What leads to the rise and fall of civilizations? In coastal Peru, early urban societies based on maritime fishing thrived from 5,800 to 3,600 years ago. Daniel Sandweiss at the University of Maine in Orono and his colleagues report that climate and environmental changes were critical to the rise of these societies (D. H. Sandweiss eta/. Proc. NatlAcad. Sci. USA 106,1359-1363; 2009). They find that environmental shifts are well recorded in coastal geological features, which correlate to high Andes glacial cores, notably in the sixth millennium bp, when small urban centres also emerged in southwestern Asia - the 'cradle of civilization'. But as the Peruvian coastal embayments disappeared, around 3,600 years ago, so too did the societies that depended on them.
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机译：是什么导致文明的兴衰？在秘鲁沿海，以海上捕鱼为基础的早期城市社会在5800年前发展到3600年前。 Orono缅因大学的Daniel Sandweiss及其同事报告说，气候和环境变化对于这些社会的崛起至关重要（D. H. Sandweiss eta /。Proc。NatlAcad。Sci。USA 106,1359-1363; 2009）。他们发现，环境变化在沿海地质特征中得到了很好的记录，这些特征与安第斯山脉高冰川核心相关，特别是在第六个千个基点，当时西南亚也出现了小型城市中心，即“文明的摇篮”。但是，随着大约3600年前秘鲁沿海风情的消失，依赖它们的社会也消失了。
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