Landscape and Waterscapes in Asia. Monsoon, Climate Anomalies and Social Dynamics in Medieval India

The research programme considers the complex inter-relationships between monsoon related climate change, from the medieval warm period to little ice age, water availability and societal change in semi-arid India. We will assess adaptive social changes (or not) in response to changing water availability. Stirling's role within a partnership climatologist, hydrologists, anthropologists and historians is to determine the changing nature of water management infrastructures in urban and rural settings through geoarchaeology methods. In doing so we will highlight origins, maintenance and collapse of these systems over time through OSL chronologies of water borne sediments and soils based assessments of anthrosols and technosols. This complements our work on mediaeval water management systems in Sri Lanka and Nepal.