NewsNext Previous

Experts from around the world will be coming to Tarragona to discuss human responses to climate change through Prehistory

There are over 70 registered researchers from countries such as Croatia, Switzerland, America and Finland

catalàespañol

Experts from many different countries of the world such as Finland, France, Italy, America, United Kingdom and South Africa will be participating in the conference MEDINES: ´Late Glacial to Early Holocene Socio-ecological responses to climatic instability within the Mediterranean Basin. MEDINES which has been organised by IPHES (Catalan Institutes of Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution) and the Social work of the Caixa Bank will be held in the Caixa-Forum in Tarragona between the 3-5th of February.

There are over 70 registered researchers from countries such as Croatia, Switzerland, America and Finland and universities such as Cambridge, Arizona or Liverpool, presenting posters and / or communications.To highlight the presence of professors Graeme Barker (Cambridge University) and Michael Barton (Arizona State University), Dr. Eleni Asouti (University of Liverpool) and Dr. Jean Françoise Berger (University of Lyon2), who will conduct presentations on the impact of abrupt climate changes on the last populations of hunter-gatherers and farmers in the Mediterranean prehistory, with particular regards to the processes of resilience and adaptation. These two aspects will also be discussed by internationally renowned scientists in two round tables, which will then be open for audience participation.

SHESC-Headshots
Michael Barton

Other topics which will be discussed in MEDINES include the rise of sea level and aridity, as well as changes in the distribution of flora and fauna.

Point of reference

The aim of this international conference is to establish a new framework to investigate environmental interactions of humans in the Mediterranean since the end of the Upper Palaeolithic until the Neolithic (between 17,000 and 6,000 years ago). This unstable scenario witnessed some of the most significant changes in human prehistory, such as the disappearance of cultural traditions of the Upper Palaeolithic and changes in lifestyle of hunter-gatherers to make way for the expansion of agriculture.