ENHG Lecture: Late Glacial and Holocene Palaeoenvironments of Southeast Arabia, by Adrian Parker

About the Speaker: Adrian Parker is Professor of Geography at Oxford Brookes University where he leads the Human Origins and Palaeoenvironments (HOPE) Research Group. Adrian’s work lies at the interface between archaeology and geography/earth sciences. He has undertaken field research in the UAE for 25 years and published widely on past climates, environmental change and landscape responses from geoarchives, including dunes, palaeo lakes/wetlands and fluvial/alluvial systems. He has a particular interest in past human-environment interactions from this climatologically dynamic region. 

About the Talk: Arabia is located at the interface between the mid-latitude Westerlies and the Indian and African Monsoons, which are arguably the most dynamic climate systems on the planet. During the Quaternary (last 2.6 million years), the climate of Arabia has alternated between phases of aridity and wetter periods largely in line with major global glacial and interglacial cycles. Our current interglacial, the Holocene (last 11,600 years), has seen major transformations of the landscape of southeast Arabia in response to changes in climate and in particular water availability. The Late Glacial and Holocene landscapes (last 20,000 years) of southeast Arabia will be explored through a variety of geoarchives including dunes, lake/wetland records and fluvial systems. These records are used to reconstruct past environmental changes across the region and examine the driving mechanisms behind and landscape responses to these. The link between landscape and climate has been pivotal for human-environment relationships over millennia in this region. Inferences linking climate related societal changes and adaptation through the regional archaeological record will be discussed.