The Human Responses to Climatic Change - Essay Example

It investigates the speleothems as cave morphologies in the archaeological study as terrestrial archives of past environmental and climatic change. The u dating method is used to establish the growth phases of the speleothems and higher precipitation conditions in areas of Porte Rico during the investigated period. Areas of Maruca, Angostura and (PDI) Paso Del Indio with established archaeological deposits and permanent settlement during the period are examined. The adaptation strategies for Angostura were a micro-surface modification of the landscape and technological improvement to improve living conditions. Maruca and PDI resorted to relocation and reoccupation after the precipitation period (Rivera-Collazo 637).

The events of drought and aridity experienced in prehistoric and ancient times also attracted widespread responses for the people’s sustainability. It addresses the climatic change during the Holocene period, notoriously marked by variable conditions of drought, aridity and reduced rainfall, which influenced various human adaptations. Evidence from archaeological sites and reconstruction of monsoon winds facilitate an understanding of the practical adaptations and estimation of aridity. The article identifies the major rainwater harvesting strategies besides migration of the populations and distortion of their cultures as human coping mechanisms adopted in prehistoric times (Pandey, Gupta and Anderson 46). The study focuses on Indian communities and demonstrates how the ancient water harvesting response remains in practice today.

The speleothems that have developed in the calves of Palco in Puerto Rico provide evidential materials that accumulated over time. The speleothem's growth rate can be determined through a series of uranium dating methods. Stalagmite formation inside the calves enables the investigation of active dripping, erosion and hiatuses in speleothems with hydrologic patterns such as climate change. Stalagmite addressed here are examples of speleothems that grow from the calf's floor with deposition of the mineral substances as water drips from the caravan roof. They often build up wider because water-mineral drip spreads across the floor surface. Accumulative precipitation leads to further growth of the stalagmite upwards and in different layers with climatic changes.

Information gathered and documented over the Holocene climate change allows researchers to assess past climatic behaviour. In addition, the researchers “reconstructed the monsoon winds for the past 4500 using fossil Globigerina bulloides abundance in box cores, RC 2730 and ODP sites from the Arabian sea” (Pandey, Gupta and Anderson 46).

The social adaptation strategies of the three communities in Puerto Rico are established to be reaction measures to increased precipitation through their based vulnerabilities, social prioritization and the roles they played. By investigating the archaeological sites, it’s evident (existence of remains) that people from Angostura strongly connected with their inhabited land and opted to minimize distances to access resources from the diverse habitats. Therefore instead of relocating, they devised rising living surfaces and better drainage systems in their land to lessen the impact of flooding. Their priorities were maintaining social support through access to resources and their cultural identity with the ground. Maruca and PDI areas were vulnerable as the former’s elevation gradient lay low at sea level. At the same time, the latter was at risk of flooding upriver, which reduced their dry inhabited land, forcing them to respond to the event by relocating to other parts and returning once the precipitation period was over.

Traditionally, humans devised various ways of harvesting water, some of which can be dated to the ancient periods concerning the strengthening and weakening of monsoon winds. It links the archaic campsites to human occupations and their cultural effects. Based on the investigation, human settlement patterns occurred closer to water resources away from the coastal regions. Evidence of man-made earthworks, excavated wells in areas with surface water before and constructed impounding structures are responses to the fluctuating climate that caused drought and aridity.

Yes. The reader can adequately understand how humans adopt different response strategies to a similar climatic or environmental change. It enables one to understand how cultures, communities’ needs, wants, and priorities, besides vulnerabilities and opportunities, influence the response strategies over time. The article on rainfall harvest broadly expounds on the evolution of human-adopted methods for water harvesting. The latter better addresses the mitigation strategy of water shortage during the dry seasons from the beginning of the Holocene period in contrast to avoidance by migration. Both articles facilitate g