When looking back at humanity’s beginning stages, there has been consistent dependency on the Earth’s environment. As populations across countless cultures have risen over thousands of years, this natural relationship quickly became prone to anthropogenic climate changes. Efficiency and sustainability were essential for rising groups of people during the Pleistocene and early Holocene eras. With this in mind, the surrounding resources were vital to survival and overall health of populations for a vast majority of human history. In this essay, there will be a focus on how human activity has changed its surrounding environment and how these micro alterations have effected the planet itself. In like manner, the concentration on bodies of water and their effect on developing societies as well as the increased mobility and production that are associated. Up to the present time, environments and seasonal patterns have created culture and tradition no matter what type of eco-system is being discussed. Robert Boyd, UC Davis Professor, writes in his article, “we argue that the specific mechanism by which humans mastered the Pleistocene is our capacity to evolve adaptations to the variation of Plio-Pleistocene environments via cultural traditions.” Through the use of the collection of course readings given this semester, there will be examples provided to stress the importance of human activity in respect to the given environment. Climate variability has changed the human relationships with minerals, flora, fauna, and wildlife which prove to become vital to the continued development of certain civilizations. “We were a successful species, but by our current standards nearly helpless. Our primary means to get work done was muscle, our own and animal. Yes, by 1000 AD we had windmills, watermills, and sailing ships, but in truth our societies ran on muscle.”
Pure will and consistency were how humans carried on generations of civilizations across the world. The drastic changes that are seen to have occurred in highly populated regions of the world during the Pleistocene era caused certain adaptations by humanity. Extreme temperature fluctuation is most common during this era as people and other living species faced unpredictable conditions that previous generations had not seen or prepared for. The historical patterns of climate fluctuation are tremendously complex as they relate closest to enhanced radiation sensitivity caused by the Earth’s orbit. Higher latitudes become much colder as their positioning and distance from the equator restricted heat capacity. As these regions became significantly colder, new habitats arose with all new systems of hierarchy. With this daunting hurdle, humans were forced to find new ways of gathering and producing meals for their families. In Boyd’s article they explain the use of “social learning” or creation of culture as the most important and effective survival tactic humans have developed through such testing times. “Further, humans are the only species to respond to the ice age by evolving the very complex forms of social learning usually given the term ‘culture.’” The gained experience and human conditioning are vital to the prolonged survival of our species and ability to create powerful civilizations.
In the early Holocene, humanity became more organized than ever before as many environments became more forgiving with longer wet seasons and increased vegetation. With extended understanding from the Pleistocene era, populations were equipped with the necessary systems to make their sustenance used in the most efficient way as possible. As populations increased during this warm and wet period vegetation was able to grow considerably quickly as many major societies like the Roman Empire, would deforest massive lots of land. This source of energy allowed the empire to rise as quickly as it had. The efficiency for their era was unmatched as their footprint expanded across most of modern Europe and northern Africa. The continuation of their success and conquering was dependent on their ability to adapt to the surrounding environment of where ever their reign extended. The Holocene era helped this movement tremendously as it sparked the increased complexity of political systems and agriculture.
During this era and the development of the Roman Empire, human societies were facing a change to their habitat. In the sense of possible climate periodization for the Roman Empire, they got lucky as their habitat, especially that closer to their hub in Rome, was conducive to agriculture expansion. This allowed for more people to be fed and in turn, work for the empire to keep the expansion efforts strong. As the empire expanded into new climates, such as those bordering the Atlantic, their Mediterranean understanding of environment would be less effective. Having this diverse knowledge, Rome became one of the first civilizations to thrive and dominate as long as they did. There was a sense of counter rhythm associated with political movement and strategy that correlated with the climate conditions of given generations. This tendency seemed to make the variation in climate much more dramatic for the citizens of Rome as their belief system based on gods and goddesses at times revolved heavily around the weather. By the middle to late Holocene period, the Roman Empire’s methods of domination began to have a toll on the planet. The anthropogenic climates effected by deforestation and war driven leveling disturbed the planet’s surface and increased carbon amounts into the hemisphere. As the demise of the empire became more eminent, the control of territory was noticeably dependent on the surroundings for all societies no matter who ruled ‘over’ them. Rome could only control as much as it’s climate could handle.
Human development of agricultural and domestication methods is highly attributed to the changes of climate that particular generations of people were faced to overcome. To this day the understanding of weather patterns and natural disasters are extremely important to a number of economic and political mechanisms across the world. While examining this time period between the Pleistocene era and early to middle Holocene era, it became obvious how much an environment is susceptible to dramatic changes that can effect all living inhabitants.