Glossary

Anatomically modern humans:
the present human species.
Apocalypse:
the revelation of the destiny of humanity.
(The) Armless Woman:
a dramatic myth or tale in which a young girl's hands or arms are mutilated to create animals.
ATU catalog:
the classification of storybook and fable frameworks from oral traditions.
Aurignacian:
the first European culture of anatomically modern humans dating from between the Heinrich events 4 and 3 (H4 and H3). A multiplication and diversification of artistic productions characterize this culture.
Biome:
a large type of biogeographical region determined by its climate (temperature, precipitation). A synthetic and universal list of biomes in 15 items includes desert and mountain regions, abiotic zones, alpine lawns and deserts. For the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, open tundra is distinct from taiga, the boreal coniferous forest. For temperate regions, we can distinguish temperate coniferous forests (cold temperate climate, humid), deciduous and mixed temperate forests (temperate, humid), temperate grasslands, savannahs and shrub lands (temperate, semi-arid), and finally Mediterranean forests, woodlands and scrub. For tropical and subtropical regions, the list of biomes includes tropical and subtropical coniferous forests, tropical and subtropical humid deciduous forests or rainforests, tropical and subtropical dry deciduous forests or tropical forests, tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannahs and shrub lands (semi-arid climate), mangroves (tropical – flooded) and flooded meadows and savannahs (tropical).
Boko Haram (word-for-word: “books are sins”):
A jihadist group in northern Nigeria, founded by itinerant preacher Mohamed Yusuf in 2002. The latter was first opposed to the Sufi brotherhoods and the Izala Salafist movement. The 2009 insurgency in northern Nigeria advocated by Boko Haram led to a violent reaction by the Nigerian army, in which Yusuf was killed. The process of radicalization reinforces an armed group with fierce methods targeting schools in particular, with many girls abducted. The largest abduction took place on 14 April 2014 in Chibok, where 276 female high school students aged 12 to 17 were captured during a raid on the city.
Çatal Höyük:
the site of a first “city” occupied from 9.56 to 6.34 ka, during and after the Holocene climatic optimum. The dwellings are those that result from the Neolithic revolution, including the consumption of milk from domestic animals which allowed a balanced diet and led to the spread of agriculture throughout the Anatolian plateau where Çatal Höyük is located.
Climatic gradient:
the sum of marginal variations in climatic variables. Climatic extremes (maximum heat, or cold) must correspond to a zero gradient, and strong instabilities to a maximum gradient.
Climate volatility:
the magnitude of climatic variations over time.
Clovis culture:
this late Paleolithic American culture existed before H0. It corresponds approximately to the Magdalenian period in Europe. The work of the Clovis points is similar to Solutrean techniques. Genetic analyses indicate a Clovis origin from Mesoamerican populations. Clovis is the name of the first archaeological site excavated in New Mexico.
Cold weathering:
a regional or universal degradation of the climate by cooling. It causes very severe impacts such as a decrease in biomass production, a reduction in human population in diversity and quantity, seasonal migration strategies and the pursuit of large game over long distances.
Cosmic hunting:
a myth or storytelling framework in which a hunter pursues a large game animal. This hunting continues to the stars, where constellations represent the hunter and the game.
Cosmogonic diver:
a myth of creation involving an animal coming up from the Earth from the bottom of the water. There is a probable Paleolithic representation dated 39.9 ka, and it is still present in religions of contemporary India. In the great diluvian myths of written tradition, the myth intervenes like an episode: in Chinese myths, a magician cannot stop the flood by spreading earth; in the myths of the Near and Middle East, the builder of the ark gathers a series of animals in recognition of the new emergence of the Earth.
Dansgaard–Oeschger event:
a small hot climatic variation.
Demeter and Persephone:
this mythological framework is based on two goddesses, usually mother and daughter. The mother is a sad elderly person following the kidnapping of her daughter, held in the underworld. Two seasons result from the fact that the girl cyclically leaves her underground residence.
Dragon slayer:
the theme of the dragon slayer has remained important in Eurasian cultures as well as other parts of the world that do not seem to coincide with the diffusion paths of the Neolithic revolution. The genealogy of the theme remains obscure and seems to follow an evolution from a two-season climate system (a battle between the sun and the Aurora Borealis, of which the therimeteor is the flying dragon) to a four-season system. In Celtic and Christian calendars there are four holiday periods for intercessor dragon slayers in the year at each seasonal optimum (high summer, etc.) ([LEQ 17], p. 1167). The rituals of dragon slayer myths aim to reduce the amplitude of the seasons in both cases. The dragon slayer is a myth of climate volatility mitigation, with rituals occurring in the middle of the season. The four dragon slayer festivals that remain in the Roman Catholic calendar are those of Saint George on April 23, Saint Martha on July 29, Saint Michael on September 29 and Saint Margaret on November 16.
Dry weathering:
the local degradation of the climate by decreasing rainfall. The largest recent extension of the Sahara desert was in Roman antiquity, for example. Geologists have characterized the Quaternary period based on the geological impacts of cold and dry weathering.
Fourier (Joseph):
this physicist and mathematician born in Auxerre, who lived from 1768 to 1830, introduced the first conception of the greenhouse effect based on his interest in heat exchanges in the interstellar medium. His techniques for decomposing functions into trigonometric series were a major and fundamental contribution to mathematical modeling.
GLOF:
a glacial lake outburst flood. It is a super-flood with sustainable landscape forming power resulting from the sudden failure of a natural dam retaining glacier meltwater. Anomalies in climatic time series (e.g. around 8.47 ka) are related to the greatest GLOFs, the ice sheet GLOFs.
Goddess O:
since Schellhas, representations of Mayan gods and goddesses have been cataloged according to the letters of the alphabet. The goddess O is represented as an old woman associated with dry wells.
Gravettian:
a European culture of the period between H3 and H2 whose epicenter was located in Central Europe and which differed from the Aurignacian culture which it succeeded in having a greater place for female representation, and by provincial developments such as the representation of hands with cut phalanges and the practice of ceramics.
Heinrich event:
a brutal event and strong cooling in the regions bordering the North Atlantic.
Holocene climatic optimum:
the maximum biomass production that occurred around 9 ka due to a humid and hot climate. This led in particular to a green Sahara, with monsoons reaching all of North Africa.
Ice sheet:
a huge continental glacier of the polar regions which, fracturing at the seaside, forms icebergs. The main ice sheets that remain today are Antarctica and Greenland. The Heinrich events were linked to two other ice sheets in the North Atlantic that were present in the Ice Ages, on the Canadian side and on the Scottish and Scandinavian sides.
Isotopic stage (marine oxygen):
the numbering of glacial and interglacial climatic cycles. Odd numbers indicate warmer interglacial periods, such as isotopic stage 1, in which we have been in since 14 ka. Even numbers indicate glacial phases. Isotopic stage 2 indicates the last glaciation, 4 indicates the penultimate, etc.
Last glacial maximum:
large glaciations begin with isotopic stage 12. The calculation gives maximum values for ice volume and sea level retreat to 22 ka in the last glaciation of isotopic stage 2. However, ice extent was greater in isotopic stages 12 and 6, for example.
Magdalenian:
the last period of the Upper Paleolithic, approximately between events H1 and H0. Significant differences between local traditions begin to emerge in this period.
Mesolithic:
the intermediate cultural period between the Paleolithic and Neolithic, of varying extent depending on the location due to the slow spread of agriculture. The period in question covers the Holocene climatic optimum, a hot and humid warming resulting in the expansion of forests, thus slowing down the progress of agriculture in this respect.
Milankovitch cycle:
a proposed explanation of the alternation of glacial and interglacial periods by variations in astronomical parameters.
Modernist crisis:
an internal crisis of the Catholic religion at the beginning of the 20th Century. Theology professors who were considered too “modern” were excluded from Catholic universities.
Natural product:
the natural production of biomass, which is almost entirely plant-based. Even today, many regions of the world still have a product, i.e. total wealth creation, which depends on the natural product. Climatic weathering is designated as such due to the decrease in the natural product.
Neolithic:
the beginnings of the productive economy from several diffusion centers, the Near East, China and Mesoamerica.
Normativity:
the ability of a system to recover a production of standards of good functioning in a disturbed universe.
Perennial culture:
the transmission, reproduction and transformation of a culture over a multigenerational time period.
Political religion:
an expression resulting from the self-justifications of the Italian fascist currents whose interest was underlined by the works of Emilio Gentile [GEN 05]. It characterizes a political movement with very violent practices and a weak program of proposals seeking to develop relations of instrumentalization of the religious field.
Political spirituality:
“Isn’t the most general political problem the one of truth? How can we link the way we share the true and the false and the way we govern ourselves and others? The will to found a completely new foundation for both, each by the other (discovering a completely different sharing through another way of governing oneself, and governing oneself completely differently from another sharing), that is what political spirituality is all about” ([FOU 01b], p. 849).
Resilience:
the ability to bounce back after a disruptive shock. Analyses of the consequences of major traumatic events focus on vulnerabilities and resilience induced by major risks. Resilience approaches are applied at the individual level, at the governance level of an organization or at the territorial level [MAT 14].
Solutrean:
a culture whose area of diffusion in Europe was a Franco-Spanish area from the period of the last glacial maximum, identified through a grazing and retouching technology that marks a very great mastery of stonework. This technological signature was later found in other Eurasian regions and even in the Clovis culture of the American West and Mesoamerica.
Spirituality:
“...the form of practices that postulate that, as it is, the subject is not capable of truth, but that, as it is, truth is capable of transfiguring and saving the subject” ([FOU 01b], p. 20).
Therianthropy:
a half-man, half-animal representation: for example, centaurs in the mythology of ancient Greece, half-man, half-horse creatures.
Therimeteor:
a representation of a monster composed of human, animal or plant elements and a spectacular great natural phenomenon: for example, the typhoon monster from the mythology of ancient Greece. The Aurignacian and Gravettian period theories are of simpler composition: for example, half Aurora Borealis, half snake.
Tricked ogre:
a large family of tales and myths based on a dramatic plot similar to that of the Cyclops Polyphemus duped by the cunning Ulysses. This dramatic plot has a link with a practice of mediation shamanism: the medium shaman negotiates with a Mother of the Animals in his cave for the return of game, which was rare. While the theme of the ogre or monster is common to all the first cultures of anatomically modern men, that of the tricked ogre appeared in the circumpolar period (cold weathering culture W3).
Trickster:
a prototype universal mischievous character, probably very old, dating back to the very first cultures of anatomically modern humans, and surviving through myths, tales and fables in contemporary cultures. They mediate between humans and the supernatural, and most often take an animal form: hare, fox, coyote, spider, etc. They use rhetorical tricks and play around with any frontier with seductive behavior. Their tricks, pranks and jokes in bad taste can lead to catastrophic consequences.
Trophic model:
an approach limited to food exchanges. This model combines cold or dry weathering with decreases in the natural product, the total biomass, depending on the climate.
Ubiquity:
the ability to live in very different biomes.
Wallace boundary:
a significant body of water that separates Asia from Australia and explains a separate biological evolution of animal kingdoms in these two parts of the world, taking the designations of Senda and Sahul in the Ice Age.
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