Modeling the paleoclimate (ca. 6000-3200 cal BP) in eastern Anatolia: The method of Macrophysical Climate Model and comparisons with proxy data

Both paleoenvironmental and archaeological data provide mounting evidence of increasing aridification in the Near East starting with the late Early Bronze Age (ca. 4300BP). Combining the methods of the Macrophysical Climate Model (MCM) and GIS, it is possible to obtain quantifiable values across landscapes at 100-year resolution. This research focuses on the methods of MCM, a synoptic paleoclimate model that applies statistical downscaling and compares the results with proxy data. The discussion addresses the divergent trends in precipitation and temperature in eastern Anatolia between 6000 and 3200BP. The general climatic trends emerging from this research are then compared with those illustrated in various proxy data to verify the accuracy of the retrodictions for precipitation and temperature variables of the MCM. Results of this research are important as they may be integrated with the agent-based land use and landscape evolution models. These new approaches have great potential to demonstrate how multifaceted, long-term dynamic human-environment relationships can be defined and readapted according to the changing levels of social organization, which start a new cycle of social and economic responses with each ecological change.