El Niño, Catastrophism, and Culture Change in Ancient America

edited by Daniel H. Sandweiss and Jeffrey Quilter
contributions by James B. Richardson III, Paul Roscoe, Payson D. Sheets, S. Jeffrey K. Wilkerson, Jason Yaeger, Brian Billman, David Hodell, Gary Huckleberry, David Keefer, Kirk A. Maasch, Paul Mayewski and Michael Moseley

Harvard University Press, 2008
Cloth: 978-0-88402-353-1
Library of Congress Classification GC296.8.E4E3955 2008
Dewey Decimal Classification 304.25098

ABOUT THIS BOOK | REVIEWS | TOC

ABOUT THIS BOOK
El Niño is an extreme climate perturbation that periodically changes weather throughout the globe, often with dire consequences. First recognized in Peru, El Niño events are best known and documented there. This book summarizes research on the nature of El Niño events in the Americas and details specific historic and prehistoric patterns in Peru and elsewhere. By also looking at other catastrophic natural events in the ancient New World, the book illustrates how scientific archaeology can serve pure research as well as provide information for contemporary issues.

REVIEWS
The contributions range from providing detailed understandings of paleoclimatic data to specific effects of catastrophic events on human populations and the solutions and adaptations made throughout prehistoric and historic periods. In that sense, the chapters open climatic discussions to the vast range of data from archaeological contexts, which provide the evidence for catastrophic events in the past as well as the different ways in which people in pre-Columbian cultures responded to potential catastrophes.
-- R. P. Wright Choice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents
Joanne Pillsbury
Preface
Daniel H. Sandweiss and Jeffrey Quilter
Introduction: Climate, Catastrophe, and Culture in the Ancient Americas @tocbreak:
@tochead: Ancient American Climates
Paul Andrew Mayewski
Paleoclimate from Ice Cores: A Framework for Archaeological Interpretations
Kirk Allen Maasch
El Ni¿o and Interannual Variability of Climate in the Western Hemisphere
@tochead: The Andes
James B. Richardson III and Daniel H. Sandweiss
Climate Change, El Ni¿o, and the Rise of Complex Society on the Peruvian Coast during the Middle Holocene
Paul Roscoe
Catastrophe and the Emergence of Political Complexity: A Social Anthropological Model
Brian R. Billman and Gary Huckleberry
Deciphering the Politics of Prehistoric El Ni¿o Events on the North Coast of Peru
Michael E. Moseley and David K. Keefer
Deadly Deluges in the Southern Desert: Modern and Ancient El Ni¿os in the Osmore Region of Peru
James B. Kiracofe and John S. Marr
Marching to Disaster: The Catastrophic Convergence of Inca Imperial Policy, Sand Flies, and El Ni¿o in the 1524 Andean Epidemic @tocbreak:
@tochead: Central America and Mesoamerica
Payson Sheets
Armageddon to the Garden of Eden: Explosive Volcanic Eruptions and Societal Resilience in Ancient Middle America
Jason Yaeger and David A. Hodell
The Collapse of Maya Civilization: Assessing the Interaction of Culture, Climate, and Environment
S. Jeffrey K. Wilkerson
"And the Waters Took Them": Catastrophic Flooding and Civilization on the Mexican Gulf Coast

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