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Loss of resilience preceded transformations of pre-Hispanic Pueblo societies
Climate extremes are thought to have triggered large-scale transformations of various ancient societies, but they rarely seem to be the sole cause. It has been hypothesized that slow internal developments often made societies less resilient over time, setting them up for collapse. Here, we provide q...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
National Academy of Sciences
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8106319/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33911035 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2024397118 |
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author | Scheffer, Marten van Nes, Egbert H. Bird, Darcy Bocinsky, R. Kyle Kohler, Timothy A. |
author_facet | Scheffer, Marten van Nes, Egbert H. Bird, Darcy Bocinsky, R. Kyle Kohler, Timothy A. |
author_sort | Scheffer, Marten |
collection | PubMed |
description | Climate extremes are thought to have triggered large-scale transformations of various ancient societies, but they rarely seem to be the sole cause. It has been hypothesized that slow internal developments often made societies less resilient over time, setting them up for collapse. Here, we provide quantitative evidence for this idea. We use annual-resolution time series of building activity to demonstrate that repeated dramatic transformations of Pueblo cultures in the pre-Hispanic US Southwest were preceded by signals of critical slowing down, a dynamic hallmark of fragility. Declining stability of the status quo is consistent with archaeological evidence for increasing violence and in some cases, increasing wealth inequality toward the end of these periods. Our work thus supports the view that the cumulative impact of gradual processes may make societies more vulnerable through time, elevating the likelihood that a perturbation will trigger a large-scale transformation that includes radically rejecting the status quo and seeking alternative pathways. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8106319 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | National Academy of Sciences |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-81063192021-05-12 Loss of resilience preceded transformations of pre-Hispanic Pueblo societies Scheffer, Marten van Nes, Egbert H. Bird, Darcy Bocinsky, R. Kyle Kohler, Timothy A. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Social Sciences Climate extremes are thought to have triggered large-scale transformations of various ancient societies, but they rarely seem to be the sole cause. It has been hypothesized that slow internal developments often made societies less resilient over time, setting them up for collapse. Here, we provide quantitative evidence for this idea. We use annual-resolution time series of building activity to demonstrate that repeated dramatic transformations of Pueblo cultures in the pre-Hispanic US Southwest were preceded by signals of critical slowing down, a dynamic hallmark of fragility. Declining stability of the status quo is consistent with archaeological evidence for increasing violence and in some cases, increasing wealth inequality toward the end of these periods. Our work thus supports the view that the cumulative impact of gradual processes may make societies more vulnerable through time, elevating the likelihood that a perturbation will trigger a large-scale transformation that includes radically rejecting the status quo and seeking alternative pathways. National Academy of Sciences 2021-05-04 2021-04-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8106319/ /pubmed/33911035 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2024397118 Text en Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Social Sciences Scheffer, Marten van Nes, Egbert H. Bird, Darcy Bocinsky, R. Kyle Kohler, Timothy A. Loss of resilience preceded transformations of pre-Hispanic Pueblo societies |
title | Loss of resilience preceded transformations of pre-Hispanic Pueblo societies |
title_full | Loss of resilience preceded transformations of pre-Hispanic Pueblo societies |
title_fullStr | Loss of resilience preceded transformations of pre-Hispanic Pueblo societies |
title_full_unstemmed | Loss of resilience preceded transformations of pre-Hispanic Pueblo societies |
title_short | Loss of resilience preceded transformations of pre-Hispanic Pueblo societies |
title_sort | loss of resilience preceded transformations of pre-hispanic pueblo societies |
topic | Social Sciences |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8106319/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33911035 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2024397118 |
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