Moments of crisis: climate change in Scottish prehistory

Citation

Tipping R, Bradley R, Sanders J, McCulloch R & Wilson R (2012) Moments of crisis: climate change in Scottish prehistory. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 142, pp. 9-25. http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_142/142_0009_0025.pdf

Abstract
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.

Journal
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland: Volume 142