CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL EVENTS IN ANTIQUITY AND EARLY MIDDLE AGES
a contribution to the archaeology of climate changes
The study of climate change of the past increasingly involves the scientific community. The interest in this topic certainly stems from the current focus on climate change and the often dramatic environmental situations that humans face today. We know that major historical events disrupted societies in Europe at the end of Roman Empire, and recent studies suggest that climatic phenomena also contributed to this state of crisis. This research aims to understand the human response to these kinds of environmental events in a geographical area between the Moselle and the Rhine Valleys during Late Antiquity and Early Middle Age.
One of the main points of this research is to collaborate with different disciplines. Sources will be collected not only from archaeological studies but also from geology, history, topography, as well as proxy data such as series made from dendrochronological data, pollen, soil study, etc.
All these data will be analyzed and compared with the ultimate goal of creating computational models that can simulate the complexity of human systems and resilience in dealing with certain events.