks, et al. 2014. A virtual water network of the Roman world. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 18: 5025–5040.
Dermody, B.J., H.J. de Boer, M.F.P. Bierkens, et al. 2012. A seesaw in Mediterranean precipitation during the Roman Period linked to millennial-scale changes in the North Atlantic. Climate of the Past 8: 637–651.
Ertsen, M.W. 2018. Quoting Gandhi, or how to study ancient irrigation when the future depended on what one did today. In Water societies and technologies from the past and present, ed. Yijie Zhuang and M. Altaweel, UCL Press, London. 289–230.
Ertsen, M.W. 2016. Friendship is a slow ripening fruit: An Agency perspective on water, values, and infrastructure. World Archaeology 48: 500–516.
Ertsen, M.W. 2016. A matter of relationships: Actor-networks of colonial rule in the Gezira irrigation system, Sudan. Water Alternatives 9: 203–221.
Ertsen, M.W., and K. Wouters. 2018. The drop that makes a vase overflow: Understanding Maya society through daily water management. WIREs Water 5: e1281.
Ertsen, M.W., J.T. Murphy, L.E. Purdue, and T. Zhu. 2014. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step: Human agency, hydrological processes and time in socio-hydrology. Hydrology and Earth Systems Sciences 18: 1369–1382.
French, K.D., and C.J. Duffy. 2014. Understanding ancient Maya water resources and the implications for a more sustainable future. WIREs Water 1: 305–313.
French, K.D., C.J. Duffy, and G. Bhatt. 2013. The urban hydrology and hydraulic engineering at the classic Maya sit of Palenque. Water History 5: 43–69.
Gilgen, A., S. Wilkenskjeld, J.O. Kaplan, et al. 2019. Effects of land use and anthropogenic aerosol emissions in the Roman Empire. Climate of the Past 15: 1885–1911.
Haldon, J., and A. Rosen. 2018. Society and environment in the Eastern Mediterranean ca. 300–1800 CE. Problems of resilience, adaptation and transformation. Human Ecology 46: 275–290.
Kaptijn, E. 2015. Irrigation and human niche construction: An example of socio-spatial organisation in the Zerqa Triangle, Jordan. Water History 7: 441–454.
Kaptijn, E., and M.W. Ertsen. 2019. All sunshine makes a desert: Building interdisciplinary understanding of survival strategies of ancient communities in the Arid Zerqa Triangle, Jordan Valley. Journal of Arid Environments 163: 114–126.
Kaptijn, E., Z. Kafafi, and G. van der Kooij. 2011. Preliminary results of the Deir ‘Alla regional project: Excavations of a late Chalcolithic settlement, Iron Age burials and some Early Bronze Age I remains. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 55: 147–158.
Kendal, J., J.J. Tehrani, and J. Odling-Smee. 2011. Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366: 785–792.
Kuil, L., G. Carr, A. Viglione, et al. 2016. Conceptualizing socio-hydrological drought processes: The case of the Maya collapse. Water Resources Research 52: 6222–6242.
Latour, B. 1991. Technology is society made durable. In A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology and domination, ed. J. Law, Routledge, London. 103–132.
Lentz, D.L., N.P. Dunning, and V.L. Scarborough. 2015. Tikal: Paleoecology of an ancient Maya city. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
McAnany, P.A., and N. Yoffee, eds. 2010. Questioning collapse: Human resilience, ecological vulnerability, and the aftermath of empire. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Murphy, J.T. 2012. Exploring complexity with the Hohokam water management simulation: A middle way for archaeological modeling. Ecological Modelling 241: 15–29.
Romanowska, I., S.A. Crabtree, B. Davies, and K. Harris. 2019. Agent-based modeling for archaeologists. Advances in Archaeological Practice 7: 178–184.
Scarborough, V.L. 2003. The flow of power: Ancient water systems and landscape. SAR Press, Santa Fe.
Scarborough, V.L., and L. Lucero. 2010. The non-hierarchical development of complexity in the semitropics: Water and cooperation. Water History 2: 185–205.
Schwartz, G.M., and J.J. Nichols. 2006. After collapse: The regeneration of complex societies. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Scott-Phillips, T.C., K.N. Laland, and D.M. Shuker. 2014. The niche construction perspective: A critical appraisal. Evolution 68: 1231–1243.
Tubb, J.N. 1998. The Canaanites. Peoples of the Past 2. Arthur H Clarck Co, London.
Van der Steen, E.J. 2004. Tribes and territories in transition: The central east Jordan Valley in the Late Bronze age and Early Iron Age: A study of the sources. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, Leuven.
Van Oyen, A. 2017. Agents and commodities: A response to Brughmans and Poblome (2016) on modelling the Roman economy. Antiquity 91: 1356–1363.
Zhu, T., M.W. Ertsen, and N.C. van de Giesen. 2015. Long term effects of climate on human adaptation in the middle Gila River Valley, Arizona. America Water History 7: 511–531.
Zhu, T., K.C. Woodson, and M.W. Ertsen. 2018. Reconstructing ancient Hohokam irrigation systems in the Middle Gila River Valley, Arizona, United States of America. Human Ecology 46: 735–746.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ertsen, M. (2021). Who Follows the Elephant Will Have Problems: Thought on Modelling Roman Responses to Climate (Changes). In: Erdkamp, P., Manning, J.G., Verboven, K. (eds) Climate Change and Ancient Societies in Europe and the Near East. Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81103-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81103-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-81102-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-81103-7
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)