Adam Schneider

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My current research agenda is focused primarily on two pursuits: 1) reconstructing the complex causal mechanisms of political crises in the past, such as popular uprisings, famine events, episodes of mass migration, etc.; and 2) studying the dynamics of the interrelationship of social transformation and environmental change in preindustrial (and sometimes also industrial/postindustrial) societies.

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Papers by Adam Schneider

The Perfect Storm: A New Multicausal Model of the Political Collapse of Titris Hoyuk, an Early Bronze Age City-State in Southeastern Anatolia

Table 10-9: δ 13 C(en) and δ 18 O(en) Results for All Study Area Faunal Enamel Samples, continued... more

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The Medieval Climate Anomaly as a factor in the history of Sijilmasa, southeastern Morocco

The Journal of North African Studies, 2016

ABSTRACT This paper explores how the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) may have impacted the city of... more ABSTRACT This paper explores how the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) may have impacted the city of Sijilmasa, an important trading centre situated in the Tafilalt oasis of southeastern Morocco during the eleventh century CE, as well as some adaptation strategies that may have been employed by the people of the region in response to these changing environmental conditions. Palaeoclimate proxy evidence indicates that the MCA ushered in a period of warmer and drier conditions throughout Morocco, and there are some indications in the archaeological and historical records that this may have caused some substantial disruptions in the Tafilalt oasis during the first half of the eleventh century CE. However, despite the continuation of this arid phase, the region experienced a period of rapid growth and economic development after the Almoravids conquered Sijilmasa in 1055 CE. This florescence during a period of frequent drought events may have been enabled in part by Almoravid efforts to alter the natural course of the region’s principal river, the Oued Ziz, so that it would flow directly through the middle of the Tafilalt oasis and thus make the region more drought-resistant.

A Trade-Friendly Environment?: Newly Reconstructed Indian Summer Monsoon Wind Stress Curl Data for the Third Millennium BCE and Their Potential Implications Concerning the Development of Early Bronze Age Trans-Arabian Sea Maritime Trade

by guillermo algaze and Adam Schneider

A variety of philological and archeological evidence indicates that a vast maritime commercial ne... more A variety of philological and archeological evidence indicates that a vast maritime commercial network linking polities in Mesopotamia, the Persian Gulf, and the Indus Valley emerged in the second half of the third millennium BCE (before the common era). Here, we propose that the climate of the western Indian Ocean during the third millennium BCE was an important but heretofore unrecognized influence on the development of this maritime exchange system. Recent reconstructions have revealed a gradual weakening of the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) during the past 10,000 years. However, during parts of the third and fourth millennia, the data show the trend temporarily reversed and the ISM intensified-as, crucially, did the power of eastward-blowing trade winds across the Arabian Sea and the western Indian Ocean. This intensification peaked late in the third millennium, precisely at the time when the aforementioned maritime contacts expanded dramatically. As the ISM system strengthened, so too did the associated summer westerly winds which facilitated maritime trade. We argue that this allowed polities in southern Mesopotamia, to refocus many of their resource procurement efforts from the north and northeast toward the Persian Gulf and points south and east by employing ocean-going sailboats to more efficiently import high-bulk metal ores and to export low-value, high-bulk agricultural and pastoral goods at scale for the first time in their history. We further propose that by ca. 2200 BCE, some coastal Arabian and Indus Valley participants in this trade may have used bulk imports of grain and textiles from Mesopotamia as a way to mitigate the effects of drought at that time.

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Stable carbon and oxygen isotope evidence for late third millennium BCE environmental and social change at Titriş Höyük, an Early Bronze Age urban center in the Lower Turkish Euphrates watershed

Realising consilience: How better communication between archaeologists, historians and natural scientists can transform the study of past climate change in the Mediterranean

Quaternary Science Reviews, 2016

This paper reviews the methodological and practical issues relevant to the ways in which natural ... more This paper reviews the methodological and practical issues relevant to the ways in which natural scientists, historians and archaeologists may collaborate in the study of past climatic changes in the Mediterranean basin. We begin by discussing the methodologies of these three disciplines in the context of the consilience debate, that is, attempts to unify different research methodologies that address similar problems. We demonstrate that there are a number of similarities in the fundamental methodology between history, archaeology, and the natural sciences that deal with the past ("palaeoenvironmental sciences"), due to their common interest in studying societal and environmental phenomena that no longer exist. The three research traditions, for instance, employ specific narrative structures as a means of communicating research results. We thus present and compare the narratives characteristic of each discipline; in order to engage in fruitful interdisciplinary exchange, we must first understand how each deals with the societal impacts of climatic change. In the second part of the paper, we focus our discussion on the four major practical issues that hinder communication between the three disciplines. These include terminological misunderstandings, problems relevant to project design, divergences in publication cultures, and differing views on the impact of research. Among other recommendations, we suggest that scholars from the three disciplines should aim to create a joint publication culture, which should also appeal to a wider public, both inside and outside of academia.

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Who was eating fish at kish? A theoretical framework for using stable isotope analysis to explore processes of political economy in early dynastic Mesopotamia

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

A variety of philological and archeological evidence indicates that a vast maritime commercial ne... more