Climate and Environment in the Pre-Modern World

Climate history is a rapidly evolving field of study that aims (1) to reconstruct climate conditions over past centuries and millennia and (2) understand how societies perceived and responded to changing climates and extreme weather. These aims can be best achieved by combining evidence from both natural and human archives. In this module we will examine the historical development of natural archives such as tree-rings and ice-cores and introduce how they can be used to reveal climate variations in the past. We will then examine how this information can be combined with evidence from human archives, including written and archaeological records, to understand the social impacts of climate change and extreme weather. In doing so, we will draw upon case studies of major episodes of climate change from the ancient and medieval eras. These case studies will bring us from ancient Egypt and Babylonia to the ancient American Southwest, and from there to Medieval Ireland, Japan, China and beyond. In these places we will examine the role that explosive volcanic eruptions and rapid changes in the Sun’s output of energy played in causing extreme weather that was often accompanied by major human impacts such as famine, disease and conflict, before studying the ways in which ancient and medieval societies attempted to cope with these impacts and adapt to changing climates.

Lecturer: Dr Francis Ludlow