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Winter Rain, Summer Rain: Adaptation, Climate Change, Resilience and the Indus Civilisation

Objective

Rainfall systems are complex and inherently variable, yet they are of fundamental importance due to their impact on food security. Given that human populations can adapt their behaviour to a wide range of climatic and environmental conditions, it is essential that we understand the degree to which human choices in the past, present and future are resilient and sustainable in the face of variable weather conditions, and when confronted with abrupt events of climate change.

TWORAINS will investigate the resilience and sustainability of South Asia’s first complex society, the Indus Civilisation (c.2500-1900 BC), which developed across a range of distinctive environmental contexts where westerly winter rainfall overlapped with the summer rainfall of the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM). It is now clear that there was an abrupt weakening of the ISM that directly impacted NW India c.2100 BC, and coincided with the start of the decline of Indus cities, but the degree of connection between the two is elusive.

Archaeologists have a unique role to play in understanding the ways that societies respond to climate change as they can investigate past instances of success or failure, and the Indus Civilisation provides an ideal laboratory in which to explore how societies can respond to variable and changing rain systems. TWORAINS will combine cutting edge approaches from Archaeology, Earth Sciences and Geography to reconstruct climate, model rain patterns, and explore societal adaptations and responses to change by combining data on settlement distribution, food production and consumption, and water stress. The data will then be integrated and assessed using agent-based modelling. By adopting an integrated interdisciplinary approach, it will be possible to ask “Does climate change really cause collapse?”, elucidate how particular communities perceived weather and landscape changes, hypothesise why they made the decisions they did, and explore the consequences of those decisions.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2014-CoG

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Host institution

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 999 439,00
Address
TRINITY LANE THE OLD SCHOOLS
CB2 1TN CAMBRIDGE
United Kingdom

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Region
East of England East Anglia Cambridgeshire CC
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 999 439,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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