ABSTRACT
The relationship between environmental alteration and ancient cultures includes their rise, endurance, and decline. To properly understand human evolution, we must rst understand the effects specic climate changes have on soil and vegetation. An enormous transformation of the eastern part of Africa began as a result of continental drift, which was realized in this region by the movement of three tectonic plates. Two of them collided and the third one started the rst phase of separation into two parts. This process began some time ago, during the second half of the Miocene. A large depression, the Great East African Rift, formed, and a range of high mountains and volcanoes was squeezed out on the east coast. The depression now has a length of about 5000 km and a depth of several hundred meters. With the high rising mountains disturbing the atmospheric circulation, the majority of the monsoon rains were kept close to the east coast, leaving the East African Rift in the rain shadow. Before the East African Rift Valley and the high mountains were formed, the entire
15.1 Adaptation of Homo sapiens to Climate Oscillation as Their Most Important Evolutionary Feature............................................................................................................. 323
15.2 Adaptation of Ancient Cultures to Climate Change ............................................................. 325 15.2.1 Sahara ....................................................................................................................... 325 15.2.2 Ancient Egypt ........................................................................................................... 326 15.2.3 Mesopotamia ............................................................................................................ 327 15.2.4 Environmental Resilience ......................................................................................... 330
15.3 Recent Climate Oscillation and Theories ............................................................................. 330 15.3.1 Recent Global Warming ........................................................................................... 330 15.3.2 Experiments Performed by Nature ........................................................................... 332 15.3.3 False Theory ............................................................................................................. 336
15.4 Adaptation or Fighting Climate Change ............................................................................... 338 15.4.1 Empty Threats .......................................................................................................... 338
15.4.1.1 Disastrous Hurricanes Due to Continued Global Warming ...................... 338 15.4.1.2 Floods......................................................................................................... 338 15.4.1.3 Sea Level Rise ............................................................................................ 339 15.4.1.4 Increase in Aridity and Desertication ..................................................... 339 15.4.1.5 Menace of Famines .................................................................................... 339
15.4.2 Adaptation to Global Warming: The Optimal in Healthy Society ...........................340 References ...................................................................................................................................... 341
region was a tropical humid forest in a continuous belt from the west to the east coast of Africa. With its new climate, the newly appearing Rift manifested a change of vegetation. With the slow regression of tropical forest and the invasion of savanna beginning 10 myr BP (millions of years before present) in East Africa, a strong vegetative change took place between 6.3 and 6 myr BP (Bonnelle, 2010). The transition was not smooth and the whole period of drying was interrupted by several climatic oscillations. The earlier environmental conditions before the Rift formation are still visibly marked at many localities by subsoils containing plinthite (Showers, 2009) or as plinthic spots in the soil prole and iron coatings of particles. The soils of the northern part of the Rift were inuenced by desertication processes during the dry periods. At the foot of the mountains, the uplift yielded a staircase of terraces (Veldkamp et al., 2007).
