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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...

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Autores principales: Scheffer, Marten, van Nes, Egbert H., Bird, Darcy, Bocinsky, R. Kyle, Kohler, Timothy A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2021
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.
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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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