Paleoastronomical and geophysical data on global climate variations and their impact on human awareness

Izold Pustylnik
Tartu Observatory

During the Holocene Homo sapiens gradually settled down over the vast spans of the territory on Earth stretching from cold subpolar regions to the scorching deserts and hot tropical zones. Man adapted to extreme living conditions, from prehistoric time people used to dwell close to regularly erupting volcanoes and in seismically active zones despite the imminent dangers of natural disasters. Both physiological functioning of human body (metabolism, cardiovascular system etc) and man's mentality are strongly dependent on environmental factors (temperature, precipitation atmospheric pressure etc) as well as on social medium. Nowadays, due to a rapid growth of available geophysical and paleoclimatic data on quasiperiodical variations of the Earth climate and a considerable advancement in the attendant methodology one can make comparative, quantitative studies of multifold relations between natural phenomena and their impact on economy, culture of large populations and human awareness. In our poster presentation we summarize modern scientific data supporting earlier findings which point to the presence of a roughly 2300 years long cycle in different solar-terrestrial phenomena. These data are based on careful studies of carbon ¹⁴C isotope concentrations temporal variations in tree rings, ice columns, temperature and precipitation long term runs records, in evolution of glaciers during Holocene plus independent proxy data of marine sediments, corals etc. These data are supplemented by such well-known diaagnostics of solar activity cycle as the number of dark solar spots and auroral activity. We confront some of these data with available historical records and discuss various manifestations of an impact of natural causes on human mentality for different cultures and geographic locations on our planet.