Climate history

Mediterranean mountainous areas and their valuable natural resources have long been attractive to human societies. The Peloponnese (southern Greece), with its complex topographic and climatic variability, has been the scenery for the development of numerous human communities. The existing paleovegetation records from the region derive mainly from lowland sites, while the vegetation succession of the mountains is not clearly understood. Herein, we focus on the sediment profile of Rakita, a wetland located in an isolated mountain basin in the northwestern Peloponnese. We combine pollen-based vegetation reconstruction with detailed historical and archeological data and analyze them within a broader well-connected region of the Peloponnese, characterized by an extensive coastline and central location in the Mediterranean trade system. In particular, we contextualize the pollen data with the detailed taxation registers, cadastres, and censuses produced by the Ottoman and Venetian authorities, which recorded agricultural production and population. The high-resolution pollen profile covers the last 1100 years, and thus we are able to look at more than a millennium of socioeconomic change that witnessed a variety of political and economic systems that controlled the Rakita upland area. We are able to study how these different systems impacted the area of Rakita, which has sizable environmental potential for human exploitation, yet is not easily accessible, and therefore not the first choice for human actors whose goal was to maximize agricultural production of the region. We discover that a smaller scale non-imperial but deeply market-oriented political system of the late medieval period, such as the Principality of Achaea, was more successful in intensifying land use even in such isolated locations as Rakita than the large imperial systems of the Byzantine or Ottoman empires, even during their most intensive phases of growth.

We wanted to draw attention to how men, who have been recklessly exploiting women's freedom for years, have kept women under control for thousands of years through insidious schemes. We wrote this book to spark a flame to rescue women from this straitjacket, to turn the fire created by this spark into a fireball with your valuable contributions, and to liberate women by breaking down the invisible walls surrounding them. Women's liberation will be the result of women's organized power. Long live women's organized power! Mehmet Yiğit AĞAOĞLU

The rapidly accelerating global warming of our time has reawakened interest in past periods of climatic change. While the scale and speed of twenty-firstcentury anthropogenic warming are unprecedented, historical experiences hold important information to situate the present. The past does not just provide the indispensable baselines for forecasting the future; it holds the available inventory of human responses to ‘socialise climate’. Crucially, it also helps us connect the abstract forecasts of global computer models to ‘lived’ regional experiences. The Nordic countries, specifically, have long been imagined in relation to their climatic setting. From the sixteenth-century descriptions of Olaus Magnus of the icy North and the idealisations of nineteenth-century romantic nationalism, their cold, harsh, snowy climate has been employed to set the Nordic countries apart (Sörlin 2024). Yet, just as elsewhere, interest in climate history has waxed and waned over time in accordance with perceived risks. The traditional entanglement of climate and society that characterised earlier natural histories fragmented during the nineteenth century with the proliferation of specialised academic disciplines. Attempts in the early twentieth century to enlist climate for the legitimation of colonialism and racism discredited the field for decades. Only during the 1970s did an integrated study of ‘historical climatology’ start to reemerge, building on the availability of new datasets. However, it was not until the current climate change became pressingly obvious, that the dispersed research communities of geographers, historians, archaeologists and other social and natural scientists once again galvanised into a coherent field.

In this study, I have made use of agricultural and meteorological data from late eighteenth-century pastor Wilse in Spydeberg, southeastern Norway, to analyse the impact of climate extremes on a premodern farming society. His farm records from the 1770s are used to improve an existing GDD model and then tested, by using his measured weather data, on the warm and cold summers of 1783 and 1784 respectively. The improved GDD model demonstrates that the 1784 climate anomaly had the potential to severely affect the crops. Contemporary accounts from other parts of southeastern Norway support the model result by reporting widespread harvest failures. Even though Norway is particularly susceptible to climate variations, the importance of climate extremes for these events has been little discussed among Norwegian historians. However, an integrated approach can be used to move beyond mere correlation between climate and human proxies towards some level of causation and contribute with new insights on the role of climatic stress for sociopolitical changes in the past.

Ως γεωγραφικός και πολιτικός σχηματισμός στην «καθ’ ημάς Ανατολή», το Βυζάντιο αποτελεί διάδοχο μορφή της αυτοκρατορίας του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου, των ελληνιστικών βασιλείων και των ανατολικών επαρχιών της Ρωμαϊκής αυτοκρατορίας. Αντίθετα με τις περισσότερες πολιτικές οντότητες, ακόμη και η χρονολογία της ίδρυσής του είναι ασαφής, ακριβώς λόγω της αδιάσπαστης συνέχειάς του με την ύστερη Ρώμη. Η μονοκρατορία του Μεγάλου Κωνσταντίνου το 324, τα εγκαίνια της Νέας Ρώμης – Κωνσταντινούπολης το 330 και η διαίρεση του κράτους σε ανατολικά και δυτικά τμήματα με το θάνατο του Μεγάλου Θεοδοσίου το 395 αποτελούν τα πιο δημοφιλή ορόσημα. Τον 4ο αιώνα λοιπόν το Βυζάντιο φύεται έτοιμο, ώριμο και πλήρως ανεπτυγμένο πολιτικά και εδαφικά, όπως η Αθηνά ξεπήδησε πάνοπλη από την κεφαλή του Διός. Ο Αυστριακός βυζαντινολόγος Johannes Koder ορθώς παρατηρεί ότι «δεν θα βρούμε για παράδειγμα την επέκταση ενός αρχικά μικρού (λ.χ. φυλετικά οργανωμένου) οικιστικού κυττάρου εν μέσω φυσικών τοπίων, αλλά μια σταδιακή, εν μέρει μόνο συνειδητή, μεταμόρφωση της Ρωμαϊκής Αυτοκρατορίας». Η αναζήτηση λοιπόν ενός κάποιου πυρήνα δεν μπορεί να ακολουθήσει την πορεία από τη γένεση στην επέκταση.

We present an overview of selected papers published since 2000 that interpret Late Quaternary multi-proxy palaeoclimate records from Turkey and the surrounding region of the Near-Middle East and Mediterranean region. Existing records in Turkey are rather limited in their resolution, and the locations studied thus far re ect a limited spatial and temporal distribution. Because Turkey is a very large country with numerous mountains that a ect local weather conditions and create complex feedbacks, it is di cult to correlate trends across the broad landscape, and beyond. Published instrumental records are too short, and most palaeoclimate proxy records, including many lakes studied in Cappadocia and Konya, are low resolution. e Anatolian peninsula is sensitive to spatial and temporal shi s in the con guration, strength and persistence of global circulation patterns a ecting the Mediterranean climate zone, including the mid-latitude westerlies, the continental climate system anchored over northern Asia and Siberia, and the Afro-Asian monsoonal system. As such, there is a strong need for additional new, high quality, well dated, and high-resolution multi-proxy records from more sites in Turkey. Deciphering the complexities of environmental change in central-interior and eastern regions of Turkey is particularly problematic, due to the paucity of published records. Additional observations of climate variability at the decadal-to-centennial scale are essential to better understand the ascendant controls on climate variation, the in uence of rapid climate changes (RCCs) recognized in the marine record, and the causal mechanisms involved. Because the IPCC models forecast desiccation for Turkey and other drought-prone regions, it is particularly important to understand the natural baseline of hydroclimate variation across the broader Middle East and Mediterranean region. Additional study of past conditions has tremendous potential to inform the policy and practices of the future.

The Fate of Rome is the rst book of its kind. No other monograph has so infused Late Antiquity with state-of-the-art paleoscience or highlighted the place of climate and disease in the story of Rome's fall. It is Harper's third book in seven years and despite being his rst environmental history and a synthesis it is ambitious and bold.

Il y a environ 1 500 ans, la « Peste de Justinien » frappait de vastes régions d'Europe, d'Asie et d'Afrique – et est considérée comme la première pandémie « mondiale » de l'histoire. Une nouvelle étude de l'Académie autrichienne des sciences apporte un nouvel éclairage sur ses origines possibles et ses voies de propagation. Elle montre à quel point les changements climatiques et les routes commerciales étaient déjà étroitement liés à cette époque et offre un aperçu des débuts des épidémies mondiales.

27.08.2025 (publication de la version originale allemande par l'Académie autrichienne des sciences:
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/news/justinianische-pest-wie-klima-und-handel-die-erste-pandemie-der-geschichte-befeuerten-1)

L'étude complète (accès libre): Preiser-Kapeller, J., McGrath, W.A., Pfister, R. et al. The Circulation of Yersinia pestis in Central Eurasia before and during the First Plague Pandemic (Second to Eighth Century CE): Palaeogenetic and Historical Evidence and Sociopolitical, Ecological, and Climatic Factors. Human Ecology (2025).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-025-00617-6

An exhibition guide to accompany 'Ruskin's Perspectives: The Art of Abstraction' exhibition on-site at Brantwood and digital exhibitions and related publications.

Ruskin’s Perspectives: The Art of Abstraction
22 July – 25 September 2022, Blue Gallery, Brantwood

John Ruskin was fascinated by form and pattern, proportion and symmetry, in the world around us. He used the processes of abstraction to communicate his thoughts through the composition of his works: spheres, cones, crystals, planes and spirals. This second exhibition in the ‘John Ruskin in the Age of Science’ series placed Ruskin alongside his nineteenth-century scientific contemporaries, exploring his influence on science and society, in his time and our own. In partnership with The Royal Society and Brantwood, the exhibition draws on a cultural history of maths to explore nineteenth century scientific ideas about the relationship of things and their properties to each other.

Around 1,500 years ago, the "Plague of Justinian" struck large parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa-and is considered the first "global" pandemic in history. A new study by the Austrian Academy of Sciences now sheds new light on its possible origins and routes of spread. It shows how closely climatic changes and trade routes were already intertwined at that time and provides insights into the early history of global epidemics. 27.08.2025 (publication of the original German version by the Austrian Academy of Sciences: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/news/justinianische-pest-wie-klima-und-handel-die-erste-pandemie-der-geschichte-befeuerten-1 )

The press release refers to this study (open access): Preiser-Kapeller, J., McGrath, W.A., Pfister, R. et al. The Circulation of Yersinia pestis in Central Eurasia before and during the First Plague Pandemic (Second to Eighth Century CE): Palaeogenetic and Historical Evidence and Sociopolitical, Ecological, and Climatic Factors. Hum Ecol (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-025-00617-6

From the 6th to the 8th century CE, devastating waves of plague repeatedly ravaged Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa. The origins of this first "global" pandemic remain a mystery to this day. An international research team coordinated by historians from the Austrian Academy of Sciences has reexamined possible causes of this catastrophe. English Version of the press release by the Austrian Press Agency (https://science.apa.at/power-search/14844575972489939791) on our new study in Human Ecology: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-025-00617-6

Mediterranean mountainous areas and their valuable natural resources have long been attractive to human societies. The Peloponnese (southern Greece), with its complex topographic and climatic variability, has been the scenery for the development of numerous human communities. The existing paleovegetation records from the region derive mainly from lowland sites, while the vegetation succession of the mountains is not clearly understood. Herein, we focus on the sediment profile of Rakita, a wetland located in an isolated mountain basin in the northwestern Peloponnese. We combine pollen-based vegetation reconstruction with detailed historical and archeological data and analyze them within a broader well-connected region of the Peloponnese, characterized by an extensive coastline and central location in the Mediterranean trade system. In particular, we contextualize the pollen data with the detailed taxation registers, cadastres, and censuses produced by the Ottoman and Venetian authorities, which recorded agricultural production and population. The high-resolution pollen profile covers the last 1100 years, and thus we are able to look at more than a millennium of socioeconomic change that witnessed a variety of political and economic systems that controlled the Rakita upland area. We are able to study how these different systems impacted the area of Rakita, which has sizable environmental potential for human exploitation, yet is not easily accessible, and therefore not the first choice for human actors whose goal was to maximize agricultural production of the region. We discover that a smaller scale non-imperial but deeply market-oriented political system of the late medieval period, such as the Principality of Achaea, was more successful in intensifying land use even in such isolated locations as Rakita than the large imperial systems of the Byzantine or Ottoman empires, even during their most intensive phases of growth.

Tra la fine del Medioevo e l'Età moderna, anche il Piemonte fu colpito dalla Piccola era glaciale. In questo articolo, si analizza una cronaca meteorologica redatta da un anonimo abitante di Cherasco, piccola località in provincia di Cuneo, tra il 1570 e il 1601. Osservando attentamente questo scritto, si può notare come aumentino di anno in anno le segnalazioni di eventi meteorologici estremi, che portano a carestie, disastri naturali e morti causate dall'eccessivo freddo. Lo studio mette in luce come le oscillazioni climatiche abbiano inciso non solo sull’economia rurale, ma anche sulla vita sociale e sulla capacità di resilienza delle comunità piemontesi.

I n this article we present evidence for the existence of a previously unrecognised period in the Bronze Age sequence at Troy and for its dating in both absolute and relative terms. In a previous article (Weninger, Easton 2014) we suggest that in the sequence established by Carl Blegen's excavations (1932)(1933)(1934)(1935)(1936)(1937)(1938) a gap of 100-200 years exists between Troy III and Troy IV. We now propose that, while this gap is attested in the Blegen sequence, there are a number of deposits known from the new excavations under Manfred Korfmann and Ernst Pernicka (1987-2012) which have been attributed to IV or even V and which in fact bridge it. We also argue that some of the deposits uncovered by Heinrich Schliemann's work (1870-1890) may do the same. Since Blegen's sequence has been generally accepted as the defining one for the site, and the new deposits represent a time-span and a development not represented

King of the gods

“As polytheistic systems evolve, there is a tendency for one deity to achieve preeminence as king of the gods, for example, by being their (sky) father. This tendency can parallel the growth of hierarchical systems of political power in which a monarch eventually comes to assume ultimate authority for human affairs. Other gods come to serve in a Divine Council or pantheon; such subsidiary courtier-deities are usually linked by family ties from the union of a single husband or wife, or else from an androgynous divinity who is responsible for the creation. Historically, subsequent social events, such as invasions or shifts in power structures, can cause the previous king of the gods to be displaced by a new divinity, who assumes the displaced god’s attributes and functions. Frequently, the king of the gods has at least one wife who is the queen of the gods. According to feminist theories of the replacement of original matriarchies by patriarchies, male sky gods tend to supplant female (motherly) earth goddesses and achieve omnipotence. There is also a tendency for kings of the gods to assume more and more importance, syncretistically assuming the attributes and functions of lesser divinities, who come to be seen as aspects of the single supreme deity.”

“Examples of kings of the gods in different cultures include:

In the Mesopotamian Anunnaki, Enlil displaces Anu and is in turn replaced by Marduk.
In the Ancient Egyptian religion, Amun was the official god of the Pharaoh and the people of Egypt.
In the Canaanite pantheon, Baal (Hadad) displaces El.
In the Hurrian/Hittite pantheon, Teshub or Tarḫunz or Arinna displaces Kumarbi.
In the Armenian Ar, later – Aramazd.
In Hinduism, the King of the Gods is Indra, The God of Thunder and lightning and the ruler of heaven.
In the Ancient Greek system of Olympian Gods, Cronus displaces Uranus, and Zeus in turn displaces Cronus.
Ancient Iranian Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrians.
Dravidian religions: the Supreme Being in Dravidian religion was usually Sivaperuman and had supreme gods and goddesses based on lands including Murugan, Kadalon, Vendhan, Korravai, Thirumal.
In Norse mythology, Odin assumes the role as the Allfather or King of the Gods, but Norse mythology has multiple tribes of Gods such as the Æsir and Vanir, and Odin starts off as only the leader of the former.”

“The following are the characteristics shared by virtually all Kings of the gods:

Creation: Most of these gods derive their power from the fact that they created the world, formulated its laws and/or created life forms, notably humans. Examples: Ra, Odin.
Dominion over the sky: Many such deities hold control over all aspects of the sky, such as weather, rain, thunderstorms, air, winds and celestial objects like stars. They also control some aspects of Earth like harvest, fertility, plants or mountains. Examples: Zeus, Hadad, Jupiter.
Lightning bolts as personal weapons: Commonly seen with sky gods.
Divine Wisdom: Some Kings of Gods possess superior wisdom and clairvoyance, compared to most beings. Examples: Ra, Odin.
God of the Sun, Daylight or Celestial Fire: Some kings of gods are associated with the Sun, as it is life-giving and is a powerful symbol of order. They are said to be in charge of celestial fire, which is purifying by nature. Daylight is also an important phenomenon, as most events take place under its presence. Examples: Ra, Dyaus Pitr.
Conquest, Law, Justice, Order, Time and Fate: Most kings of gods have the ability to control the events of battle and grant victory to those who deserve it. They are seen as paragons of law and promote order. They are seen as powerful manifestations of their respective civilizations. Some gods either possess great skill in war or tremendous physical strength. Some of them have some control over time and regulate it with seasons. Others have limited control over the fate of a human. Examples: Zeus, Odin, Ra, Jupiter.
Divine authority over other gods: This may be because the concerned head of the pantheon is the father or creator of many gods and goddesses who swear allegiance to him. As a result, the king of the gods makes sure that all deities function properly, punish them for misdeeds, grant or take away immortality from lesser gods etc. Examples: Zeus, Odin, Enlil.
Divine rival: In some cases, there may be another god, who is equal in supernatural power and thinks he can do a better job than the current king. This often results in conflict, and in extreme cases, war. Examples: Ra and Apophis; Osiris, Set and Horus; Apollo vs Python ; Mitra and the Daeva; Zeus and Poseidon; Cronos and Uranus; Typhon and Zeus; etc.”

Abstract: The Earth's oceans are a restless symphony, pulsing with forces that ripple from tropical storms to polar ice melt. In the Southern Ocean, sea ice is retreating, surface salinity is increasing, and carbon-rich deep waters are rising, which is accelerating ice shelf collapse and potentially releasing vast stores of CO2, as detailed in a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In the tropical Pacific, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) oscillates between warm El Niño and cool La Niña phases, orchestrating global weather patterns that result in droughts in Australia, floods in Peru, and shifts in Antarctic sea ice.

Deuteronomy 32:8-9: This biblical passage provides evidence of the El (supreme god of East Semitic speakers 2900-2350 BCE, god EL who is used around 250 times in the early bible) as the father of Yahweh (ancient Semitic deity god of the bible, national god of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel). It describes how El Elyon (God Most High) divided the nations among his sons, with Yahweh receiving Israel as his portion.

This chapter asks what insights long-term historical information from before the Great Acceleration and Anthropocene might offer to policy and practice in the twenty-first century. Conventional sustainability research usually focuses on shallower time horizons that could miss insightful environmental and social processes evolving over centuries to millennia. Although we push for increased engagement with historical researchers, parallels between pre-modern and contemporary environmental and societal challenges need to be treated with caution. So-called cases of societal collapse-often associated with environmental calamities-provide limited or at best flawed parallels with challenges faced today. The pitfalls of reductionism and determinism that often attend collapse discourse account for social agency and complexity in incomplete and unconvincing ways. Instead, we argue that historical evidence should serve as context to environmental problems faced today, as antecedents of the accelerated environmental change of later modernity rather than as direct analogies. Historical antecedents can be understood, to an extent, as previous

[..,]
Várias mensagens correram pela rede da internet com
questionamento sobre se o atual secretário de Estado para
Segurança Energética e Balanço (de carbono) Zero, Ed Miliband,
notório militante ambientalista (ex-líder do PT do RU) e o primeiroministro,
Keir Starmer, estão tentando enviar o Reino Unido de volta
à Idade das Trevas.
É assim que tais políticos que dão total precedência às agendas de
destruição ambientalista trabalham. Nenhuma prioridade em
atender às necessidades da população. Justamente durante o
inverno, período em que as pessoas mais precisam de eletricidade
para prover algum conforto contra o frio, elas simplesmente não a
têm porque decisões estúpidas foram tomadas para se chegar ao
caos que aflora nos tempos atuais. Miliband deveria ser secretário da
Resiliência Zero, assim como a maior parte dos políticos espalhados
pelo mundo que fazem da estupidez a sua doutrina. Lembra bem o
que o deputado norte-americano Scott Perry disse ao então membro
do governo Biden para as “mudanças climáticas”, John Kerry, em
audiência na Câmara dos Deputados, em 13/7/2023: “Você quer gastar US$ 1,6 quatrilhão em um problema que não existe –
Cientistas do clima estão trapaceando como você”. Até quando
vamos suportar a farsa climática?
Apesar das supostas “elevações de emissões constantes” durante
todos esses anos, os EUA tiveram o quinto mês de janeiro mais frio
da Era dos Satélites. Esse mês foi mais frio que janeiro de 1981 em
1 C (1,8 F), janeiro de 1990 em 13,4 C (7,3 F) e janeiro de 2006 em
16,7 C (9,3 F). Os valores das anomalias de temperatura foram
baseados na normal climatológica de 1991-2020.[...]

What if the unraveling of a multiethnic rural society in Ottoman Kurdistan had as much to do with distant ocean currents in the Pacific as with imperial reforms or communal tensions? Could the breakdown of coexistence between Armenian peasants and Kurdish pastoralists be traced not only to sectarianism or nationalism, but also to the timing and intensity of El Niño and La Niña events? In The Political Ecology of Violence, Zozan Pehlivan opens new historiographical terrain by treating global climate as a key actor in the region's history. Focusing on the environmental fallout of ENSO-linked weather anomalies, especially the droughts and cold spells of the late nineteenth century, she demonstrates how ecological disturbances reshaped the region's diverse landscapes and destabilized both human and nonhuman life. These disruptions, she argues, were central to the erosion of intercommunal relations and the eventual escalation into violence.

Aim: The Expansion-Contraction model has been used to explain the responses of species to climatic changes. During periods of unfavourable climatic conditions, species retreat to refugia from where they may later expand. This paper focuses on the palaeoecology of red deer over the past 54 ka across Europe and the Urals, to reveal patterns of change in their range and explore the role of environmental conditions in determining their distribution. Location: Europe and western Asia to 63°E. Taxon: Red deer (Cervus elaphus). Methods: We collected 984 records of radiocarbon-dated red deer subfossils from the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene, including 93 original dates. For each deer sample we compiled climatic and biome type data for the corresponding time intervals. Results: During the last 54 ka changes in red deer range in Europe and the Urals were asynchronous and differed between western and eastern Europe and western Asia due to different environmental conditions in those regions. The range of suitable areas for deer during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was larger than previously thought and covered vast regions not only in southern but also in western and eastern Europe. Throughout the period investigated the majority of specimens inhabited forests in the temperate climatic zone. The contribution of forests in deer localities significantly decreased during the last 4 ka, due to deforestation of Europe caused by humans. Mean January temperature was the main limiting factor for species distribution. Over 90% of the samples were found in areas where mean January temperature was above -10°C. Main conclusions: Red deer response to climatic oscillations are in agreement with the Expansion-Contraction model but in contradiction to the statement of only the southernmost LGM refugia of the species. During the last 54 ka red deer occurred mostly in forests of the temperate climatic zone.

Contexto/Objetivo: El artículo estudia el acceso a temperaturas frías naturales de extracción local (nieve) por parte de la población de Lima durante la primera mitad del siglo XIX, cuando se produce el desmantelamiento de estructuras coloniales que facilitaban la producción de la misma y que ahora serán reemplazadas por la importación de hielo proveniente del extranjero, como consecuencia de cambios operados en transporte y en la formación de un mercado global del frío, del cual el litoral del Pacífico formó parte. Metodología: El ensayo utiliza un enfoque cualitativo que se sostiene en una aproximación social y económica al determinar los actores involucrados en los procesos de producción del frío natural así como de historia medioambiental al estudiar la tensión entre el entorno y dichos agentes, tanto humanos como no-humanos. Originalidad: La historia del comercio de la nieve y el hielo (y por extensión, la historia del frío) ha sido muy estudiada para el Norte Global mas no así en el Sur, por lo que este texto brinda aproximaciones iniciales para conectar dichas regiones y dichos productos. Conclusiones: La transición política del Antiguo Régimen al nuevo orden republicano en Perú determinó el acceso a nuevas fuentes de temperatura fría y desestabilizó las fuentes locales de aprovisionamiento.

https://presses-universitaires.univ-amu.fr/fr/actualites/guerre-culture-equestre-monde-grec

Philippe II et Alexandre le Grand ont bouleversé les équilibres politiques et militaires du monde grec classique. En développant une pensée militaire fondée sur la coordination des armes et non sur le primat de l’infanterie, ils ont donné à la cavalerie une importance tactique nouvelle. L’épopée d’Alexandre inaugure une conception de la guerre dans laquelle les chevaux sont des acteurs essentiels, infléchissant la stratégie et la logistique de campagne. Dès lors, la production, la formation et la remonte des chevaux de guerre constituent des enjeux de la construction des royaumes hellénistiques. Les cités emboîtent le pas aux monarchies avec leurs ressources, réformant leurs cavaleries, ce qui implique de trouver des chevaux mais aussi des hommes capables de les monter et de les entretenir. Le consensus social établi entre les autorités civiques et les élites cavalières diffère fortement d’une cité à l’autre en fonction de la culture équestre locale, c’est-à-dire des usages, pratiques et représentations des hommes de cheval mais aussi du cadre politique, économique et social de la cité. Les cultures équestres régionales ont donc en partie déterminé la capacité des cités à développer leurs cavaleries, mais, en retour, les mutations politiques et militaires de l’époque hellénistique ont considérablement influencé la culture équestre des élites en renouvelant leurs pratiques et en l’associant plus fortement qu’avant aux destinées politiques de la cité, à ses valeurs et à son système de représentation.

Die Ausstellung im Kunstmuseum in Chiasso zeigt eine Fülle von Plakaten, Kunstwerken, Prospekten, Eisenbahnmodellen und anderen Objekten. Das Museum hat eine beachtliche Objektauswahl aus verschiedensten Museen und Sammlungen Italiens und der Schweiz zusammengetragen. Die Ausstellung umfasst einen Überblick der Werbemassnahmen europäischer Bahnen der Belle Epoque, dem ersten und damals einzigen Massenverkehrsmittel zu Lande. Ein Saal widmet sich dem Corporate Design der SBB nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. In der Ausstellung spielt das Marketing der Gotthardbahn-Gesellschaft, die 1909 verstaatlicht wurde, eine prominente Rolle. Die Ausstellung in Chiasso befindet sich zudem an einem Ort, den die Gotthardbahn-Gesellschaft und die SBB als Grenz-, Rangier-und Umsteigeort prägen.

In Göschenen und Airolo ist für den Bau der zweiten Autobahnröhre
einmal mehr schweres Baugerät aufgefahren. Obwohl viele der Arbeiten
in den Berg hinein verlegt wurden, ist in Göschenen die Veränderung
gut zu sehen und zu hören. Der Staub der Sprengungen und des Abtransports des Aushubs legt sich im Dorf sanft nieder. Die Unterkünfte für die knapp 200 Arbeiter und die Kantine setzen markante bauliche Akzente.

The small scale is recognized as a necessary rebuttal to macroscalar narratives of climate-society relationships in the past, and archeologists and historians have increasingly turned to advocating smaller and shorter scales of analysis and interpretation, from "microclimates" to interannual droughts and single settlement histories. Such provocations rightly caution against the dangers of oversimplification and determinism in recent planetary or Earth-systems approaches to human history, as well as push scholars to acknowledge human-scale experiences: weather, seasonality, landscape change. When it comes to smaller-scale remains, however, like those of household practices, we often consider them data or proxies that validate larger-scale arguments about societal persistence or economic vulnerability. Yet the material and ideational ways that people in premodern worlds made sense of their surroundings, especially via gendered and class-based rhythms of production and consumption, were deeply entwined in the politics of everyday household life. What would a household archeology of climate entail? In this paper I highlight how households themselves were critical sites of environmental construction, experience and history-making through a selection of examples of archeological work from the Mediterranean. I argue that archeologists can critically rethink themes of persistence and adaptation by taking seriously the scalar constructions and varied politics of domestic life.

Single-to multiple-year drought episodes posed significant challenges for agrarian communities across southern Africa during the 19th century, and hence are widely recorded in a variety of historical documents. However, the ways in which droughts are articulated, and the focus of individual accounts, varies considerably between different authors and historical source types. This study draws on a range of documentary source typesspecifically newspapers, letters, reports and diariesto explore the varied narratives associated with three protracted droughts (those of 1861-63, 1876-79 and 1895-97) that affected large areas of the subcontinent. The analysis spans four case study areaspresent day KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), Lesotho, Malawi, and the southern Kalahari (Botswana and South Africa)which were investigated as part of different interdisciplinary projects. We explore issues common to all case study areas, including (i) how specific drought events are framed, and (ii) what is and is not reported about individual droughts across different source types. We conclude that different source types in the subcontinent may be more or less appropriate for addressing the specific objectives of historical climatology, particularly in relation to historical drought. Sources such as newspapers and weather diaries are rich in qualitative and quantitative observations suitable for the reconstruction of temporal and spatial patterns of weather and climate, as well as climaterelated natural disasters. In contrast, letters, reports and personal journals, especially those written by missionaries, provide additional qualitative narratives through which to investigate the vulnerability of past societies and economies to climate variations, and to explore past discourses and social representations of climate. While studies of this kind have been published for European and American source types, this is the first systematic exploration of documentary sources for the historical climatology of Africa. It should therefore provide a guide for climate history studies elsewhere in the continent, or other regions where written records are absent prior to the arrival of European colonists.

The importance to Jewish history and identity of the events of the 160s BCE cannot be overstated: the Maccabean Revolt against Seleucid rule laid the political groundwork for the emergence of the independent kingdom of Judea and set its ideological direction. Among the critical episodes of that decade mentioned in narrative sources are two famines said to have been so severe that they altered the course of the rebellion. These have been little examined heretofore; however, recently improved dating of atmospheric aerosol records derived from polar ice cores and geoscientific studies of the impacts of volcanic eruptions on climatic and social conditions provide a new lens through which the consecutive famines can be understood, supporting the contention that volcanic forcing of the environment was a significant contributory factor for both occurrences. In addition, this fresh perspective enables a reassessment of the textual sources concerning these seminal episodes of Judean history.

Large volcanic eruptions can have a substantial impact on climate across the globe. These climatic disturbances can, in turn, have severe human consequences – often very remote from the original eruption. To understand how such eruptions have impacted history (and may impact society in the future) we need to understand how eruptions, climate and society interact. Recent research has done much to clarify the climatic effects of volcanic activity, particularly relating to summer temperatures, while winter temperatures and the impact of multiple eruptions are the subject of ongoing research. Less well understood (or perhaps less agreed upon) is how human societies interact with such volcanic climate change. Many studies have identified the coincidence of eruption events and human calamities, but often the extent of causality has been less clear. This has left many questions still to be addressed: To what extent can we attribute social impacts to volcanic eruptions? How do different eruptions impact different societies and is there any consistency between these impacts? And why are some societies more or less affected by certain certain eruptions?

To address such questions, this workshop will bring together experts from many different disciplines, studying a variety of geographic regions. The aim is to generate a better understanding of volcano-climate-society interactions and help develop a more robust methodology for attributing social impacts to volcanic climate changes. Presentations, hands-on workshops and roundtable discussions will consider the geophysical evidence for past volcanic eruptions (which informs historical and climatological studies), historical case studies, and key questions relating to volcanoclimate-society interactions. Outcomes will hopefully include a more general understanding of the historic impacts of volcanic eruptions and an improved knowledge of the different factors that mediate the impact climate change on human societies.

In una recente intervista, il pianista Stefano Bollani si è espresso con queste parole sulla crisi ambientale e climatica del nostro pianeta: «Penso che siamo vicini alla fine del mondo. Il modo in cui la affronteremo dipende da come la dipingiamo e interpretiamo, se come una catastrofe o come un cambiamento. Io sono per la seconda ipotesi. Per un bruco, l'apocalisse è diventare farfalla. Ci troviamo a questo punto: dobbiamo decidere se ideare un mondo nuovo e metterlo in pratica, unendo le nostre forze creative e inventive, oppure se rassegnarci alla fine. Del resto, il pianeta sopravviverà comunque, con o senza di noi. Forse, senza di noi che lo infestiamo, starà anche meglio. Se però vogliamo rimanerci, dobbiamo deciderlo con chiarezza e agire di conseguenza. È doveroso fare un passo in avanti e fare sì che i matti e gli eretici vengano fuori e offrano anche loro idee per un nuovo mondo. Questo è il momento delle idee nuove, non della tutela di quelle vecchie […] 1 ». Sono tanti gli apocalittici che percepiscono la crisi ambientale in modo più o meno originale. Si accorgono che stiamo declinando su una strada senza ritorno, a meno che non si provveda ad affrontarla seriamente con scelte tempestive e condivise a livello globale. Se anche l'inesperto percepisce il pericolo, senza poterne interpretare gli elementi di contorno, accostiamoci a chi ha studiato i problemi della crisi climatica e del degrado dell'ambiente mettendo in gioco la competenza storica. Sono studiosi di formazione interdisciplinare, con il sussidio di scienziati, chimici, biologi, geologi e altri specialisti, i quali stanno ricostruendo il passato del nostro pianeta e dell'umanità che lo ha colonizzato. Offrono interpretazioni della situazione attuale, effetto di scelte umane, condizionate dagli aspetti morfologici, geologici e climatici dell'ambiente, che a loro volta le civiltà hanno contribuito a modellare per rispondere ai propri bisogni. Il primo fra gli storici ad interessarsi all'ambiente fu Marc Bloch nei lontani anni '30 del Novecento, seguito poi da molti altri, dal nostro Emilio Sereni a Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie a Wolfgang Behringer e Robert Delort, che è anche biologo e a Brian M. Fagan, che è anche antropologo. È inevitabile mettere in discussione la visione di potenza del genere umano, che, nella sua pervicace tensione a sottomettere la natura ai propri bisogni, sta generando squilibri ambientali tali da mettere in pericolo sé stesso. Infatti se l'ambiente, come naturalmente accade, si evolverà alla ricerca di un nuovo equilibrio, non è detto che questo comprenda la presenza umana. È indispensabile quindi accettare l'idea che l'uomo sia uno degli infiniti esseri animati e inanimati presenti sul pianeta con i quali deve convivere accettando i propri limiti. Il progresso tecnico-scientifico millenario, che ha consentito di raggiungere gli attuali livelli di benessere, è l'altra faccia della medaglia del saccheggio del pianeta: non si deve dimenticare che è l'uomo ad aver bisogno del pianeta, non il contrario. Per questo motivo, una riflessione sulla didattica della storia deve prevedere che il concetto di ambiente attraversi tutto il curricolo verticale non solo di storia, ma anche di altre discipline, come del resto sollecitano l'Agenda 2030 e il DM 35 sull'insegnamento dell'Educazione Civica. È indispensabile quindi assumere un'ottica interdisciplinare per sollecitare consapevolezza negli studenti verso i problemi ambientali e per valorizzarli nel curricolo di storia in una triplice valenza eco-geo-storica.

The period from around 1450 to 1550 in Europe is extremely interesting from the perspective of research on extreme weather events. It was a period of events that strongly influenced the societies and economies of the Old Continent. So far, the literature has been more focused on western and northern Europe. Concerning the region of central Europe, the greatest attention was paid to the Czech Republic or Hungary. This article revolves around the Polish lands, which experienced their greatest economic boom in the 16th century. We consider whether and how the droughts of the decade from 1531 to 1540 might have affected the country's economic development. We analyse a number of written sources which are the product of the treasury apparatus of the time (tax registers, data from water customs, tax exemptions, inventories of land estates etc.), but also information on fluctuations in product prices in the most important cities in this part of Europe. The work not only provides a detailed account of economic data, but also attempts to reflect on the relevance of linking information on fires in urban centres in the period characterized by weather extremes.

The Fimbulwinter hypothesis refers to the idea of a sudden 6 th-century climate crisis heavily affecting Scandinavian societies, causing widespread depopulation and societal upheaval. However, a critical examination of the climatic, paleo-botanical, and archaeological data reveals a complex pattern of different regional trajectories that contest the idea of a uniform crisis. In this paper I present a novel socionatural approach that might progress our understanding of the 6 th century and bridge between ideas of crisis and continuity. Central to my approach is the need to integrate human and environmental datasets and explore their interrelationship, in which «vulnerability» becomes a vital analytical tool. By the help of GIS analyses of cereal growth conditions, vegetation records, and archaeological data, I argue that disaster impact is likely to have varied between and within regions, thus opening for considerable diversity in social consequences.

Global Warming (GW) is expected to affect the Mediterranean area with three major challenges, i.e. increase in temperature, decrease in precipitation and sea level rise that will likely submerge the coastal areas, including Venice. Aim of this Chapter is to discuss the expected changes under the light of long-term observations. Documentary proxies and instrumental readings in Portugal, Spain, France and Italy have been recovered and analysed. These observations cover the last five centuries from the Little Ice Age (LIA) to the present-day GW. This Chapter is based on documentary proxies and instrumental series collected over the Mediterranean area, i.e. Portugal, Spain, France and Italy (Fig. ) within the EU funded ADVICE, IMPROVE, MILLENNIUM, and Climate for Culture projects. A huge effort was made to seek for written sources and original logs with early and less recent instrumental readings. The next steps were to recover, correct, adjust to modern standards, homogenize and analyse the earliest data and most of the longest European series. The detailed study of the history of the series (e.g. instrument type, calibration, observational methodology, sampling time, exposure, location) and the recovery of any related metadata were fundamental to apply and perform the due corrections to the series. The methodology was presented in previous papers (Camuffo and Jones, 2002, Camuffo et al. 2010a)

Current modern attention and concern about (human-driven) climate change has prompted much focus on the historical/archaeological relevance and role of (natural) climate change in the past. The topic is both relevant and important-and especially those short(er)-term events that perhaps helped trigger historically substantive change episodes. But, at the same time, initial, somewhat naïve enthusiasm has now run headlong into the limitations of the available data sources before the early modern era, and the many complications of establishing actual causal associations. These need to be, first, closely defined in terms of timing and effects, and then also, second, established as relevant to the specific human societies/civilizations and contexts in question. This paper seeks to highlight the need for appropriate care and rigorous method when seeking to associate climate and environmental events with the available ancient historical and archaeological evidence, and investigates three illustrative, problematic, cases from the Classical Mediterranean world.