Moments of crisis: climate change in Scottish prehistory

• Main Authors: Tipping, Richard, Bradley, Richard, Sanders, Jeff, McCulloch, Robert, Wilson, Robert
• Other Authors: Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Reading, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, University of St Andrews, orcid:0000-0001-5542-3703
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 2012
• Subjects: Environmental Geography; Environmental History; Environmental Change; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/20594; http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_142/142_0009_0025.pdf; http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/20594/1/Tipping%20et%20al%20Moments%20of%20crisis%20PSAS%202012.pdf

There is strong evidence for many key turning points in Scottish and north-west European prehistory – what we call moments of ‘crisis’ – to be associated with evidence for widespread and abrupt natural changes in climate. Association or coincidence are not cause, though, and the abrupt climatic change in Scottish prehistory is proposed in a review of the many new data-sets of prehistoric climate change affecting the North Atlantic region. The case is made that Scotland in prehistory, because of its location in the North Atlantic region, should become a testing-ground of the relation between prehistoric society and climate change, to move debate beyond merely coincidence matching.