Climate change and archaeology at the Sonora desert

Abstract

The relationship of archaeological research within research of climate change has grown positively during the last hundred years. It is clear that cultural classifications are closely related to climate. Cultural explanations have partially rooted on the combination of climate and culture. However, some clarification in needed, about global climate change and local variations of climate. The first refers to global impact and has been much discussed, however, other local environmental fluctuations, which although they have no global effects, are also determinants for the stability, mobility or displacement of certain groups in particular regions. To discuss the above, this paper focuses on the analysis of archaeology in northern Mexico, specifically in Sonora, where the impact of climate change as a long-term process is pointed out. In the prelude of this paper, I clarify the use of concepts and describe in a general way the particularities of the desert and the associated climatic changes in its geological evolution. In the second part, I focus on the cultural characteristics of the Sonoran cultural history. I affirm that there is an intrinsic relationship between climate change and sociocultural complexity. In the third part, I point out that global climate change is not the only direct cause of cultural transformations; on the contrary, local fluctuations are even more determinant in cultural dynamics. I conclude arguing that the local analysis of environmental fluctuations represents an interesting approach in contemporary research about ancient world, climate and culture.