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O. Smyntyna, “Cultural Resilience Theory as an instrument of modeling
Human response to Global Climate Change. A case study in the North-
Western Black Sea region on the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary”, RIPARIA
2 (2016), 1-20.
http://hdl.handle.net/10498/18445 ISSN 2443-9762
1!
CULTURAL RESILIENCE THEORY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF
MODELING HUMAN RESPONSE TO GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE.
A CASE STUDY IN THE NORTH-WESTERN BLACK SEA REGION
ON THE PLEISTOCENE-HOLOCENE BOUNDARY.
APLICACIÓN DE LA TEORÍA DE LA RESILIENCIA CULTURAL
COMO MODELO DE RESPUESTA HUMANA AL CAMBIO
CLIMÁTICO GLOBAL. EL CASO DE LA REGIÓN NOROESTE DEL
MAR NEGRO ENTRE PLEISTOCENO Y HOLOCENO.
OLENA SMYNTYNA
smyntyna_olena@onu.edu.ua
ODESSA I.I. MECHNIKOV NATIONAL UNIVERSITY1
ABSTRACT
Resilience theory was first introduced in the field of natural sciences
during the last third of the twentieth century and soon gained
transdisciplinary significance having demonstrated its high cognitive
potential in the fields of ecology, psychology, cultural studies and many
of the other neighbouring sciences dealing with the study of human
responses to external challenges. The concept of cultural resilience was
only introduced for studying past human responses to global climate
change during the last decade and, in spite of relatively restricted
number of case studies to verify it, it highlights many important aspects
of human behaviour which were traditionally underestimated within the
framework of other theories (such as the theories of adaptation,
environmental stress and others). The purpose of this current
contribution is to demonstrate the cultural resilience concept as a
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1 Head of Department of Archaeology and Ethnology of Ukraine. Head of G. Garibaldi
Center of History and Culture of Italy. Odessa I.I. Mechnikov National University,
Dvoryanskaya str., 2, Odessa, UKRAINE 65082.
O. SMYNTYNA
“Cultural Resilience Theory as an instrument of modeling Human…”
2
relevant application in the context of studying human response to
global climate change in the North-Western Black Sea region on the
Pleistocene-Holocene boundary.
KEY WORDS: Resilience, Global Climate Change, North-Western
Black Sea, Pleistocene, Holocene.
RESUMEN
La Teoría de la Resiliencia se introdujo por primera vez en el campo de
las Ciencias Naturales durante el último tercio del siglo XX y pronto
alcanzó significación transdisciplinar, mostrando su alto potencial
cognitivo en los campos de la Ecología, la Psicología, los Estudios
Culturales y otras ciencias afines relacionadas con el estudio de las
respuestas humanas a los cambios externos. El concepto de resiliencia
cultural no ha sido aplicado al estudio de las respuestas humanas del
pasado al cambio climático global hasta la última década y, a pesar del
número relativamente limitado de casos de estudio analizados, pone de
relieve muchos aspectos importantes de la conducta humana que se
subestimaron tradicionalmente dentro del marco de otras teorías. El
propósito de esta contribución es demostrar el concepto de resiliencia
cultural como una aplicación relevante en el contexto del estudio de la
respuesta humana al cambio climático global en la región noroccidental
del Mar Negro en el límite temporal entre el Pleistoceno y el Holoceno.
PALABRAS CLAVES: Resiliencia, Cambio Climático Global, Mar
Negro Noroeste, Pleistoceno, Holoceno.
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1. Introduction
The traditional theoretical background of interdisciplinary
studies of human responses to global climate changes in a
historical context includes a somewhat broad spectrum of
concepts and notions borrowed mainly from ecology and
environmental sciences2. The theories of cultural adaptation,
evolution and transformation, environmental stress, adjustment,
or regulation, and sustainability today are integral and essential
instruments for the interpretation of changes in tool production
industries, household and subsistence strategies, and residence
and mobility systems in prehistory and archaeology
demonstrating, however, methodological differences in their
application within the framework of a broad variety of disciplines
as well as in connection with the tradition of certain national
scientific schools3.
Resilience theory is one of the newest inventions adopted
by prehistorians and archaeologists, as well as by the
neighbouring sciences, and successfully applied to explain the
scale (i.e. durability and extent) of changes in human life and
economy provoked by external agencies, most importantly those
which are climatic and environmental changes.
The subject of the current contribution is to verify
perspectives of resilience theory application in order to gain a
deeper understanding of quantitative and qualitative changes that
happened in the life of populations in the North-Western Black
Sea region at one of the most challenging times in human history:
the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary with its accompanying global
climate changes.
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2 O. SMYNTYNA, “The Environmental approach to Prehistoric studies: approaches and
theories”, History and Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History 42, 4, 2003, 44-59.
3 O. SMYNTYNA, “Environment in Soviet and Post-Soviet archaeology”, M.I.J. DAVIS, F.
NKIROTE M’MBOGORI (Eds.), Humans and environment: new archaeological perspective for the
twenty-first century, Oxford 2013, 27-44.
O. SMYNTYNA
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2. Resilience theory: from a disciplinary to transdisciplinary
approach
The concept of resilience was broadly applied primarily in
physics (particularly with respect to the theory of elasticity where
it describes a quality of a material to regain its original shape after
being bent, compressed, or stretched) and engineering (namely in
material sciences and construction) to determine the capacity of
an entity or system to maintain and renew itself, particularly in the
presence of stressors.
The resilience concept was introduced to the studies of
ecological systems in the mid-1970s by Canadian ecologist C.S.
Holling4. A decade later, based on his field studies and long-term
observation of contemporary terrestrial ecosystems, Holling
updated his definition of resilience to be “the ability of a system
to maintain its structure and patterns of behaviour in the face of
disturbance”5.
During the last third of the twentieth century, the term
‘ecological resilience’ was coined; it was defined as the amount of
disturbance that an ecosystem could withstand without changing
self-organized processes and structures and was conceptualized in
the close relation with adaptation to the environmental changes6.
Multilevel comparison of ecological resilience with adaptability
and transformability allowed for the detection of its four basic
parameters (latitude, resistance, precariousness, and panarchy)
which can be observed in nature within the framework of
ecosystems as a whole as well as within those of their individual
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4 C.S. HOLLING, “Resilience and stability of ecological systems”, Annual Review of Ecology
and Systematics 4, 1973, 14.
5 C.S. HOLLING, “The resilience of terrestrial ecosystems: Local surprise and global
change”, W.G. CLARK, R.E. MUNN, (Eds.), Sustainable Development of the Biosphere,
Cambridge 1973, 296.
6 D.R. NELSON, W.N. ADGER, K. BROWN, “Adaptation to environmental change:
Contributions of a resilience framework”, Annual Review of Environment and Resources 32,
2007, 395.
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components7. At the very beginning of the twenty-first century
the resilience theory in ecology was enriched by the detection of
its close links with the concept of adaptive capacity, which in
socio-ecological systems refers to the ability of humans to deal
with change in their environment by observation, learning and
altering their interactions8.
This understanding has led to the spread of the climatic
resilience concept, which is generally defined as the capacity for
a socio-ecological system to: “(1) absorb stresses and maintain
function in the face of external stresses imposed upon it by
climate change and (2) adapt, reorganize, and evolve into more
desirable configurations that improve the sustainability of the
system, leaving it better prepared for future climate change
impacts”9.
In cultural and social anthropology, social sciences
(particularly in psychology and psychopathology, behavioural
studies, organizational studies, pedagogy, etc.), and culture
studies, the first applications of the resilience concept were
synchronous with its dissemination in environmental sciences and
were referred to in the mid-1970s10. Cultural resilience refers to a
culture's capacity to maintain and develop cultural identity and
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7 B. WALKER, C.S. HOLLING, S.R. CARPENTER, A. KINZIG, “Resilience, adaptability and
transformability in social-ecological systems”, Ecology and Society 9 (2), 2004, 5; L.H.
GUNDERSON, “Ecological resilience in theory and application”, Annual Review of Ecology
and Systematics 31, 2000, 424.
8 C. FOLKE, S. CARPENTER, B. WALKER, M. SCHEFFER, T. ELMQVIST, L. GUNDERSON,
C.S. HOLLING, “Regime shifts, resilience, and biodiversity in ecosystem management”,
Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 35, 2004, 559.
9 C. FOLKE, “Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems
analyses”, Global Environmental Change 16, 2006, 256; D.R. NELSON, W.N. ADGER, K.
BROWN, “Adaptation…”, 406.
10 A.P. VAYDA, B.J. MCCAY, “New directions in ecology and ecological anthropology”,
Annual Review of Anthropology 4, 1975, 293-306; D. CICCHETTI, N. GARMEZY, “Milestones
in the development of resilience [Special issue]”, Development and Psychopathology 5(4),
1993, 497-774
O. SMYNTYNA
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6
critical cultural knowledge and practices; it considers how cultural
background (including customs and traditions) helps individuals
and communities overcome adversity11. It is “both the capacity of
individuals to navigate their way to health-sustaining resources,
including opportunities to experience feelings of well-being, and a
condition of the individual’s family, community and culture to
provide these health resources and experiences in culturally
meaningful ways”12.
The conceptualization of connections between resilience
and adaptation (including adaptive capacity) has become the
starting point for the detection of links between resilience and the
broad range of concepts coined on the border of the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries for the conceptualization of humans
and nature interaction in the past and present; the most
widespread (fruitful and thus important for such correlation) were
vulnerability, redundancy, sustainability and mitigation, stresses,
and adjustment13. As a result, a series of new concepts have been
introduced, and one of the most viable is “culturally-focused
resilient adaptation” which describes how culture and the
sociocultural context have an effect on resilient outcomes14.
In fact, during the last decade the concept of resilience
has become a transdisciplinary one, and its application requires
engaging recent achievements in the complex study of
interactions between the different agencies of environmental and
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11 C.S. CLAUSS-EHLERS, “Cultural resilience”, C.S. CLAUSS-EHLERS (Ed.), Encyclopedia of
Cross-Cultural School Psychology, Springer 2015, 324.
12 M. UNGAR, “Resilience across cultures”, British Journal of Social Work 38, 2008, 225.
13 B. SMIT, J. WANDEL, “Adaptation, adaptive capacity and vulnerability,” Global
Environmental Change 16 (3), 2006, 282-292; W.N. ADGER, “Social and ecological
resilience: Are they related?”, Progress in Human Geography 24 (3), 2000, 347, 349; D.F.
DINCAUZE, Environmental Archaeology: Principles and Practice, Cambridge 2000, 73.
14 C.S. CLAUSS-EHLERS, “Re-inventing resilience: A model of “culturally-focused
resilient adaptation”, C.S. CLAUSS-EHLERS, M.D. WEIST (Eds.), Community Planning to
Foster Resilience in Children, New York 2004, 27.
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anthropogenic origin. As a result, as said by R. Fox Vernon15, the
origin of resilience science has gained many supporters despite
the scepticism previously expressed by many researchers16.
It is therefore possible to conclude that today, resilience
theory emphasizes ideas of management, integration, and
utilization of change to catalyse the evolution in the social-
ecological system under study rather than simply describing
reactions to change (as the adaptation theory does, for example).
The application of environmental, cultural and social
resilience theory for studies of past human responses to global
climate change is a very recent phenomenon. In relation to the
Stone Age, in particular, this concept has only just been adopted
(see for example, recent reconstruction of the Chert network
based on complex multidisciplinary excavations at Çatalhöyük,
Turkey17), and this understanding would also be applied within
the framework of the current contribution.
3. Resilience in human response to the Black Sea level at the
Pleistocene-Holocene boundary: case of North-Western
Black Sea shelf.
Environmental, cultural, social and historical
consequences of global climate changes on the Pleistocene-
Holocene boundary accompanied with the Black Sea level raise
are subject of alluring discussions since the Black Sea deluge
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15 R.F. VERNON, “A brief history of resilience: From early beginnings to current
constructions”, C.S. CLAUSS-EHLERS, M.D. WEIST (Eds.), Community Planning to Foster
Resilience in Children, New York 2004, 13.
16 See, for example, detailed argumentation in: H.B. KAPLAN, “Toward an
understanding of resilience: A critical review of definitions and models”, M.D. GLANTZ,
J.L. JOHNSON (Eds.), Resilience and Development: Positive Life Adaptations, New York 1999,
17-83.
17 A.J. NAZAROFF, A. BAYSAL, Y. ÇIFTÇI, K. PRUFER, “Resilience and redundance:
Resource networks and the Neolithic chert economy at Çatalhöyük, Turkey”, European
Journal of Archaeology 18 (3), 2015, 402-428.
O. SMYNTYNA
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hypothesis (known also as the ‘Black Sea Noah Flood’ concept)
was put forward by W. Ryan and W. Pittman in 1997. According
to them, 7.2 kyr BP (or 11 kyr BP, as in their later version) the
saline Mediterranean waters, flowing at a rate of 50 miles per
hour, had broken through the hypothetical dam on the border of
Bosporus and the Black Sea and reached the Neoeuxinian
freshwater basin like a fast-flowing torrent 200 times larger than
the Niagara Falls18. They estimate the sea level rise would have
been in the region of 15cm per day and suggest that over
100,000km2 of the Black Sea shelf had been flooded in two years;
in order to survive, the local population would have had to run
away to the inner territories of Central and Eastern Europe. This
hypothesis, which was sharply criticized by most marine
geologists, archaeologists and representatives of the broad
spectrum of environmental sciences during subsequent years19,
was at the same time disseminated by the media as well within the
R&D community20, triggering the intensification of
multidisciplinary field studies in the region as well as substantial
updates of theoretical frames of empirical data interpretation and
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18 W.B.F. RYAN, W.C. PITMAN, C.O. MAJOR, “An abrupt drowning of the Black Sea
shelf”, Marine Geology, 138, 1997, 119–126; W.B.F. RYAN, “Status of the Black Sea flood
hypothesis”, V. YANKO-HOMBACH, A.S. GILBERT, N. PANIN, P.M. DOLUKHANOV
(Eds), The Black Sea Flood Question: Changes in Coastline, Climate and Human Settlement,
Springer 2007, 63-88.
19 For more detail see: V. YANKO-HOMBACH, “Controversy over Noah’s Flood in the
Black Sea: geological and foraminiferal evidence from the shelf”, V. YANKO-HOMBACH,
A.S. GILBERT, N. PANIN, P.M. DOLUKHANOV (Eds). The Black Sea Flood Question: Changes
in Coastline, Climate and Human Settlement, Springer 2007, 149-203; N. GÖRUR, M. N.
ÇAĞATAY, Ö. EMRE, B. ALPAR, M. SAKINÇ, Y. ISLAMOĞLU, O. ALGAN, T. ERKAL, M.
KEÇER, R. AKKÖK, AND G. KARLIK, “Is the abrupt drowning of the Black Sea shelf at
7150 yr BP a myth?”, Marine Geology, 176, 2001, 65-73; A.E. AKSU, R.N. HISCOTT, P.J.
MUDIE, A. ROCHON, M.A. KAMINSKI, T. ABRAJANO, D. YAŞAR, “Persistent Holocene
outflow from the Black Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean contradicts Noah's Flood
hypothesis”, GSA Today, 12, 5, 2002, 4–10.
20 See, for example, G. LERICOLAIS, I. POPESCU, F. GUICHARD, S.M. POPESCU, L.
MANOLAKAKIS, “Water-level fluctuations in the Black Sea since the Last Glacial
Maximum”, V. YANKO-HOMBACH, A.S. GILBERT, N. PANIN, P.M. DOLUKHANOV (Eds),
The Black Sea Flood Question: Changes in Coastline, Climate and Human Settlement, Springer
2007, 437-452.
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prehistoric reconstructions of methodological, regional and
disciplinary peculiarities of conceptualization of different forms
of human responses to global climate change in the Black Sea–
Mediterranean Corridor on the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary.
Peculiarities of climate change, shoreline dynamics, and
landscape transformations in the North-Western Pontic region at
the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, as well as specific features of
the modes of life, subsistence systems, and flint knapping
techniques of the local populations were subjected to detailed
analysis in the framework of a series of Plenary sessions of IGCP
521 Project “Black Sea–Mediterranean corridor during last 30 kyr:
sea level change and human adaptation” (2006-2010) and its
successor, IGCP 610 project “From the Caspian to
Mediterranean: Environmental Change and Human Response
during the Quaternary” (2013-2017). It allowed me to sum up
ecological and historical processes that happened here during the
Dryas III-Boreal period of the Holocene very briefly skipping
details of previous discussions in this field21.
The Dryas III - Preboreal in North-Western Black Sea
region was characterized by significant deterioration of the
paleogeographic situation caused by climate aridization and
reduction of overall biomass density in the region in comparison
with the previous period, the Allerød. In the central part of the
region under study (Lower Dnister-Pivdenny Bug interfluves, Fig.
1), large group segmentation, local population dispersion, increase
in population mobility, and decrease in population density
became the effective measures with the help of local populations
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21 For the detailed discussion see V. YANKO-HOMBACH, O.V. SMYNTYNA, S.V.
KADURIN, E.P. LARCHENKOV, I.V. MOTNENKO, S.V. KAKARANZA, D.V. KIOSAK,
“Kolebania urovnya Chernogo moria i adaptatsionnaya strategia drevnego cheloveka za
poslednie 30 tysyach let [Oscillations of the Black Sea level and adaptive strategy of
ancient man during last 30 thousand years]”, Geologia i poleznye iskopaemye mirovogo okeana
[Geology and Mineral Resources of the World Ocean] 2(24), 2011, 61-94. (In Russian)
O. SMYNTYNA
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- representatives of the Anetivka Late Paleolithic flint knapping
technology (Fig. 2) – had managed to survive and progressively
evolve during Dryas III-Preboreal with no substantial changes to
their traditional basis of tool production22.
Fig. 1. Archaeological sites of North-Western Black Sea region at Dryas III –
Preboreal- I - state frontier of contemporary Ukraine; II - rivers; III - Anetivka
Late Palaeolithic flint knapping tradition; IV - Anetivka Early Mesolithic flint
knapping tradition; V - Zymivnyky industry; VI - Tsarinka-Rogalik industry;
VII - Bilolissya flint knapping; VIII – Vishenne industry; IX - Shan-Koba
industry; X - Syuren II (lower layer) industry.
Moreover, this adaptive strategy appears to have been so
effective, that in the following stage - during the Boreal period of
the Holocene – the Anetivka population would become the
substrate for the formation of a new phenomenon – the Kukrek
tradition. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned, that some groups
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22 O.V. SMYNTYNA, “Mezolithization of Lower Dniester-Pivdennyi Bug region: An
environmental interpretation”, A.S. GILBERT, V. YANKO-HOMBACH (Eds.), Extended
Abstracts of the 5th Plenary Meeting and Field Trip of Project IGCP 521 -Black Sea-Mediterranean
Corridor During the Last 30 ky: sea level change and human adaptation, Rhodes 2010, 202-205
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of this flint knapping tradition moved to the north following their
main hunting species (Bison priscus), and some of them probably
penetrated also into the steppe areas of the Crimean Peninsula in
search of new foraging territory. At the same time, transmitters of
the Tsarinka flint knapping tradition (Fig. 3) – characterized by
peculiar high trapezes and attributed to the Early Mesolithic –
appeared in the region for the first time. Their successful survival
in a difficult environmental situation was guaranteed by the
invention of a new flint tool production strategy based on
geometric inserts, which allowed hunters to intensify their
preparation and enlarge the spectrum of prey species by the
inclusion of small and non-gregarious game23.
Fig. 2. Anetivka fling knapping tradition
The first typically Mesolithic flint knapping tradition –
Bilolissya (Fig. 4) - appeared at the Dryas III-Preboreal boundary
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23 O.V. SMYNTYNA, “An attempt at living space delineation: The case for Early
Mesolithic of Steppe Ukraine”, British Archaeological Report, International Series 1224, 2004,
88-99.
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in the Lower Danube region as the result of direct migration of
this population from Dobrudja following aurochs, their main
hunting species. The migrants preserved their traditional tool kits
with peculiar big trapezes, as well as their subsistence and
livelihood systems in the new territory during the short period of
their existence here (until the beginning of the Preboreal period
of the Holocene)24.
Fig. 3. Tsarinka-Rogalik flint knapping tradition
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24 O.V. SMYNTYNA, “Transmigrations as a mechanism of living space exploration in the
Northwestern Black Sea region at the Pleisticene-Holocene boundary”, A.S. GILBERT,
V. YANKO-HOMBACH (Eds.), Extended Abstracts of the 4th Plenary Meeting and Field Trip of
Project IGCP 521 “Black Sea-Mediterranean Corridor During the Last 30 ky: sea level change and
human adaptation”, Bucharest-Sofia, 2008, 167-169.
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The transition to the Boreal period of the Holocene was
marked by considerable increase in climatic humidity, and a
general diversification of the flora and fauna brought an overall
growth of biomass density accompanied by a population density
increase (Fig. 5).
Fig. 4. Bilolissya flint knapping tradition
Representatives of two basic flint knapping traditions -
the non-geometric Anetivka (which continued traditions of
previous times, Fig. 6) and the new geometric Grebenyki (the
offspring of the Early Mesolithic Tsarinka, Fig. 7) - jointly
exploited the North-Western Pontic region with no clear
separation of their settlements. Two basic cultural inventions are
referred to during this period: the first attempts at aurochs
domestication (traced at the Late Mesolithic site Myrne in the
Lower Danube region, which was inhabited by representatives of
O. SMYNTYNA
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both traditions) and significant intensification of use of wild
plants, fish, and other river resources25.
Fig. 5. Archaeological sites of North-Western Black Sea region at Boreal
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25 O.V. SMYNTYNA, “The Lower Dniester-Lower Dnieper region during the Boreal
period of Holocene: human adaptation to environmental changes”, A.S. GILBERT, V.
YANKO-HOMBACH (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1st Plenary Conference of IGCP 610 “From the
Caspian to Mediterranean: environmental change and human response during Quaternary”,Tbilisi,
2013, 130-132.
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Fig. 6. Late Mesolithic Anetivka flint knapping tradition
Conclusions
This brief analysis of the diversity of forms and displays
of human response to global climate change in the North-
Western Pontic region at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary
testifies that some displays of cultural behaviour in Final
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic populations here can be interpreted as
resilient ones. They are observed mainly in the form of human
activities which were practiced daily by most of the people: flint
knapping technology (introduction of geometric inserts in the
Tsarinka and Bilolissya flint knapping traditions), and food
procurement strategy (transition to hunting for aurochs and
prevailing procurement of small and non-gregarious game in
Bilolissya, Tsarinka, Grebeniki, and Kukrek traditions, as well as
attempts at aurochs domestication at Myrne and intensification of
plant utilization). Transmigrations which brought changes to the
traditional living space in the case of the Bilolissya and Early
Mesolithic Anetivka traditions can also be discussed in the
context of resilience.
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These changes in human behaviour were real catalysts of
evolution in the social-ecological systems of the North-Western
Pontic region at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, and they
brought not only simple survival to this population, but also
triggered a transition to a new historical stage (first in the context
of mesolithization at the Dryas III-Preboreal boundary, later to
neolithization during the Late Boreal and beginning of the
Atlantic) and brought about the origin of new cultural traditions
in the region under study.
Fig. 7. Grebeniki flint knapping tradition
At the same time, changes in settlement system and
mobility of all population groups inhabiting the North-Western
Pontic region at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary should be
interpreted as adaptive ones: being caused by climatic and
landscape changes, they simply allowed groups to survive under
the new conditions and did not produce any new cultural or
historical phenomenon. The most illustrative example of such
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adaptation is the Anetivka flint knapping tradition, the durable
development of which in the North-Western Pontic region
during Late Palaeolithic-Late Mesolithic times could be simply
interpreted as an evolutionary one, with no principal
transformation of its basic features.
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focused resilient adaptation”, C.S. CLAUSS-EHLERS, M.D. WEIST
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27-41.
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