Climate and society between 6000 and 3000 BP in Southern Iberia. Preliminary synopsis from overarching and local investigations (F1)

The F1 project aims to identify transformative events in societies of Southern Iberia, and whether these transformations are a result of climatic deterioration in the region. The project started with the collection of archaeological and paleoclimatological indicators, which in their current aggregation provide a complex picture of Southern Iberian societies and climate fluctuation. From the perspective of paleoclimate, 6 drought phases between 6,000 and 3,000 BP could be identified, and these can be correlated to the archaeological record, more specifically, changes in settlement sizes as inferred from 14C sum curves. In particular, it is possible to recognize a potential relation between the rise of chalcolithic societies and their “collapse” (from 2200 to 1200 BCE) with some climatic developments, whereas Bronze Age societies (1200 BCE onwards) seemed to have been more resilient and fared considerably better in face of similar climatic developments. Qualitative approaches are also currently being applied to the archaeological data, in order to obtain a more fine-grained perspective on how these societies developed in light of climate change. This includes the study chalcolithic ditched enclosure sites of southern Portugal, such as Monte da Contenda where we have already conducted field work, and Perdigoes, which is being research by one of our close collaborators, with the aim of understanding what happened to these communities during the end phase of the Chalcolithic.