Collapse, environment, and society
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23353430 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Karl W Butzer (Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 109 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 3632-3639 |
| Publication date | 2012-03-06 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0027-8424 • E-ISSN: 1091-6490 |
| Publisher | National Academy of Sciences (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1073/pnas.1114845109 |
| PMID | 22371579 |
| PMCID | PMC3309741 |
| OpenAlex | W2046499434 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 180 |
| References cited | 36 |
Historical collapse of ancient states poses intriguing social-ecological questions, as well as potential applications to global change and contemporary strategies for sustainability. Five Old World case studies are developed to identify interactive inputs, triggers, and feedbacks in devolution. Collapse is multicausal and rarely abrupt. Political simplification undermines traditional structures of authority to favor militarization, whereas disintegration is preconditioned or triggered by acute stress (insecurity, environmental or economic crises, famine), with breakdown accompanied or followed by demographic decline. Undue attention to stressors risks underestimating the intricate interplay of environmental, political, and sociocultural resilience in limiting the damages of collapse or in facilitating reconstruction. The conceptual model emphasizes resilience, as well as the historical roles of leaders, elites, and ideology. However, a historical model cannot simply be applied to contemporary problems of sustainability without adjustment for cumulative information and increasing possibilities for popular participation. Between the 14th and 18th centuries, Western Europe responded to environmental crises by innovation and intensification; such modernization was decentralized, protracted, flexible, and broadly based. Much of the current alarmist literature that claims to draw from historical experience is poorly focused, simplistic, and unhelpful. It fails to appreciate that resilience and readaptation depend on identified options, improved understanding, cultural solidarity, enlightened leadership, and opportunities for participation and fresh ideas.
Damages · Development economics · Economics · Environmental ethics · Grassroots · Ideology · Militarization · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Psychological resilience · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Solidarity · Sustainability · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Ecology · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Tree-ring climate responses · Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research
Subsistence strategies and anthropomorphic soil modification at a Hongshan Culture site in northern China
Human adaptation to the mid-Holocene hydroclimatic instability during the Miaodigou phase of the Yangshao culture within the Guanzhong Basin, middle Yellow River
The Interaction of Climate Change and Agency in the Collapse of Civilizations ca. 2300–2000 BC
The Amorite Problem
Dust clouds, climate change and coins
A micro-geoarchaeological look at adaptive and glocal socio-economic aspects
Macro-Economic Cycles Related to Climate change in Dynastic China
Mid- to Late Holocene geomorphodynamics in a long-term settled mountain catchment in the Pergamon micro-region, western Turkey
Charcoal evidence for environmental change ca. 3.5 ka and its influence on ancient people in the West Liao River Basin of northeastern China
Middle Holocene rapid environmental changes and human adaptation in Greece
Revisiting the Agropastoral Landscape of Çatalhöyük East Through Agent-Based Modeling (9100–8100 BP)
Global International Society
Climate and Culture
Comparative Analysis of Extreme Drought Events and Social Impacts in Henan Province during the Middle Ming Dynasty
The Relationship between Temperature Changes and Peacemaking Events between Farming and Nomadic Groups in Northern China over the Past 2000 Years
Demystifying Collapse
Understanding leadership in the environmental sciences
Transformational change
Social adaptive responses to a harsh and unpredictable environment
Information and entropy theory for the sustainability of coupled human and natural systems
Las estacas de madera de Haraga y la pesca en el-Fayum durante el Reino Medio
Isotopic evidence of an environmental shift at the fall of the Kushite kingdom of Meroë, Sudan
Ending the war on error
Population Overshoot
Interrogating the Alterity of Hunter-Gatherers in Bioarchaeological Context
When Resilience Fails
Climate challenges, vulnerabilities, and food security
History meets palaeoscience
Kax and kol
Realising consilience
Evidence of resilience to past climate change in Southwest Asia
Towards a rigorous understanding of societal responses to climate change
Critical perspectives on historical collapse
Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch
Classic Period collapse of the Central Maya Lowlands
Possible Role of the Regional NDVI in the Expansion of the Chiefdom of Lijiang during the Ming Dynasty as Reflected by Historical Documents and Tree Rings
Towards an antifragility framework in past human–environment dynamics
Dilution of expertise in the rise and fall of collective innovation
Kara Ulaşımı, Ticaret Ağları ve Beytepe Höyük'ün Erken Tunç Çağı Sonu Bağlamındaki Konumu
A Dynamic Collapse Concept for Climate Change
From village to state, and back again
A Comprehensive Assessment of the Landscape, Environment, Natural Resources, and the Changes in Social Organization Between the Chalcolithic and the Early Iron Age (ca. 6000–2600 cal. BP) at Delice Valley, North-Central Anatolia (Türkiye)
Le pourquoi et le comment. Les recherches en causalités dans l’archéologie maya du changement climatique (800-1100 de notre ère)
Paisajes, comunidades y poderes centrales
Climate Change and El Niño Events in the Ancient Andes
Society and Environment in the East Mediterranean ca 300–1800 CE. Problems of Resilience, Adaptation and Transformation. Introductory Essay
Beyond Boom and Bust
Sustainability Transformations
Climate and Culture
Time, Sustainability, and ‘Collapse’ in the Iberian Copper Age Mega-Sites
How can social–ecological system models simulate the emergence of social–ecological crises
Hazards and Disasters in the Sociocultural Evolution of World-Systems
Archaeologies of empire and environment
Disequilibrium, Adaptation, and the Norse Settlement of Greenland
Xochicalco
A (Im)provável Pegada Ambiental
Climate and society in long‐term perspective
Integrating collapse theories to understand socio-ecological systems resilience
Climate and growing season variability impacted the intensity and distribution of Fremont maize farmers during and after the Medieval Climate Anomaly based on a statistically downscaled climate model
Holocene fluctuations in vegetation and human population demonstrate social resilience in the prehistory of the Central Plains of China
Climate change induced socio-economic tipping points
Social resilience to changes in climate over the past 5000 years
Learning from past society-environment interactions is discursive rather than substantive
Planetary Health policy? Persistence of modern concepts and pitfalls of implementation
Archaeological sites as Distributed Long-term Observing Networks of the Past (Donop)
Aridification of the Egyptian Sahara 5000–4000 cal BP revealed from x-ray fluorescence analysis of Nile Delta sediments at Kom al-Ahmer/Kom Wasit
Flood dynamics of the lower Yellow River over the last 3000 years
Agriculture and Holocene deforestation in eastern China
Relationships between temperature change and grain harvest fluctuations in China from 210 BC to 1910 AD
Climate disaster and the resilience of local maritime networks
Climate change at the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt around 4200 BP
Is the past key to the present? Observations of cultural continuity and resilience reconstructed from geoarchaeological records
Profit fluctuations signal eroding resilience of natural resources
Planetary health as a troubling concept for the ecological university
Societal transformation in response to global environmental change
Societal collapse
Coincidence and Complexity
Climate and the Ancient World
The Nile and Climate History, 3000 BCE to 30 BCE
Domino effect of climate change over two millennia in ancient China’s Hexi Corridor
State Crisis Theory
Frequency Analyses of Historical and Archaeological Datasets Reveal the Same Pattern of Declining Sociocultural Activity in 9th to 10th Century CE Ireland
Amenhotep III's Mansion of Millions of Years in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt)
Simulating the extent and depth of spring snow cover for medieval settlements in Iceland and Greenland
Multi-scale, integrated approaches to understanding the nature and impact of past environmental and climatic change in the archaeological record, and the role of isotope zooarchaeology
Climate in 14th-Century England
Hydro-political organization in Iranian history
Transforming environmental governance
The genetic and cultural evolution of unsustainability
Social tipping points everywhere?—Patterns and risks of overuse
Past Answers to Present Concerns. The Relevance of the Premodern Past for 21st Century Policy Planners
Conceptions of time in (paleo)climate science and some implications
Rethinking environmental leadership
Mediterranean archeology and environmental histories in the spotlight of the Anthropocene
Place as a boundary device for the sustainability sciences
Navigating disciplinary challenges to global sustainability science
Beyond metrics of resilience and survival in Mediterranean landscape archaeologies
The Beginning of the End
Eschewing the Apocalyptic
Geoarchaeology in China
Climate change, adaptive cycles, and the persistence of foraging economies during the late Pleistocene/Holocene transition in the Levant
The Decline of the West
Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility
Critical perspectives on historical collapse
Radiocarbon-Based Chronology for Dynastic Egypt
Cultural adaptation, compounding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in Norse Greenland
Holocene moisture evolution in arid central Asia and its out-of-phase relationship with Asian monsoon history
Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly
Differences Between Tight and Loose Cultures
Iraq after the Muslim Conquest
New Light on the Hydrology and Topography of Southern Babylonia in the Third Millennium
A review of Holocene avulsions of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and possible effects on the evolution of civilizations in lower Mesopotamia
Forest clearance and regrowth in northern Ethiopia during the last 3000 years
Geoarchaeological approaches to the environmental history of Cyprus
Environmental history in the Mediterranean world
Sustainability or Collapse
Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640
The evolution of markets in early modern Europe, 1350-1800
The Islamic Traditions of Agroecology
City Systems and World Systems
A Handful of Heuristics and Some Propositions for Understanding Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems
Complex Land Systems
Rise and Demise, Comparing World Systems
| Unique citing works | 180 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 12,86 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2027 (16) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 157 |