This proposed Research Topic will examine prehistoric human-plant-environment interactions such as the relationship between agricultural strategies, climate change and land-use. Across monsoon dominated Asia, past social changes and adaptations in food production or other land-use systems such as pastoralism have been correlated with climatic variability.
Archaeological investigations present excellent opportunities to unravel how humans and their agricultural systems coped with dramatic climatic variations in the past, explore climate driven crises, or challenge overly deterministic explanations. For instance, the territory of the former Indus Civilization (spanning north-western India and Pakistan) is a critical area for world agricultural production; one where crop resources feed not only South Asia but are exported to large parts of the world.
It has been hypothesized that widespread aridity dove human migrations eastwards from the north-west to more humid regions of the Gangetic Plains during the late phase (~2100 BCE) of the Indus era. While expansive information on Indus plant exploitation is available in terms of archaeobotanical data, there is a lack of understanding of the specific environmental conditions or niches in which plant foods were grown. There is also the need to examine changes in land-use patterns in relation to agricultural strategies and climate change to better understand human-plant-environment interactions in the past.
The examination of the impact of past land-use patterns evident in palaeoenvironmental archives is also necessary to gain deeper insights into complex human-plant-environment interactions. Beyond South Asia, these issues are now being explored in neighbouring regions of East and Southeast Asia.
In the context of our current global warming scenario, there is renewed interest in understanding how people adapted agricultural systems to both acute and protracted climate change in the past. This proposed project aims to examine past human sustenance and development in the monsoon dominated regions of Asia, where multiple Holocene climatic oscillations have taken place. The scope of the present proposal is to examine adaptive strategies from the past to help meet the challenges of increasing human population and deteriorating monsoonal conditions across densely populated areas of Asia.
The project welcomes submissions on the archaeology, archaeobotany, palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironment of the monsoonal regions of South, East and Southeast Asia that deal with the key focus points of this Research Topic:
Agricultural history, strategies and plant food production
Land-use changes
Natural and anthropogenic environmental processes
Hydroclimatic and agricultural relationships
Human-plant-environment interaction
Settlement pattern, social and economic change
Keywords:
Agriculture, climate, land-use patterns, monsoon, Asia, human, plant, environment, food production, agriculture systems
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
This proposed Research Topic will examine prehistoric human-plant-environment interactions such as the relationship between agricultural strategies, climate change and land-use. Across monsoon dominated Asia, past social changes and adaptations in food production or other land-use systems such as pastoralism have been correlated with climatic variability.
Archaeological investigations present excellent opportunities to unravel how humans and their agricultural systems coped with dramatic climatic variations in the past, explore climate driven crises, or challenge overly deterministic explanations. For instance, the territory of the former Indus Civilization (spanning north-western India and Pakistan) is a critical area for world agricultural production; one where crop resources feed not only South Asia but are exported to large parts of the world.
It has been hypothesized that widespread aridity dove human migrations eastwards from the north-west to more humid regions of the Gangetic Plains during the late phase (~2100 BCE) of the Indus era. While expansive information on Indus plant exploitation is available in terms of archaeobotanical data, there is a lack of understanding of the specific environmental conditions or niches in which plant foods were grown. There is also the need to examine changes in land-use patterns in relation to agricultural strategies and climate change to better understand human-plant-environment interactions in the past.
The examination of the impact of past land-use patterns evident in palaeoenvironmental archives is also necessary to gain deeper insights into complex human-plant-environment interactions. Beyond South Asia, these issues are now being explored in neighbouring regions of East and Southeast Asia.
In the context of our current global warming scenario, there is renewed interest in understanding how people adapted agricultural systems to both acute and protracted climate change in the past. This proposed project aims to examine past human sustenance and development in the monsoon dominated regions of Asia, where multiple Holocene climatic oscillations have taken place. The scope of the present proposal is to examine adaptive strategies from the past to help meet the challenges of increasing human population and deteriorating monsoonal conditions across densely populated areas of Asia.
The project welcomes submissions on the archaeology, archaeobotany, palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironment of the monsoonal regions of South, East and Southeast Asia that deal with the key focus points of this Research Topic:
Agricultural history, strategies and plant food production
Land-use changes
Natural and anthropogenic environmental processes
Hydroclimatic and agricultural relationships
Human-plant-environment interaction
Settlement pattern, social and economic change
Keywords:
Agriculture, climate, land-use patterns, monsoon, Asia, human, plant, environment, food production, agriculture systems
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.