[blam]

GGG Ping.

El Argar

[TWohlford]

Where was the barf alert?

First, depletion and mismanagement of natural resources is nothing new — any number of ancient settlements rose and fell due to the depletion of natural resources, including any number of modern mining towns.

Second, even assuming that those ancient people totally botched it, there is nothing to lead us to conclude that they caused some sort of regional climate change.

Sloppy writing, sloppy research, leading to conclusions that are more commentary on modern conditions than historical fact. This author looked down the well of history and saw their own face.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

According to the study's authors, this is a sign Bronze Age people were setting fires to clear the forests for mining activities and grazing.

Or that there was a major forest fire. And since the Argarics would have just come on the scene and then survived another THREE HUNDRED years after this deforestation I would say it was likely it was not the cause of their vanishing.

And does anyone think this would be getting any traction if it was not for the competition for AGW grant money?

[pabianice]

Early SUVs?

[fortunecookie]

I suppose the dinosaurs squandered their natural resources and polluted their habitat, too? After all, they died out and have been extinct for centuries... ;-)

No doubt various societies have at times used up or wasted the natural resources around them, but the algorites try to use this and similar stories to eco-guilt us into buying their carbon offsets and buying into their neo pagan earth worship. I'm all for less waste and pollution and conservation (like before it was politicized) and such, but algore and his eco friends are putting the cart before the horse, imho.

[Popman]

Jared M. Diamond, wrote a book:

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed along this line of thinking.

Though normally, I would consider such books a shade above moon battery, he did make some interesting points. It was well written and well documented.

His outlook on the future was quite negative and that was a real turn off.

I would bet he has a picture of Al Gore in his house somewhere

[SteamShovel]

humans meddling with the environment

I guess we are allowed to "look but don't touch" in the mind of the enviro-mentals. Everything is man's fault.

[Reeses]

Copper objects? That's a fricken war-head dear.

significant amounts of charcoal appear in the pollen sequence. According to the study's authors, this is a sign Bronze Age people were setting fires to clear the forests for mining activities and grazing.

It looks like they lost the war, their women were raped, and their city was pillaged and burnt to the ground.

Moral of the story: invest in your military.

It's both hilarious and sad how archaeologists are unable to keep from projecting hippie values onto ancient people.

[TrueKnightGalahad]

But Jose Carrion added: "The climatic influence began millennia prior to the appearance of the Argaric culture. It's not critical to the change in the landscape we see about 3,900-3,800 years ago. What appears to be critical is the evidence of burning, which in our opinion is man-made."

Oh, boy, my head is really aching now. "Manmade?" What led you to that opinion, Jose? Discarded BIC lighters? Scraps of charred cardboard with "Close cover before striking" printed on them? Uhhh, does the notion of lightning - you know, that bright scary stuff from the sky that actually starts many forest fires today (depending on population and locale, from 20% to 60% of all forest fires), and most fires 6,000 years ago - satisfy Occam's Razor? One might as easily state that the people took advantage of naturally-occurring conditions as to posit that the people caused those conditions...but not, I guess, if you're an EcoWhacko with an pre-set agenda....

[Wiseghy]

Desertification and local micro climate change is well documented. This affected many “native” cultures in the early Americas as well. The American “dust bowl” period is also an example.

Responsible land management and water can easily avert these problems today. The primal Theocracies of ancient cultures could not sustain the stress and famine that these changes brought.

[Romneyfor President2008]

Bush’s fault!

[The Electrician]

Before the appearance of the Argaric civilisation, the slopes of Sierra de Baza were covered with a diverse forest dominated by deciduous oaks and other broad-leaved trees.

Not long afterwards, about 3,900 years ago, the diverse forest ecosystem disappears, to be replaced by monotonous and fire-prone Mediterranean scrub.

Ardent leftists such as this author are so predictable, it's laughable.

Diverse = good.

Not diverse = monotonous = bad.

Nature = good.

Humankind = bad.

About the only thing that it is missing from this leftist's allegorical wet dream is blaming it all on the patriarchal underpinnings of the Argaric culture. Oh, and on the indisputable fact that they were all neocons, too...

[SunkenCiv]

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