What do you do at the end of the world as you know it? When the usual rules that until then governed life’s basic necessities – like how crops, livestock, and other foodstuffs should be tended – no longer seem to apply? This is a situation where the people of ancient societies found themselves in with alarming regularity. Not only were there weather fluctuations and adjacent setbacks to deal with, like famines, but they also had to content with climate changes over timescales that were not immediately apparent to those living through them.¹ Such dire situations regularly imposed tough and far-reaching decisions, which can appear horrifyingly familiar – even from our distant vantage point in the twenty-first century.² As such, studying what people back then did and did not do when confronted with ecological calamities, can in turn fuel our own considerations and imaginations.

The choices that people in antiquity made with regard to natural disasters and climate change could differ tremendously. And scholars have long since noted that the reactions of those living back then to – in certain aspects – comparable ecological calamities, often diverged in ways that we would not expect. Because these dissimilar reactions cannot strictly be explained by the relevant material circumstances, such as environmental factors, geography, or the calamities themselves. After we discuss three examples of ancient communities modifying their practices and societies when they were confronted with drought, I shall introduce a theory concerning these dissimilar reactions that is prevalent within the environmental humanities. This theory holds that stories could be repositories for ecological knowledge. Ancient tales may thus account for the surprisingly vast range of choices that were at the disposal of ancient communities when confronted with ecological calamities.

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Natural nor Social Determinism

The scholarship on ancient peoples’ reactions to ecological lamities has seen many heated debates.³ Overlooking the field – pun very much intended – we can state that most research now exists somewhere on a spectrum between two outdated and extreme positions.⁴ This means, in the first place, that human societies are not entirely determined by their ecological circumstances. But ecological constrains can likewise not totally be effaced. That is to say, the reactions within ancient communities towards ecological calamity are also not completely determined by the relationships between individuals and groups – our environments will always play a role when human beings try to navigate the challenges nature throws at us.⁵ As such, nature nor culture is entirely responsible for our reactions in the face of climate disaster. Researchers thus need to account for environmental factors as well as for human agency. And it was, as is so often the case, practical archaeology efforts accompanied by thorough theorizing which laid the groundwork for the currently influential nuanced views of the multifaceted and often divergent choices that people made back then.

In his excellent chapter Urban Adaptations to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia, Jason Ur shows that people in the deep past had a range of choices when confronted with climate change.⁶ This is not only true for disparate human ways of life, such as nomads and settled peoples. But we can also observe differences between similar societies, like cities.⁷ Though the latter are difficult to research, as such complex societies often developed cooperative structures and institutions which can dampen the impact of changes in the climate, such as redistributing resources. At the same time, these complex arrangements can also prove too inflexible in times of ecological upheaval and minor disruptions may have out-sized consequences. And if that was not enough, human activities – such as deforestation and soil erosion – may be confused by modern observers with the impact of climate change.⁸ But if we account for these caveats, there still was an assortment of very different potential choices available. And this is deftly illustrated by Ur with three case studies from ancient west-Asia, specifically northeastern Syria, where hard decisions were forced upon three distinct communities.

Three Settlements, Three Choices

The context of these decisions was the change in climate that happened in this area from 2200 BCE onward. Simply put, it got more arid.⁹ Though there is still debate when exactly this change began, what its causes were, and whether the change was slow or fast, the consequences are clear.¹⁰ There was large scale upheaval regarding societal organization around the ancient world. The demise of the Akkadian Empire in West-Asia, the Old Kingdom in Egypt, and the Harappan civilization along the Indus have all been at least partly connected to this ecological calamity by modern scholars, even though the available evidence is often fairly tentative.¹¹ And the latter is an important caveat. Because the importance of these kind of climatic changes – which are at least partially thought to have happened because of their supposed consequences – is still discussed by specialized scholars.¹² As the developments we see in the communities of the ancient world, both small and large, may also have other contributing or even determining factors that were not an ecological catastrophe.

For now, we are working from the hypothesis that the developments we observe are in a large part due to the proposed changes in the climate. And also on a smaller scale, we can see the impact on and reactions of local communities to the increased aridity that characterized this climatic upheaval. That impact and these reactions can be gauged by mapping the well-worn pathways surrounding cities – because crossing the fields is bad for plants, hollowed-out routes radiating out from settlements shows the extend of the local cultivation – and by looking for the inorganic remains of agriculture.¹³ When it comes to the reactions of local communities, we find that these were not uniform – even though all these people apparently faced a largely comparable climate event.¹⁴

At the site of Hamoukar, people chose to both extend the land that was used for agriculture and use more intensive cultivation methods to achieve larger yields, like using more fertilizer.¹⁵ The latter we can see through the inorganic remains of this process, like pot shards. This shift led to smaller settlements cropping up – again, pun intended – next to the more remote fields. Evidently this strategy served them well, as the community appeared to have not only survived the climatic changes of the time but also became wealthier – before their town was violently destroyed, that is.¹⁶

Our second site is most often denoted as Tell Brak, but we also know it by its ancient name: Nagar. At first glance, the people who lived at Tell Brak employed a similar strategy to Hamoukar, they intensified their agricultural practices and extended their fields. But where at Hamoukar we see new settlements appear, at Tell Brak the population contracted considerably.¹⁷ Furthermore, the change in the kind of buildings and lay-out of the settlement indicates an intense overhaul of the local social organization. Specifically large buildings, which presumably housed (public) institutions, were ritually sealed and abandoned. But the resulting smaller settlement did survive these tumultuous times and it was destroyed nor abandoned.¹⁸

The site that figures in our third case study, Tell Leilan, was one of the early clues that led to the hypothesis that after 2200 BCE the climate became more arid. And this settlement correspondingly saw dramatic developments.¹⁹ The inhabitants of this town did extent the land they cultivated, but they did not intensify their agricultural methods, as far as we can see.²⁰ It may have been the case that the periods in which fields were allowed to lay fallow were shortened – something invisible to us – but this would have brought with it an increased risk of crop failures. Subsequently it does not have to surprise you that this site was abandoned by its population relatively soon after 2200 BCE. And it seems to us a breathtaking abandonment – the final cuneiform records appear to have been written as the administrative building that housed them was already in the process of evacuation.²¹

These were just three of the largest and most extensively studied sites in northeastern Syria.²² And looking at other settlements can perhaps offer us extra information, such as explaining where the missing people from Tell Brak went!²³ But the dissimilar approaches that were employed in the face of in certain aspects comparable challenges can still speak to our imagination. And they bring with them a question: how did people experience these changes and why did they react like they did?

Calamity, Collapse, and Culture

Did the people in the three communities that we surveyed actually notice that they were confronted with an ecological calamity? These events, increasing aridity and the adjacent effects on the environment, perhaps do not immediately come across as disasters like we today mostly envision them. But our imagination often takes together many different kinds of disruptions, like institutions becoming dysfunctional, economic structures that falter, or populations being forced to pack up and move elsewhere.²⁴ However, even on its own, increasing aridity and the accompanying challenges can be seen as a disaster.²⁵ And this is illustrated our case studies! As all three settlements that we looked at experienced dramatic changes after 2200 BCE. And we see that correspondingly drastic, agricultural and societal modifications were enacted. But when faced with the tough decisions that ecological calamities impose, these communities did choose different routes. And these differences may have had to do with the customs, values, and priorities of those who actually populated them.²⁶

In the foregoing, the relationship between our three communities and their environments emerged as being both complex and non-linear.²⁷ As the circumstances after 2200 BCE provide a roughly comparable template, we can confirm that it is both the idiosyncrasies of the environment as well as human agency which play a part in the subsequently chosen course of action. And the latter should be taken quite literally: it is humans who make decisions and it does not aid our analysis to reify societies as acting entities.²⁸ We can assume, based on our previous archaeological excursion, that people back then could have different assessments which did lead to distinct choices. As Simone Riehl succinctly puts it, there are “differences in perception of the environment by different human groups, which leads to different attitudes toward environmental change and resource management.”²⁹ But that just begs the question where did those differences in perception and the accompanying various ranges of accepted courses of action within communities come from?

Stories for Dire Times

Many genres of texts can inform us about the handling of the environment and the changes therein by people throughout the ancient world.³⁰ As such, modern scholars have, among other research avenues, scoured ancient texts for explanations of the different attitudes when ecological disaster struck. One attractive theory, which is popular within the environmental humanities, posits that stories could function as a depository of environmental knowledge and provide resilience when impactful climate events came along.³¹ Studying ancient stories can therefore teach us about the ways in which people back then were impacted by their natural surroundings and made their own mark thereupon. And this fits with the central proposition of the environmental humanities: to place human beings back in nature as explicit participants who are both influenced by and an influence on their environment.³² Though, we should take care to keep the limits of stories as a source in mind, including that they may have reflected merely the views of some parts of ancient societies. Reading and writing was limited, so perhaps only certain stories were written down and available to us.³³

And this idea, that stories constituted a reservoir of ideas and views which could aid humans in adapting to their changing circumstances, is rather appealing. As Sarah Iles Johnston writes in a general sense, stories “are especially good at describing events that have not been experienced by either the narrators or the listeners themselves so persuasively that those events become credible, thus enlarging the audience’s sense of what might be possible.”³⁴ When we apply this notion to environmental knowledge as it is depragmatized through stories, we can hypothesize that the various options which are explored through these narratives can be an asset when adapting to the cruelty of a climate, be it the usual whims or substantial changes. ³⁵As such, stories do not exactly present people with various explicit solutions for ditto circumstances, but they can shape mindsets, fuel imaginations, and explore useful scenario’s. In short, they can account for different choices.

Doing research in this vein, though, is idyllic nor idealistic. Ancient stories could also justify mistreatment of the environment and, if they did inspire their audience in that way, help ecological calamities along.³⁶ In addition, the ecological aspects of the stories that have come down to us, constitute but one layer that we can distinguish in these ancient tales. And we have to search for those between other layers which can counteract our inquiry. Layers that are in support of existing hierarchies and the status quo, for example, and thus may hamper human agency.³⁷ In the end, the stories of old are a relevant and exciting source, but these should still be treated with caution.

Ecological Stories from Ancient West-Asia

If we aim to present ancient stories as part of the explanation for the different choices people in antiquity made when confronted with ecological calamity, we therefore have to carefully dissect our available sources. And I want to give you a few examples from ancient West-Asia, the region where our three settlements were situated, to indicate how such an endeavor would work in practice. To necessarily confine myself, I will focus on the importance of one part of nature, namely forests.

One genre of narrative literature that is relevant to us consists of laments that bemoan the cruel fate polities that resulted from being abandoned by the gods.³⁸ And these laments often feature the damage to human existence through upheaval in the natural world.³⁹ In the Lamentation for Sumer and Ur we notice that the devastation of the wild forests is mentioned in conjunction with the suffering of fruit trees in their orchards.⁴⁰ The actions of the gods in the Curse of Agade indicate the importance of available wood, as they decree that the timber of Agade should return to the forest.⁴¹Humanity, it appears when reading these two laments, is very dependent on nature for resources like timber and the destruction thereof was seen as a fitting supernatural punishment.

That a certain order to the natural world was a prerequisite for a flourishing human population – and that the disruption thereof would likewise be devastating – also becomes clear in several creation myths. If we take the composition that is today known as Marduk, Creator of the World as an example, we notice that not only does the titular god has to create the natural world but he has to subsequently organize it so human existence in built environments, like cities, can be supported.⁴²

Lastly, I want to draw your attentions to stories wherein the human destruction of nature was presented as something that is at best lamentable and at worst condemnable. Take The Epic of Gilgamesh, the most well-known story about this legendary king, who – among other adventures – visits a faraway cedar forest to obtain both wood and fame. We learn that the forest is an impressive place where one could easily imagine the gods making their home.⁴³ And when Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu kill a representation of the forest, the gods disapprove. Furthermore, the act of cutting the trees is in certain versions described as murder.⁴⁴ Nature could be used, it turns out, but abuse could also be frowned upon. Destroying forests was also used, for example, by Assyrian kings to inflict damage on their foes.⁴⁵ As such, we appreciate that people back then knew of human impact on the environment and that it was shaped by their influence. And we can glean from their stories, including but not confined to those we discussed today, that some human actions entailed risks. Not only divine but also material. Deforestation could, for example, lead to soil erosion.⁴⁶

And this leads us to one final but unequivocal observations: choices made in the face of ecological calamity could be wrong. At least, when one wanted to avoid disastrous consequences for all the human and non-human lives involved. And, as the royal rashness above illustrates, it may have been perilous to trust in ruling elites and their connection with the divine – this trust and that connection could not be relied upon to remedy many of the environmental corollaries of ecological calamity.⁴⁷

Conclusion: An Ever More Accurate Picture

With our current knowledge it is impossible to tell how each of the factors that we discussed today weighted in people’s decision making when faced with ecological calamity.⁴⁸ And, sadly, this also applies to the role of stories. As became apparent, we deal here with a phenomenon that is thoroughly multi-causal. And there may be feedback loops involved with determining people’s interactions with nature – actions cause reactions and all that – which we do not understand yet.⁴⁹ Though this gives us another reason to keep reading ancient stories, which is always welcome!

In the end, it seems appropriate to remark that the changes throughout ancient societies and the communities within then were seldom linear. As such, some influences may still allude us, even when we cast our research net as wide as humanly possible.⁵⁰ But studying the many influences that were present in antiquity does give us an increasingly accurate picture. Even if it will never entirely complete – barring the inventing of time travel, naturally.

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References

1. Jason Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, in: Susanne Kerner, Rachael J. Dann & Pernille Bangsgaard (eds.), Climate and Ancient Societies (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2015), p. 71; Roderick J. McIntosh, Joseph A. Tainter & Susan K. McIntosh, “Climate, History, and Human Action”, in: Roderick J. McIntosh, Joseph A. Tainter & Susan K. McIntosh (eds.), The Way the Wind Blows: Climate, History, and Human Action (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 16-17.
2. Malcolm H. Wiener, “The Interaction of Climate Change and Agency in the Collapse of Civilizations ca. 2300–2000 BC”, Radiocarbon 2014, 56 (4), p. 11; Simone Riehl, “Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East: Understanding the Reasons for Non-Sustainability in Past Agricultural Systems”, in: Susanne Kerner, Rachael J. Dann & Pernille Bangsgaard (eds.), Climate and Ancient Societies (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2015), p. 291.
3. Tony Wilkinson, “Introduction to Geography, Climate, Topography, and Hydrology”, in: Daniel T. Potts (ed.), A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), p. 3-4.
4. Riehl, “Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East”, p. 292, 295-296.
5. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 70; Arlene M. Rosen & Steven A. Rosen, “Determinist or Not Determinist? Climate, Environment, and Archaeological Explanation in the Levant”, in: Samuel R. Wolff (ed.), Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and Neighboring Lands in Memory of Douglas L. Esse (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2001), p. 536-537.
6. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 69-95. Ur confines himself to northern Mesopotamia, but there is also this kind of literature for other ancient regions. For the Levant as an example, see: Rosen & Rosen, “Determinist or Not Determinist?”, p. 535-549.
7. On the character of ancient cities and villages as opposed to otherwise organized communities, see: Elizabeth C. Stone, “The Organisation of a Sumerian Town: The Physical Remains of Ancient Social Systems”, in: Harriet Crawford (ed.), The Sumerian World (London: Routledge, 2013), p. 173.
8. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 69.
9. This large scale change in the climate is also called the 4.2 ka CAL BP Event, see: Wiener, “The Interaction of Climate Change and Agency in the Collapse of Civilizations ca. 2300–2000 BC”, p. 2-3.
10. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 75-76; Wiener, “The Interaction of Climate Change and Agency in the Collapse of Civilizations ca. 2300–2000 BC”, p. 3-7.
11. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 74. As such, these connections are still being debated. For the Akkadian Empire as an example, see: Aron Dornauer, “Bioclimatic and Agroecological Properties of Crop Taxa: A Survey of the Cuneiform Evidence Concerning Climatic Change and the Early/Middle Bronze Age Transition”, in: Felix Höflmayer (ed.), The Late Third Millennium in the Ancient Near East: Chronology, C14, and Climate Change (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2017), p. 224-225.
12. The cited literature in this blog also contains references to this discussion.
13. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 76-78. For all the relevant aspects of the agricultural process in ancient west-Asia in general, see: George Willcox, “The Beginnings of Cereal Cultivation and Domestication in Soutwest Asia”, in: Daniel Potts (ed.), A Companion to the Archeology of the Ancient Near East (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), p. 163-180.
14. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 78.
15. For this site in general, see: Jason Ur, Urbanism and Cultural Landscapes in Northeastern Syria: The Tell Hamoukar Survey 1999–2001 (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2010).
16. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 79. For a hypothesized brief revival in the occupation of this site, see: Harvey Weiss, “‘Seventeen Kings Who Lived in Tents’”, in: Felix Höflmayer (ed.), The Late Third Millennium in the Ancient Near East: Chronology, C14, and Climate Change (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2017), p. 139.
17. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 79-80.
18. Weiss, “‘Seventeen Kings Who Lived in Tents’”, p. 136; Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 80-81; Wiener, “The Interaction of Climate Change and Agency in the Collapse of Civilizations ca. 2300–2000 BC”, p. 3.
19. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 82-83; Wiener, “The Interaction of Climate Change and Agency in the Collapse of Civilizations ca. 2300–2000 BC”, p. 4; Harvey Weiss, “Late Third Millennium Abrupt Climate Change and Social Collapse in West Asia and Egypt”, in: Hasan Nüzhet Dalfes, George Kukla & Harvey Weiss (eds.), Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse (Cham: Springer, 1997), p. 712.
20. At least, not in a way that we can establish with our current methodologies, see: Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 82, note 1.
21. Weiss, “‘Seventeen Kings Who Lived in Tents’”, p. 136.
22. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 84.
23. Perhaps in such cases of population reduction, the missing people took up a more pastoralist life style, see: Arne Wossink, “Climate, History, and Demography: A Case-Study from the Balikh Valley, Syria”, in: Hala Alarashi et al (eds.) Regards Croisés sur l’Étude Archéologique des Paysages Anciens: Nouvelles Recherches dans le Bassin Méditerranéen, en Asie Centrale et au Proche et au Moyen-Orient (Lyon: Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux, 2010), p. 187-188.
24. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 71; Glenn M. Schwartz, “Taking the Long View on Collapse: A Syrian Perspective”, in: Catherine Kuzucuoğlu & Catherine Marro (eds.), Sociétés Humaines et Changement Climatique à la Fin du Troisième Millénaire: Une Crise a-t-Elle eu Lieu en Haute Mésopotamie? Actes du Colloque de Lyon (5-8 Décembre 2005) (Paris: De Boccard, 2007), p, 46-49.
25. Harvey Weiss, “Beyond the Younger Dryas: Collapse as Adaptation to Abrupt Climate Change in Ancient West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean”, in: Garth Bawden & Richard M. Reycraft (eds.), Environmental Disaster and the Archaeology of Human Response (Albuquerque: Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, 2000), p. 88
26. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 87; Riehl, “Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East”, p. 293, 296.
27. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 70.
28. Riehl, “Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East”, p. 293; Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 70-71.
29. Riehl, “Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East”, p. 296.
30. For more information with examples, see: Cinzia Bearzot, “Ancient Ecology: Problems of Terminology”, in: Orietta D. Cordovana & Gian Franco Chiai (eds), Pollution and Environment in Ancient Life and Thought (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2017), p. 53; Riehl, “Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East”, p. 294.
31. Caroline Heitz, Julian Laabs, Martin Hinz & Albert Hafner, “Collapse and Resilience in Prehistoric Archaeology: Questioning Concepts and Causalities in Models of Climate-Induced Societal Transformations”, in: Paul Erdkamp, Joseph Gilbert Manning & Koenraad Verboven (eds.), Climate Change and Ancient Societies in Europe and the Near East: Diversity in Collapse and Resilience (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), p. 136-137.
32. Brooke Holmes, “Foreword: Before Nature?”, in: Christopher Schliephake (ed.), Ecocriticism, Ecology, and the Cultures of Antiquity (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017), p. xii; Louise Westling, Deep History, Climate Change, and the Evolution of Human Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), p. 18-20
33. Riehl, “Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East”, p. 295.
34. Sarah Iles Johnston, The Story of Myth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018), p. 10.
35. Christopher Schliephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World: Questions and Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), p. 29-30.
36. Hans-Joachim Gehrke, Mythos, Geschichte, Politik – Antik und Modern, Saeculum 1994, 45 (2), p. 239–264.
37. Schliephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World, p. 30.
38. Nili Samet, The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2014), p. 1-5.
39. Stephanie Dalley, “The Natural World in Ancient Mesopotamian Literature”, in: John Parham & Louise Westling (eds.), A Global History of Literature and the Environment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 22-23.
40. Piotr Michałowski, The Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1989), p. 41.
41. Jerold S. Cooper, The Curse of Agade (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), p. 61.
42. Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature, 3^rd Edition (Bethesda: CDL press, 2005), p. 488-489. This story is known under a variety of modern monikers, see: Wilfred G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), p. 366; Claus Ambos, Mesopotamische Baurituale aus dem 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Dresden: Islet, 2004), p. 200.
43. Dalley, “The Natural World in Ancient Mesopotamian Literature”, p. 29; Noga Ayali-Darshan, “The Background Of The Cedar Forest Tradition in the Egyptian Tale Of The Two Brothers in the Light of West-Asian Literature”, Ägypten und Levante / Egypt and the Levant 2017, Vol. 27 (1), p. 187-188.
44. Mark Jarzombek, “The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Political Symbolism of the Periphery”, Perspecta 2019, 52 (1), p. 137.
45. Walter Mayer, “Sargons Feldzug gegen Urartu – 714 v.Chr”, Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 1983, 86 (115), p. 70-71, 96-97.
46. Dalley, “The Natural World in Ancient Mesopotamian Literature”, p. 33.
47. Ur, “Urban Adaptation to Climate Change in Northern Mesopotamia”, p. 84.
48. Riehl, “Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East”, p. 293.Riehl, “Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East”, p. 293.
49. Schliephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World, p. 21.
50. Riehl, “Stable Isotope Analysis in the Middle East”, p. 296.