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The 2500 Bp Savanna Expansion Of West Central Africa
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Book Synopsis Climate Change in Human History by : Benjamin Lieberman
Download or read book Climate Change in Human History written by Benjamin Lieberman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate Change and Human History provides an up-to-date and concise introduction to the relationship between human beings and climate change throughout history. Starting with periods hundreds of thousands of years ago and continuing up to the present day, the book illustrates how natural climate variability affected early human societies, and how humans are now altering climate drastically within much shorter periods of time. For each major period of time, the book will explain how climate change has created opportunities as well as risks and challenges for human societies. The book introduces and develops several related themes including: Phases of climate and history Factors that shape climate Climate shocks and sharp climate shifts Climate and the rise and fall of civilizations Industrialization and climate science Accelerating climate change, human societies, and the future An ideal companion for all students of environmental history, Climate Change and Human History clearly demonstrates the critical role of climate in shaping human history and of the experience of humans in both adapting to and shaping climate change.
Download or read book Second Growth written by Robin L. Chazdon and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-05-23 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, conservation and research initiatives in tropical forests have focused almost exclusively on old-growth forests because scientists believed that these “pristine” ecosystems housed superior levels of biodiversity. With Second Growth, Robin L. Chazdon reveals those assumptions to be largely false, bringing to the fore the previously overlooked counterpart to old-growth forest: second growth. Even as human activities result in extensive fragmentation and deforestation, tropical forests demonstrate a great capacity for natural and human-aided regeneration. Although these damaged landscapes can take centuries to regain the characteristics of old growth, Chazdon shows here that regenerating—or second-growth—forests are vital, dynamic reservoirs of biodiversity and environmental services. What is more, they always have been. With chapters on the roles these forests play in carbon and nutrient cycling, sustaining biodiversity, providing timber and non-timber products, and integrated agriculture, Second Growth not only offers a thorough and wide-ranging overview of successional and restoration pathways, but also underscores the need to conserve, and further study, regenerating tropical forests in an attempt to inspire a new age of local and global stewardship.
Book Synopsis Significant Outcomes of the West-Central African Later Iron Age by : Epie Ewanzimbi Pius
Download or read book Significant Outcomes of the West-Central African Later Iron Age written by Epie Ewanzimbi Pius and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The west-central African Iron Age archaeological studies focused on the acquiring and using new technology for subsistence economies. The inception of this technology, some argued, hastened the reclamation of arable lands from the Congo/Zaire basin rainforests for land cultivation and made warfare against enemies more easier than the Neolithic tools it replaced. While these were known to be significant outcomes, Barros (1995) contended that they have not really been tested in field studies. The benefits were emphasized, but the environmental effects were ignored. Certainly, if the benefits are archaeologically and ethnographically analyzed, the subregion was better off without the technological change. The dissertation argues for and against the "so-called" benefits of the iron technology by analyzing the human condition in Neolithic sites and comparing them with the human condition in Iron Age sites from an ecological perspective. Ecologically, the position the paper takes is that iron technology did more harm than good to west-central African landscapes and biotas. Although iron tools alone hardly caused the landscape transformation, their addition to the natural factors fostered environmental degradation. The paper contends that natural environment depletion was not new in the subregion, but strongly suggests the depletion rate quadrupled with Iron Age humans, who replaced Stone Age humans around 1000 BC or earlier and exploited the environment until the post-colonial era. Lacking natural resource conservation ideas, they cleared rainforests for many purposes. They herded livestock, increased population, expanded village settlements, demanded more ore and charcoal for iron implement production. The Neolithic cultures had used wooden and stone tools, plus fires for clearing the forest; foraged, and fished; and they dwelt in waterside sites. Current west-central African environments are worsening due to the global economic exploitation of the remaining natural resources. Besides, large tracts of land are owned by multinational companies for growing food and cash crops, thus contributing to environmental degradation. Local farmers using no environmental protection methods are encouraged by national and foreign governments to replace food crops with cash crop farms. The disease epidemics and famine in the subregion leave evidence for wrongful applications of the Iron Age technology
Book Synopsis West African Culture Dynamics by : B. K. Swartz
Download or read book West African Culture Dynamics written by B. K. Swartz and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-06-15 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Mobility Imperative by : Augustin Holl
Download or read book The Mobility Imperative written by Augustin Holl and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-09-23 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work explores the long-term evolutionary implications of the "Mobility Imperative:" the foundational nature of mobility for human beings and their societies. The author puts forward a parsimonious but comprehensive model based on Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) rationales. The selected case studies range from the emergence and expansion of humans to cattle domestication and beyond.
Book Synopsis Wildland Fire Management Handbook for Sub-Sahara Africa by : Johann Georg Goldammer
Download or read book Wildland Fire Management Handbook for Sub-Sahara Africa written by Johann Georg Goldammer and published by African Minds. This book was released on 2004 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa is a fire continent. Since the early evolution of humanity, fire has been harnessed as a land-use tool. Many ecosystems of Sub-Sahara Africa that have been shaped by fire over millennia provide a high carrying capacity for human populations.
Book Synopsis The Origins and Development of African Livestock by : Roger Blench
Download or read book The Origins and Development of African Livestock written by Roger Blench and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-01-27 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an interdisciplinary overview of the origins of African livestock, placing Africa as one of the world centres for animal domestication. With sections on archaeology, genetics, linguistics and ethnography, this collection contains over twenty contributions from the field's foremost experts and provides fully illustrated, never before published data, and extensive bibliographies.
Book Synopsis Hunter-Gatherers of the Congo Basin by : Barry S. Hewlett
Download or read book Hunter-Gatherers of the Congo Basin written by Barry S. Hewlett and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2014-05-23 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The forest foragers of the Congo Basin, known collectively as "Pygmies," are the largest and most diverse group of active hunter-gatherers remaining in the world. At least fifteen different ethno-linguistic groups exist in the Congo Basin with a total population of 250,000 to 350,000 individuals. Extensive knowledge about these groups has accumulated in the last forty years, but readers have been forced to piece together what is known from many sources. French, Japanese, American, and British researchers have conducted the majority of the research; each national research group has its own academic traditions, history, and publications. Here, leading academic authorities from diverse national traditions summarize recent research on forest hunter-gatherers. The volume explores the diversity and uniformity of Congo Basin hunter-gatherer life by providing detailed but accessible overviews of recent research. It represents the first book in over twenty-five years to provide a comprehensive and holistic overview of African forest hunter-gatherers. Chapters discuss the cultural variation in characteristic features of Congo Basin hunter-gatherer life, such as their yodeled polyphonic music, pronounced egalitarianism, multiple-child caregiving, and complex relations with neighboring farming groups. Other contributors address theoretical issues, such as why Pygmies are short, how tropical forest hunter-gatherers live without the carbohydrates they receive from neighboring farmers, and how hunter-gatherer children learn to share so extensively.
Book Synopsis Tropical and sub-tropical West Africa - Marine and continental changes during the Late Quaternary by : P. Giresse
Download or read book Tropical and sub-tropical West Africa - Marine and continental changes during the Late Quaternary written by P. Giresse and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2007-11-30 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: West Africa and the eastern Atlantic stretching from Mauritania in the north to Namibia in the south offer a large latitudinal stretch incorporating nearly symmetrical climatic gradients from the Equator. On the time scale of Quaternary Glacial and Interglacial cycles, today, we possess well-documented and recently published marine sedimentary records showing changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulations and terrestrial fluxes. Deep-sea sediment records contain a wide range of palaeoenvironmental indicators like oxygen and carbon isotopes, alkenones, foraminiferal and other planktonic assemblages over time periods up to and greater than 125,000 years. These are signals of temperature and circulation shifts and allow Interglacial and Glacial comparisons on a regional and inter-hemispheric scale. However, this effort to synthesize the existing knowledge cannot yet aspire to a global modelling. Linking with terrestrial records, albeit spatially patchy and generally lacking a firm chronology, this book points to shorter time scale chronologies from lakes, marshes and river deposits. Diverse and not very wellknown literature, both French and English, is reported here. Lastly, the book records recent knowledge of the first steps of human occupation of frequently hostile environments and considers the environmental impact of ancient and modern societies.* Covers the recent studies about marine Quaternary environments off West Africa, as well as continental Quaternary environments of tropical and sub-tropical West Africa (over 10,000 to 100,000 years)* Compares the parallel between palae-oenvironmental trends according to latitudinal gradients
Book Synopsis Past Climate Variability through Europe and Africa by : Richard W. Battarbee
Download or read book Past Climate Variability through Europe and Africa written by Richard W. Battarbee and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-11-06 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on two complementary time-scales, the Holocene (approximately the last 11,500 years) and the last glacial-interglacial cycle (approximately the last 130,000 years) to synthesize evidence of climate variability at the regional and continental scale across Europe and Africa. This is the first examination of historical climate variations at such a scale, and thus sets a benchmark for future research.
Book Synopsis Language Dispersal Beyond Farming by : Martine Robbeets
Download or read book Language Dispersal Beyond Farming written by Martine Robbeets and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017-12-21 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some languages wither and die, while others prosper and spread? Around the turn of the millennium a number of archaeologists such as Colin Renfrew and Peter Bellwood made the controversial claim that many of the world’s major language families owe their dispersal to the adoption of agriculture by their early speakers. In this volume, their proposal is reassessed by linguists, investigating to what extent the economic dependence on plant cultivation really impacted language spread in various parts of the world. Special attention is paid to "tricky" language families such as Eskimo-Aleut, Quechua, Aymara, Bantu, Indo-European, Transeurasian, Turkic, Japano-Koreanic, Hmong-Mien and Trans-New Guinea, that cannot unequivocally be regarded as instances of Farming/Language Dispersal, even if subsistence played a role in their expansion.
Book Synopsis Encyclopedia of Prehistory by : Peter N. Peregrine
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Prehistory written by Peter N. Peregrine and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 869 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of Prehistory represents also defined by a somewhat different set of an attempt to provide basic information sociocultural characteristics than are eth on all archaeologically known cultures, nological cultures. Major traditions are covering the entire globe and the entire defined based on common subsistence prehistory of humankind. It is designed as practices, sociopolitical organization, and a tool to assist in doing comparative material industries, but language, ideology, research on the peoples of the past. Most and kinship ties play little or no part in of the entries are written by the world's their definition because they are virtually foremost experts on the particular areas unrecoverable from archaeological con and time periods. texts. In contrast, language, ideology, and The Encyclopedia is organized accord kinship ties are central to defining ethno ing to major traditions. A major tradition logical cultures. is defined as a group of populations sharing There are three types of entries in the similar subsistence practices, technology, Encyclopedia: the major tradition entry, and forms of sociopolitical organization, the regional sub tradition entry, and the which are spatially contiguous over a rela site entry. Each contains different types of tively large area and which endure tempo information, and each is intended to be rally for a relatively long period. Minimal used in a different way.
Book Synopsis African Rain Forest Ecology and Conservation by : William Weber
Download or read book African Rain Forest Ecology and Conservation written by William Weber and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extending from west Africa to Madagascar, from the vast lowland Congo Basin to the archipelago of forest islands on its eastern rim, the African rain forest is surpassed in size only by the Amazon. This book sheds light on the current efforts to understand and conserve the African rain forest, an area in need of urgent action to save its biological wealth, cultural heritage, and economic potential. Written by conservation scientists and practitioners based in the African rain forest, the book offers a multidisciplinary perspective that integrates many biological and social sciences. Early chapters trace the forces--from paleoecological factors to recent human actions--that have shaped the African forest environment. The next chapters discuss the dominant biological patterns of species ranging from the distinctive elephants, gorillas, and okapi to the less well known birds, butterflies, and amphibians. Other chapters focus on how such different groups as hunter-gatherers, forest farmers, bushmeat hunters, recent immigrants, and commercial foresters have used the forests. Several authors stress the need for tighter links between research and conservation action. The final section draws lessons from the collective experience of those working in an Africa wracked by political strife and economic hardship.
Book Synopsis Plant Diversity in a Central African Rain Forest by : Gildas Peguy Tchouto Mbatchou
Download or read book Plant Diversity in a Central African Rain Forest written by Gildas Peguy Tchouto Mbatchou and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Bantu Languages by : Mark Van de Velde
Download or read book The Bantu Languages written by Mark Van de Velde and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-30 with total page 871 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by an international team of experts, this comprehensive volume presents grammatical analyses of individual Bantu languages, comparative studies of their main phonetic, phonological and grammatical characteristics and overview chapters on their history and classification. It is estimated that some 300 to 350 million people, or one in three Africans, are Bantu speakers. Van de Velde and Bostoen bring together their linguistic expertise to produce a volume that builds on Nurse and Philippson’s first edition. The Bantu Languages, 2nd edition is divided into two parts; Part 1 contains 11 comparative chapters, and Part 2 provides grammar sketches of 12 individual Bantu languages, some of which were previously undescribed. The grammar sketches follow a general template that allows for easy comparison. Thoroughly revised and updated to include more language descriptions and the latest comparative insights. New to this edition: • new chapters on syntax, tone, reconstruction and language contact • 12 new sketch grammars • thoroughly updated chapters on phonetics, aspect-tense-mood and classification • exhaustive catalogue of known languages with essential references This unique resource remains the ideal reference for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Bantu linguistics and languages. It will be of interest to researchers and anyone with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistic typology and grammatical analysis.
Book Synopsis The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact by : Salikoko Mufwene
Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact written by Salikoko Mufwene and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 947 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language contact - the linguistic and social outcomes of two or more languages coming into contact with each other - has been pervasive in human history. However, where histories of language contact are comparable, experiences of migrant populations have been only similar, not identical. Given this, how does language contact work? With contributions from an international team of scholars, this Handbook - the first in a two-volume set - delves into this question from multiple perspectives and provides state-of-the-art research on population movement and language contact and change. It begins with an overview of how language contact as a research area has evolved since the late 19th century. The chapters then cover various processes and theoretical issues associated with population movement and language contact worldwide. It is essential reading for anybody interested in the dynamics of social interactions in diverse contact settings and how the changing ecologies influence the linguistic outcomes.
Download or read book Ecology written by C. Lévêque and published by Science Publishers. This book was released on 2003-01-10 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eleven plants were chosen so as to cover a wide range of biological characteristics (perennial, annual, autogamous, allogamous, etc.) in this study. Three chapters on methodology complement these studies. The first is devoted to the use of biological and molecular markers to analyse the diversity of collections, the second addresses data analysis, and the third describes a method for constituting core collectaions based on maximization of variability.
