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The globalizing connections that defined the European Bronze Age in the second millennium BC either ended or abruptly changed in the decades around 1200 BC. The impact of climate change at 3.2 ka on such social changes has been debated for the eastern Mediterranean. This paper extends this enquiry of shifting human–climate relationships during the later Bronze Age into Europe for the first time. There, climate data indicate that significant shifts occurred in hydroclimate and temperatures in various parts of Europe ca. 3.2 ka. To test potential societal impacts, I review and evaluate archaeological data from Ireland and Britain, the Nordic area, the Carpathian Basin, the Po Valley, and the Aegean region in parallel with paleoclimate data. I argue that 1200 BC was a turning point for many societies in Europe and that climate played an important role in shaping this. Although long-term trajectories of sociopolitical systems were paramount in defining how and when specific societies changed, climate change acted as a force multiplier that undermined societal resilience in the wake of initial social disjunctures. In this way, it shaped, often detrimentally, the reconfiguration of societies. By impacting more directly on social venues of political recovery, realignment, and reorganization, climate forces accentuate societal crises and, in some areas, sustained them to the point of sociopolitical collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses and synthesizes the consequences of the archaeogenetic revolution to our understanding of mobility and social change during the Neolithic period in Europe (6500–2000 BC). In spite of major obstacles to a productive integration of archaeological and anthropological knowledge with ancient DNA data, larger changes in the European gene pool are detected and taken as indications for large-scale migrations during two major periods: the Early Neolithic expansion into Europe (6500–4000 BC) and the third millennium BC "steppe migration." Rather than massive migration events, I argue that both major genetic turnovers are better understood in terms of small-scale mobility and human movement in systems of population circulation, social fission and fusion of communities, and translocal interaction, which together add up to a large-scale signal. At the same time, I argue that both upticks in mobility are initiated by the two most consequential social transformations that took place in Eurasia, namely the emergence of farming, animal husbandry, and sedentary village life during the Neolithic revolution and the emergence of systems of centralized political organization during the process of urbanization and early state formation in southwest Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernist large housing estates in southern Europe developed between the 1950 and 1970s have suffered from dual physical decay and stigmatization over the last three to four decades, challenging public, para-public and private actors. This article addresses recent regeneration strategies and urban policies in Barcelona in a context of the 'marketization' of housing, austerity and a decrease in public resources. By means of a comparative approach, two regeneration projects of housing estates in Barcelona are analysed in terms of modes of governance and their social consequences since 2000. The mixed methodology consists of direct observations and analysis of the designs of the urban interventions; semi-structured interviews with the main urban actors and a sample of residents; and a tentative evaluation of recent social changes in these neighbourhoods. The results show: first, the positive outcomes of initiatives and the limits of the different strategies of urban regeneration carried out to address persistent forms of social exclusion; and second, the relation of these positive outcomes and limitations to changes in governance and the structure of land ownership, which constitutes a controversial aspect in the development of the projects. The role of different actors in regeneration and the reproduction of social inequalities and segregation are discussed. This points to the contingent nature of neoliberal governance as evidenced by the complexity and heterogeneity of its operation at the intra-urban scale even in apparently similar large housing estates in southern Europe. Modernist large housing estates in southern Europe developed between the 1950 and 1970s have suffered from dual physical decay and stigmatization over the last three to four decades, challenging public, para-public and private actors. This article addresses recent regeneration strategies and urban policies in Barcelona in a context of the 'marketization' of housing, austerity and a decrease in public resources. By means of a comparative approach, two regeneration projects of housing estates in Barcelona are analysed in terms of modes of governance and their social consequences since 2000. The mixed methodology consists of direct observations and analysis of the designs of the urban interventions; semi-structured interviews with the main urban actors and a sample of residents; and a tentative evaluation of recent social changes in these neighbourhoods. The results show: first, the positive outcomes of initiatives and the limits of the different strategies of urban regeneration carried out to address persistent forms of social exclusion; and second, the relation of these positive outcomes and limitations to changes in governance and the structure of land ownership, which constitutes a controversial aspect in the development of the projects. The role of different actors in regeneration and the reproduction of social inequalities and segregation are discussed. This points to the contingent nature of neoliberal governance as evidenced by the complexity and heterogeneity of its operation at the intra-urban scale even in apparently similar large housing estates in southern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relationship between social isolation and subjective health, considering that this relationship is potentially affected by endogeneity due to the presence of self-reported measures. Thus, if an increase in social isolation may impact the perception on health, alternative paths of causality may also be hypothesized. Using data from round 7 of the European Social Survey, we estimate an instrumental variable model in which isolation is explained as being a member of an ethnic minority and having experienced some serious family conflicts in the past. Our results confirm that changes in social isolation influence subjective general health. In particular, greater isolation produces a strong and significant deterioration of the perceived health status. With respect to the literature on social isolation and health, we try to advance it by supporting a path of causality running from social isolation to subjective health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]