In "Environmental Dynamics and Human Activity in the Indian Ocean," T. J. Wilkinson takes the long view of the development of the northwestern Indian Ocean over the last 10,000 years. He offers an innovative interpretation of long-term change in the region by combining archeological data with geoclimatic and meteorological data (see table 1).

Wilkinson observes that between 18,000 and 10,000 years ago, world sea levels were between 150 meters to 100 meters lower than they currently are today. As sea levels rose between 8,000-6,000 BP (BP="Before Present"), massive areas that were formerly dry, flooded and became seas. In the Northwest region of the Indian Ocean, this resulted in the creation of the Persian Gulf, a "Noah's Flood" of the region that had formerly been a dry river basin. Between 10,000 BP and 6,000 BP, the region became wetter, and the area's monsoon intensified. The region's climate dried during the years 6,000 BP to 3,000 BP, and the monsoon weakened.

What made the Northwest region of the Indian Ocean distinct? Wilkinson argues that it was the regularity and reversal of monsoons. Between November and March, winds blow from India towards East Africa, and reverse direction during the months of April to September, the season of the monsoon rains. The November-March, northeast monsoon is gentle, while the April-September, southwest monsoon is turbulent and dangerous.

During late summer and winter, Wilkinson emphasizes, an enormous upwelling occurs driven by the movement of cold water into top hot water, raising plankton into high bloom off the coast of modern-day Yemen and Oman, making for an unusually rich and regular fishing season.

Wilkinson makes a counterintuitive point about climatic change and human population growth. The years between 10,000 BP and 6,000 BP were rich, wet years with a strengthening monsoon and great fishing opportunities for residents of the Northwest littoral of the Indian Ocean. Yet just when climatic circumstances were drying and deteriorating between 6,000 BP and 2,000 BP, the area's population was actually increasing rather than decreasing. The Ubaid and Uruk trading zones emerge during this period, as recorded in the region's pottery, and by 2,000 BP we have evidence of sailors connected to the Hellenistic and Roman worlds taking advantage of the southwest monsoons for trade between the Arabian peninsula, East Africa, and the western coast of South Asia. People along the Arabian peninsula of the Indian Ocean were taking increasing advantage of the monsoonal upwelling, far more than took advantage of it during the richer years of 10,000 BP - 6,000 BP.

Finally, Wilkinson notes that his conclusion somewhat matches the idea of Arnold Toynbee that climatic and geographical challenges, substantial but not overwhelming, provide the necessary conditions for sharp population growth and cultural development. People of the northwest Indian Ocean corridor were adapting to and taking advantage of the environment and its changes.

JRB

Table 1: Some general relationships between the changing monsoons and socio-cultural factors

	0-1000 BP	1000- 2000	2000- 3000	3000- 4000	4000- 5000	5000- 6000	6000- 7000	700- 8000	8000- 9000	9000- 1000
Stronger monsoon (wet)	South	Arabia	less	rainfall	Trans- ition	South	Arabia	higher	rainfall
Better fishing						Shell	midd-	ens
Mangroves						Man-	groves	en-	hanced
Weaken SW-ly; stronger N-Ely; 4600-3700 BP					Better sailing from India-Oman
Stronger SW-ly		Roman Greek	& sailing

© Tony J. Wilkinson

Reading List:

The following list gives some basic readings on the Indian Ocean, with a focus on environmental change and archaeological evidence for long-distance trade.

Aqrawi, A.A.M 2001. "Stratigraphic signatures of climatic change during the Holocene evolution of the Tigris-Euphrates delta, lower Mesopotamia." Global and Planetary Change 28: 267-83.

Arnberger, Hertha and E. Arnberger 2001. The Tropical Islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.

Begley Vimala, and R.D. De Puma (eds.) 1991. Rome and India. The Ancient Sea Trade. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Bentaleb, I., C. Caratini, M. Fontugne, M.-T. Morzadec-Kerfourn, J-P Pascal, and C. Tissot. Monsoon regime variations during the late Holocene in southwestern India. In H.N. Dalfes, G. Kukla, and H Weiss (eds.) Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse, pp. 475-88. Berlin: NATO-Springer-Verlag.

Biagi, Paolo. 1994. "A radiocarbon chronology for the aceramic shell middens of coastal Oman." Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 5: 17-31.

Central Intelligence Agency 1976. Indian Ocean Atlas. US Government Printing Office. Washington DC.

Charpentier, V. 1996. Archaeology of the Erythraean Sea: craft specialization and resources organization as part of the coastal economy on eastern coastlands of Oman during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. Pp. 181-92 in The Prehistory of Asia and Oceania, ed.Gennadii Afanas'ev, S. Cleuziou, J.R. Lukacs, and M. Tosi. International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences. Forlì Italy: ABACO Edizioni.

Chaudhuri, K.N. 1985. Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Colonna, M., J. Casanova, W.-C. Dullo, and G. Camoi. Sea-level change and d18 O record for the past 34,000 years from Mayotte Reef, Indian Ocean. Quaternary Research 46: 335-9.

Doose-Rolinsky, H., U. Rogalla, G. Scheeder, A. Lückge, and U. von Rad. 2001. "High-resolution temperature and evaporation changes during the late Holocene in the northeastern Arabian Sea." Paleoceanography 16: 358-67.

Edens, Christopher, and T.J. Wilkinson. 1998 "Southwest Arabia during the Holocene: Recent Archaeological Developments." Journal of World Prehistory 12 (1): 55-119.

Enzel, Y. et al. 1999 High-resolution Holocene environmental changes in the Thar Desert, northwestern India. Science 284: 125-28.

Hourani, George F. 1995 Arab Seafaring (expanded edition revised by John Carswell with supplementary notes). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Juma, A.M. 1996. The Swahili and the Mediterranean World: pottery of the late Roman period from Zanzibar. Antiquity 70 (no. 267): 148-54.

Kazmi. A.H. 1984. Geology of the Indus delta. In Bilal U. Haq. and John D. Milliman (eds.) Marine Geology and Oceanography of Arabian Sea and Coastal Pakistan, pp. 71-84. New Van Nostrand.

Mery, S. 1996. Ceramics and patterns of exchange across the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf in the Early Bronze Age. Pp. 167-80 in The Prehistory of Asia and Oceania, ed.Gennadii Afanas'ev, S. Cleuziou, J.R. Lukacs, and M. Tosi. International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences. Forlì Italy: ABACO Edizioni.

Neff, U., S.J. Burns, A. Mangini, M. Mudelsee, D. Fleitmann, and A. Matter. 2001. Strong coherence between solar variability and the monsoon in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago. Nature 411: 290-93.

Possehl, G.L. 1997. Climate and the Eclipse of the Ancient cities of the Indus. In Dalfes, H.N. et al. Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse, pp. 193-244. Berlin: Springer (NATO ASI series).

Reade, Julian (ed.), 1996. The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul International.

Roberts, Neil, and Herbert E. Wright Jr. 1993. "Vegetational, Lake-Level and Climatic history of the Near East and SW Asia." Pp. 194-220 in Global Climates Since the Last Glacial Maximum, ed. Herbert .E. Wright jr. J.E. Kutzbach, T. Webb III, W.F. Ruddiman, F.A. Street-Perrott, and P.J. Bartlein. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Salles, J.-F. 1996. Achaemenid and Hellenistic trade in the Indian Ocean. In J. Reade (ed.) The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul International,pp. 251-67.

Schott, F.A. and J.P. McCreary Jr. 2001. The monsoon circulation of the Indian Ocean. Progress in Oceanography 51: 1-123.

Sirocko, Frank. 1996. Past and present subtropical summer monsoons. Science 274: 937-8.

Sirocko, F., M. Sarntheim, H. Lange, and H. Erlenkeuser. 1991. The atmospheric summer circulation and coastal upwelling of the Arabian Sea during the Holocene and the last Glaciation. Quaternary Research 36: 72-93.

Teller, J.T., K.W. Glennie, N. Lancaster, A.K. Singhvi. 2000. "Calcareous dunes of the United Arab Emirates and Noah's flood: the postglacial reflooding of the Persian (Arabian) Gulf." Quaternary International 68-71: 297-308.

Tosi, M. 1986 Early maritime cultures of the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. In Bahrain Through the Ages. The Archaeology, eds. Shaikha Ali al-Khalifa and Michael Rice, pp. 94-107.

Tosi, M. 1986 The Emerging Picture of Prehistoric Arabia. Annual Reviews in Anthropology 15: 461-90.

Villiers, Alan. 1952. Monsoon Seas. The Story of the Indian Ocean.

Vogt, Burkhard. 1996. Bronze Age Maritime Trade in the Indian Ocean: Harappan traits on the Oman Peninsula. In J. Reade ( ed.) The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul International,pp. 107-32.

Vosmer, Tom. 1996. Watercraft and Navigation in the Indian Ocean: An Evolutionary Perspective. Pp. 223-42 in The Prehistory of Asia and Oceania, ed.Gennadii Afanas'ev, S. Cleuziou, J.R. Lukacs, and M. Tosi. International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences. Forlì Italy: ABACO Edizioni.

Zonneveld, K.A.F., G. Ganssen, S. Troelstra, G.J.M. Versteegh, H. Visscher. 1997. "Mechanisms forcing abrupt fluctuations of the Indian Ocean summer monsoon during the last deglaciation." Quaternary Science Reviews 16: 187-201.

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T. J. Wilkinson

Associate Professor
Oriental Institute & Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

University of Chicago

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