Adaptive Cycle

The present paper focuses on the life cycle of Argos during the early Mycenaean period (MH III/LH I-LH II), also taking into consideration the back-history of the settlement from the beginning of the MH period. On the basis of new evidence from the Aspis MH settlement, and using the Adaptive Cycle model for Argos and for nearby settlements (Lerna, Mycenae), we propose the existence not only of varied life paths for the different sites, but also of important potentials in the MH period that led Argos to great prosperity during the MH II phase, completing a whole AC by the end of the MH period. During the transitional phase (MH III/LH I), and despite a rather illusory image of continuous growth, as reflected in new buildings in the fortified acropolis of the Aspis, Argos enters a critical phase that then becomes apparent through the abandonment of certain residential areas and the relocation of some population groups within and probably beyond its borders. According to one possible scenario, a group of people moved, at the very beginning of MH III, from the Aspis acropolis probably to Mycenae, thus participating in its spectacular rise from the late MH period and onwards. In LH I-ΙΙΑ Argos is still in a phase of reorganisation, marked by the definite abandonment of the acropolis and changes in the social and economic domains. Only in LH IIB does Argos enter a phase of substantial renewal, as reflected in both the burial/ideological and the residential spheres through the respective establishment of a new burial ground at the Deiras and the rapid expansion of the settlement in the Lower Town upon the vestiges of the old cemetery. However, the critical phase in the transition to the LH period and the restraint of Argos' dynamic course irreversibly transformed it from a leader and a prime agent of the plain (in MH) into a secondary political power throughout the Mycenaean period.

(Introduction) The onset of the Lateglacial Interstadial in north-western Europe is characterised by significant climatic and environmental changes. In this unstable period, the first Azilian inventories appeared in the archaeological record. They were clearly related to Late Magdalenian behavioural traditions which were highly resilient during the unstable Late Weichselian Pleniglacial. However, changes in spatial organisation, subsistence strategies, resource procurement, and technical behaviour suggest that the hunter-gatherers increasingly adapted to a temperate environment during the Lateglacial Interstadial. In the mid-Lateglacial Interstadial, the so-called Federmesser-Gruppen occurred which also seemed to be related to a Magdalenian substratum. Inventories were usually recovered in a close association with forest environments. Thus, the temporal, spatial, behavioural, and ecological relationship of Late Magdalenian, Early Azilian, and Federmesser-Gruppen is crucial to understand the process of adaptation and, consequently, an important mechanism of behavioural evolution.
(Material and Methods) At first, a consistent high-resolution chronological framework was created in which climatic, geological, environmental, and archaeological data could be set in a reliable chronological order. In a next step, well dated assemblages from northern France and western Germany were compared to analyse the relationship between the Lateglacial archaeological complexes. Therefore, a technological analysis of lithic industries was used allowing an assessment of the behavioural evolution at different scales of space and time. A necessary objective of this approach is the discussion of intra- and inter-regional variability among the prehistoric inventories in the context of function and available natural resources. Moreover, these lithic studies had to be accompanied by spatial and faunal evidence to understand variations as part of an adaptive process.
(Results) The results of this comparative analysis indicate that the frequently propose technical impoverishment during the Lateglacial reflected an increasing knowledge about the locally and regionally available resources and their properties. In addition, the availability of other resources such as wood made the use of alternative systems possible. The development of some of these resources was not constantly and, thus, changes in the archaeological record also appeared cumulatively. Furthermore, the human willingness to change small things to prevent larger changes can be considered as a source of delayed reactions which in periods of  significant environmental variation can result in severe threshold situations for complete societies.
(Conclusion) In consequence, the process of adaptation in the Lateglacial can be described as inconstant and depended on the availability of alternatives. Therefore, many Magdalenian behaviours were still preserved during the Early Azilian but became unnecessary in an increasingly temperate environment. Moreover, the small scale adaptations and the neglect of a fundamental change in the behaviour resulted only during a period of severe and short-lived environmental fluctuations in a social collapse and reorganisation.

This paper deploys the adaptive cycle as a construct to understand the dynamics of community engagement and partnership building during an international service-learning project. A multidisciplinary team of USA-based university students collaborated with a local community in Zambia to build two ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrines. Post-field project reflection challenged the " product-first " view commonly held in service learning projects. Time was a central point of post-field reflection. Through critical scrutiny, the student team came to recognize that contextually sensitive relationship building had been essential in enabling community ownership of the project. The construct of the adaptive cycle provided a crucial analytical tool for tracing the process through which partners from very different backgrounds achieved a sense of common purpose and opened the way for an understanding of community engagement as weaving a thread through the complex dynamics of partnership. The adaptive cycle may be useful as a preparation and implementation framework for other service-learning projects emanating from institutions of higher education.