4 research outputs found
Living in the hinterland: Survey and excavations at Lohari Ragho 2015–2017
Living in the hinterland: Survey and excavations at Lohari Ragho 2015–201
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Weather, Land and Crops in the Indus Village Model: A Simulation Framework for Crop Dynamics under Environmental Variability and Climate Change in the Indus Civilisation
The start and end of the urban phase of the Indus civilization (IC; c. 2500 to 1900 BC) are often linked with climate change, specifically regarding trends in the intensity of summer and winter precipitation and its effect on the productivity of local food economies. The Indus Village is a modular agent-based model designed as a heuristic “sandbox” to investigate how IC farmers could cope with diverse and changing environments and how climate change could impact the local and regional food production levels required for maintaining urban centers. The complete model includes dedicated submodels about weather, topography, soil properties, crop dynamics, food storage and exchange, nutrition, demography, and farming decision-making. In this paper, however, we focus on presenting the parts required for generating crop dynamics, including the submodels involved (weather, soil water, land, and crop models) and how they are combined progressively to form two integrated models (land water and land crop models). Furthermore, we describe and discuss the results of six simulation experiments, which highlight the roles of seasonality, topography, and crop diversity in understanding the potential impact of environmental variability, including climate change, in IC food economies. We conclude by discussing a broader consideration of risk and risk mitigation strategies in ancient agriculture and potential implications to the sustainability of the IC urban centres.</jats:p
Recommended from our members
Living in the hinterland: Survey and excavations at Lohari Ragho 2015–2017
Living in the hinterland: Survey and excavations at Lohari Ragho 2015–201
Archaeological assessment reveals Earth’s early transformation through land use
Environmentally transformative human use of land accelerated with the emergence of agriculture, but the extent, trajectory, and implications of these early changes are not well understood. An empirical global assessment of land use from 10,000 years before the present (yr B.P.) to 1850 CE reveals a planet largely transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists by 3000 years ago, considerably earlier than the dates in the land-use reconstructions commonly used by Earth scientists. Synthesis of knowledge contributed by more than 250 archaeologists highlighted gaps in archaeological expertise and data quality, which peaked for 2000 yr B.P. and in traditionally studied and wealthier regions. Archaeological reconstruction of global land-use history illuminates the deep roots of Earth’s transformation and challenges the emerging Anthropocene paradigm that large-scale anthropogenic global environmental change is mostly a recent phenomenon