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Late Quaternary sea-level changes and archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Tjeerd H. Van Andel
Tjeerd H. Van Andel*
Affiliation:
Godwin Laboratory for Quaternary Research and Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EQ
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Abstract

The oxygen-isotope curve, derived from the record of organisms stratified in the deep ocean ooze, has replaced the old pattern of four glaciations with a more complex record of cool and warm events. Since people live by their local sea-level, rather than an abstract world average, that global pattern is itself mediated by other geological forces, on several scales, before it directs the possibilities of human settlement. Here the effect of those forces is unravelled and illustrated.

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Antiquity , Volume 63 , Issue 241 , December 1989, pp. 733 - 745
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Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1989

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