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Easter Island, an isolated speck in the Pacific Ocean, produced one of the most fascinating and yet least understood of ancient cultures. Who were the inhabitants of this unimaginably remote volcanic island? Where did they come from? What, and equally intriguing, how did they erect the giant stone statues found all over the island? And what became of their civilization? - ;Easter Island, an unimaginably remote volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean, produced one of the most fascinating and yet least understood prehistoric cultures. Who were its inhabitants, and where did they come from? Why, and equally intriguingly, how did they erect the giant stone statues found all over the island? Paul Ba...
The goal of this book is to provide a current overview of the impacts of climate change on tropical forests, to investigate past, present, and future climatic influences on the ecosystems with the highest biodiversity on the planet.Tropical Rainforest Responses to Climatic Change will be the first book to examine how tropical rain forest ecology is altered by climate change, rather than simply seeing how plant communities were altered. Shifting the emphasis onto ecological processes e.g. how diversity is structured by climate and the subsequent impact on tropical forest ecology, provides the reader with a more comprehensive coverage. A major theme of this book that emerges progressively is t...
Easter Island, isolated deep in the South Pacific and now a World Heritage Site, was home to a fascinating prehistoric culture—one that produced massive stone effigies (the moai) and the birdman cult—and yet much of the island’s past remains shrouded in mystery. Where did the islanders come from, and when? How did Rapa Nui culture evolve over the centuries? How, and why, did their natural environment change over time? Paul Bahn and John Flenley guide readers through the mysteries and enigmas of Rapa Nui, incorporating the records of early explorers, folk legends, and archaeological evidence along the way. They cover the island’s geological and environmental history and explore its flora and fauna, illustrating how human actions affected the natural environment of the island. This fourth edition draws in: recent DNA studies of ancient human and animal bones as well as plant remains; evolving understandings of how the moai were transported; and current efforts to reforest the island.
We are facing ecological disasters that will affect our ability to survive and the crisis is forcing us to reexamine the entire value system that has governed our lives for the past two thousand years.
The Equatorial Rain Forest: A Geological History presents the equatorial vegetation as a dynamic entity with varied and highly significant history. It also discusses other types of equatorial regions. It addresses the vegetational history from a palaeoecological viewpoint. Some of the topics covered in the book are the vegetation of equatorial regions; the prelude to the quaternary; the quaternary vegetation of equatorial Latin America; the quaternary vegetation of equatorial Africa; the cretaceous period; and the quaternary vegetation of equatorial indo-malesia. The value of vegetational history is fully covered. The effect of man on vegetation is discussed in detail. The text describes in depth the methods of studying vegetational history. The Paleocene, Eocene, and Oligocene epochs are presented completely. A chapter is devoted to the palynological evidence and synthesis. Another section focuses on the xeroseres, hydroseres and related successions. The book can provide useful information to botanists, geologists, students, and researchers.
Discusses the many visits made by explorers, missionaries, businessmen, scientists, and others to Easter Island since the late 1600s and what they revealed about life on this remote Pacific island.
Water Civilization: From Yangtze to Khmer Civilizations comprises three major topics: 1) Discovery of the origin of rice agriculture and the Yangtze River civilization in southern China was mainly based on investigation of the Chengtoushan archaeological site, the earliest urban settlement in East Asia. The origin of rice cultivation can be traced back to 10000 BC, with urban settlement starting at about 6000 BP; 2) The Yangtze River civilization collapsed around 4200 BP. Palaeoenvironmental studies including analyses of annually laminated sediments in East and Southeast Asia indicate a close relationship between climate change and the rise and fall of the rice-cultivating and fishing civili...
Jan J. Boersema reconstructs the ecological and cultural history of Easter Island and critiques the hitherto accepted theory of its collapse.
The most serious environmental problems of the twenty-first century have the potential to alter the course of life on this planet. Global warming, toxic waste, water and air pollution, acid rain, and shrinking energy supplies are frightening challenges that may threaten our future if we do not face up to them.p Global Environmental Challenges provides important information and gives us hope about the environment. This book first helps us to grasp these difficulties, then shows us the choices we can make. How long to leave a light on, whether to take the car, the train, or bicycle to work, whether to recycle or throw away, whether to vote to curb continued suburban sprawl-all of these decisio...
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