08 May 2018 - Paul Breeze
When the Sahara and Arabia were green
- how prehistoric climate change influenced human movements
and culture in the deserts of the Middle East.
Today the Sahara and Arabia are relatively arid, forbidding regions. However, repeatedly during the past, climate change altered the monsoon extents, and these deserts received a lot more rainfall than today. At such times, lakes and rivers formed, and savannah animals and hominins (human species) moved into these deserts. Over recent years, multi-disciplinary analyses and fieldwork involving several international teams and local specialists in a range of locations, particularly Saudi Arabia, have revealed numerous new discoveries concerning these ‘Green Sahara’ and ‘Green Arabia’ periods, and how they may also have played important roles in the early movements of our own species out of Africa. In this lecture Paul will discuss these climatic change events, and how new high-tech analyses are allowing the reconstruction of how the environments of the Sahara and Arabia changed over time, in particular new methods that have mapped the locations of thousands of lakes and of river networks that once flowed across these deserts. New discoveries in this area are rapidly and radically changing models of human dispersal in the past, so he will also focus on the implications recent work and new discoveries have concerning early movements of Homo sapiens out of Africa, and for later populations living in the Saharo-Arabian desert belt.
Paul S. Breeze
A landscape archaeologist and palaeogeographer at King’s College London, Paul researches archaeological sites and evidence for past climate change in deserts. A major focus of his research has been mapping where lakes and rivers once existed in the deserts of Africa and Arabia during prehistory, and how this relates to early movements of Homo sapiens and other hominins Out-of-Africa. To do this he uses methods ranging from analysis of satellite and aerial imagery, through to mapping sites on-the-ground using highly precise GPS systems and drones, and excavation.
Paul started began his archaeological career as a commercial archaeologist, later becoming a landscape archaeologist at the University of Birmingham (UK). He has been travelling into the Arabian Deserts since 2009, for the past five years as a member of the major international and multidisciplinary “Palaeodeserts” project, which has been investigating ancient rivers, lakes, and other sites for fossils, environmental records, and stone tools. When not on fieldwork, he works as a Research Associate on the “Peopling the Green Sahara” Project. This multi-disciplinary project is analysing environmental change in the Sahara between 14 and 3 thousand years ago- the last time the Sahara was green and wet- and the responses of human communities in the Sahara to these climate change events, using novel techniques. Paul also teaches the 2017-18 undergraduate “Arid Africa” geography course at Royal Holloway University of London, as a visiting lecturer. He has authored or co-authored 23 articles to date, which have reported new archaeological sites, and refined models of Saharo-Arabian palaeoenvironments and routes by which hominins may have dispersed during the past.
- how prehistoric climate change influenced human movements
and culture in the deserts of the Middle East.
Today the Sahara and Arabia are relatively arid, forbidding regions. However, repeatedly during the past, climate change altered the monsoon extents, and these deserts received a lot more rainfall than today. At such times, lakes and rivers formed, and savannah animals and hominins (human species) moved into these deserts. Over recent years, multi-disciplinary analyses and fieldwork involving several international teams and local specialists in a range of locations, particularly Saudi Arabia, have revealed numerous new discoveries concerning these ‘Green Sahara’ and ‘Green Arabia’ periods, and how they may also have played important roles in the early movements of our own species out of Africa. In this lecture Paul will discuss these climatic change events, and how new high-tech analyses are allowing the reconstruction of how the environments of the Sahara and Arabia changed over time, in particular new methods that have mapped the locations of thousands of lakes and of river networks that once flowed across these deserts. New discoveries in this area are rapidly and radically changing models of human dispersal in the past, so he will also focus on the implications recent work and new discoveries have concerning early movements of Homo sapiens out of Africa, and for later populations living in the Saharo-Arabian desert belt.
Paul S. Breeze
A landscape archaeologist and palaeogeographer at King’s College London, Paul researches archaeological sites and evidence for past climate change in deserts. A major focus of his research has been mapping where lakes and rivers once existed in the deserts of Africa and Arabia during prehistory, and how this relates to early movements of Homo sapiens and other hominins Out-of-Africa. To do this he uses methods ranging from analysis of satellite and aerial imagery, through to mapping sites on-the-ground using highly precise GPS systems and drones, and excavation.
Paul started began his archaeological career as a commercial archaeologist, later becoming a landscape archaeologist at the University of Birmingham (UK). He has been travelling into the Arabian Deserts since 2009, for the past five years as a member of the major international and multidisciplinary “Palaeodeserts” project, which has been investigating ancient rivers, lakes, and other sites for fossils, environmental records, and stone tools. When not on fieldwork, he works as a Research Associate on the “Peopling the Green Sahara” Project. This multi-disciplinary project is analysing environmental change in the Sahara between 14 and 3 thousand years ago- the last time the Sahara was green and wet- and the responses of human communities in the Sahara to these climate change events, using novel techniques. Paul also teaches the 2017-18 undergraduate “Arid Africa” geography course at Royal Holloway University of London, as a visiting lecturer. He has authored or co-authored 23 articles to date, which have reported new archaeological sites, and refined models of Saharo-Arabian palaeoenvironments and routes by which hominins may have dispersed during the past.
