The 4.2 ka BP Event in the Mediterranean region: an overview

The Mediterranean region and the Levant have returned some of the clearest evidence of a climatically dry period occurring around 4200 years ago. However, some regional evidence is controversial and contradictory, and issues remain regarding timing, progression, and regional articulation of this event. In this paper, we review the evidence from selected proxies (sea-surface temperature, precipitation, and temperature reconstructed from pollen, δ18O on speleothems, and δ18O on lacustrine carbonate) over the Mediterranean Basin to infer possible regional climate patterns during the interval between 4.3 and 3.8 ka. The values and limitations of these proxies are discussed, and their potential for furnishing information on seasonality is also explored. Despite the chronological uncertainties, which are the main limitations for disentangling details of the climatic conditions, the data suggest that winter over the Mediterranean involved drier conditions, in addition to already dry summers. However, some exceptions to this prevail - where wetter conditions seem to have persisted - suggesting regional heterogeneity in climate patterns. Temperature data, even if sparse, also suggest a cooling anomaly, even if this is not uniform. The most common paradigm to interpret the precipitation regime in the Mediterranean - a North Atlantic Oscillation-like pattern - is not completely satisfactory to interpret the selected data

Realising consilience: How better communication between archaeologists, historians and natural scientists can transform the study of past climate change in the Mediterranean

This paper reviews the methodological and practical issues relevant to the ways in which natural scientists, historians and archaeologists may collaborate in the study of past climatic changes in the Mediterranean basin. We begin by discussing the methodologies of these three disciplines in the context of the consilience debate, that is, attempts to unify different research methodologies that address similar problems. We demonstrate that there are a number of similarities in the fundamental methodology between history, archaeology, and the natural sciences that deal with the past (“palaeoenvironmental sciences”), due to their common interest in studying societal and environmental phenomena that no longer exist. The three research traditions, for instance, employ specific narrative structures as a means of communicating research results. We thus present and compare the narratives characteristic of each discipline; in order to engage in fruitful interdisciplinary exchange, we must first understand how each deals with the societal impacts of climatic change. In the second part of the paper, we focus our discussion on the four major practical issues that hinder communication between the three disciplines. These include terminological misunderstandings, problems relevant to project design, divergences in publication cultures, and differing views on the impact of research. Among other recommendations, we suggest that scholars from the three disciplines should aim to create a joint publication culture, which should also appeal to a wider public, both inside and outside of academia.This paper emerged as a result of a workshop at Costa Navarino and the Navarino Environmental Observatory (NEO), Greece in April 2014, which addressed Mediterranean Holocene climate and human societies. The workshop was co-sponsored by IGBP/PAGES, NEO, the MISTRALS/PaleoMex program, the Labex OT-Med, the Bolin Centre for Climate Research at Stockholm University, and the Institute of Oceanography at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research. We also acknowledge funding from the National Science Centre, Poland, within the scheme of the Centre's postdoctoral fellowships (DEC-2012/04/S/HS3/00226 (A.I)); the Swedish Research Council (grant numbers 421-2014-1181 (E.W.) and 621-2012-4344 (K.H.)); CSIC-Ramón y Cajal post-doctoral program RYC-2013-14073 and Clare Hall College, Cambridge, Shackleton Fellowship (B.M.); the EU/FP7 Project ‘Sea for Society’ (Science and Society - 2011-1, 289066)

A Roadmap for Using the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development in Support of Science, Policy, and Action

The health of the ocean, central to human well-being, has now reached a critical point. Most fish stocks are overexploited, climate change and increased dissolved carbon dioxide are changing ocean chemistry and disrupting species throughout food webs, and the fundamental capacity of the ocean to regulate the climate has been altered. However, key technical, organizational, and conceptual scientific barriers have prevented the identification of policy levers for sustainability and transformative action. Here, we recommend key strategies to address these challenges, including (1) stronger integration of sciences and (2) ocean-observing systems, (3) improved science-policy interfaces, (4) new partnerships supported by (5) a new ocean-climate finance system, and (6) improved ocean literacy and education to modify social norms and behaviors. Adopting these strategies could help establish ocean science as a key foundation of broader sustainability transformations

Raymond Blanadet, Les fronts pionniers en Asie du Sud- Est.

Martin Marie Alexandrine. Raymond Blanadet, Les fronts pionniers en Asie du Sud- Est.. In: Études rurales, n°103-104, 1986. Droit et paysans, sous la direction de Louis Assier-Andrieu . pp. 291-296

L'Ethnobotanique, science per se ? A propos d'un livre de B. Berlin, D. E. Breedlove, P. H. Raven : « The principles of Tzeltal Plant Classification »

Martin Marie Alexandrine. L'Ethnobotanique, science per se ? A propos d'un livre de B. Berlin, D. E. Breedlove, P. H. Raven : « The principles of Tzeltal Plant Classification ». In: Journal d'agriculture tropicale et de botanique appliquée, vol. 22, n°7-9, Juillet-août-septembre 1975. pp. 237-276

Le problème des transports sous le régime des Khmers Rouges

The Transports under the Khmers Rouges Under the Khmers Rouges rule, the government is chiefly preoccupied with security problems. Rice and other goods are exchanged for armament. To allow the transport of those goods to Kompong Som port, roads and railways tracks are hastily (and badly) repaired. Fluvial transport is largely and well developed. A few planes are only used inside the country. But all these measures do not benefit the population who is entirely dependent on her owh strength to cultivate rice and repair roads. The transport by people is then intensive.Dans le Kampuchea Démocratique, l'État — qui pense surtout aux problèmes de défense — exporte beaucoup de riz et autres denrées contre de l'armement. Pour diriger ces matières vers le port de Kompong Som, les routes et les voies ferrées sont restaurées à la hâte, sans garantie technique. Le transport fluvial est largement et, semble-t-il, heureusement développé. Les avions ne vont pas au-delà des limites du pays. Mais ces diverses mesures ne profitent pas à la population qui doit faire tout le travail de riziculture et de travaux publics en comptant sur ses propres forces. Le protage est alors intense.Martin Marie Alexandrine. Le problème des transports sous le régime des Khmers Rouges. In: Études rurales, n°103-104, 1986. Droit et paysans, sous la direction de Louis Assier-Andrieu . pp. 207-220

La politique alimentaire des Khmers rouges.

The Food Policy of the Khmers rouges. Until war broke out in 1970, Cambodia was an underdeveloped but happy country inhabited by a properly-fed population. Under the Khmers Rouge's rule, each administrative division was required to be self-sufficient: this principle led to an unequal distribution of food. Moreover, the leaders, obsessed by a likely Vietnamese attack, exchanged rice for arms and amunition. They also had strategic foods planted for the population, but these, in turn, had to be exported in order to obtain more weapons. As the rural scenery became uniform, starvation and death set in.Jusqu'au déclenchement de la guerre en 1970, le Cambodge, pays sous-développé mais heureux, abritait une population suffisamment nourrie. A partir de 1975, en vertu du principe d 'autosuffisance de chaque unité administrative, la répartition des denrées alimentaires est inégale. En outre, les dirigeants khmers rouges, hantés par une probable agression vietnamienne, échangent le riz contre des armes et munitions et développent la culture de plantes alimentaires stratégiques destinées à la population. Celles-ci doivent à leur tour être exportées car le riz n'y suffit plus : en même temps que le paysage agraire s 'uniformise, la famine sévit, la mort s'installe dans le pays.Martin Marie Alexandrine. La politique alimentaire des Khmers rouges.. In: Études rurales, n°99-100, 1985. Economies des vivres, vies de l'économie., sous la direction de Jean-François Baré . pp. 347-365