Extreme climate events such as aridity, drought, flood, cyclone and stormy rainfall are expected to leave an impact on human society. They are also expected to generate widespread response to adapt and mitigate the sufferings associated with these extremes. Societal and cultural responses to prolonged drought include population dislocation, cultural separation, habitation abandonment, and societal collapse. A typical response to local aridity is the human migration to safer and productive areas. However, climate and culture can interact in numerous ways. We hypothesize that people may resort to modify dwelling environments by adapting new strategies to optimize the utility of available water by harvesting rain rather than migrating to newer areas. We review recent palaeoclimatological evidence for climate change during the Holocene, and match those data with archaeological and historical records to test our 'climate change-rainwater harvest' hypothesis.

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