Climate change, society, and pandemic disease in Roman Italy between 200 BCE and 600 CE

Karin A.F. Zonneveld; Kyle Harper; Andreas Klügel; Liang Chen; Gert de Lange; Gerard J.M. Versteegh

doi:10.1126/sciadv.adk1033

Climate change, society, and pandemic disease in Roman Italy between 200 BCE and 600 CE

Karin A.F. Zonneveld, Kyle Harper, Andreas Klügel, Liang Chen, Gert de Lange, Gerard J.M. Versteegh

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Records of past societies confronted with natural climate change can illuminate social responses to environmental stress and environment-disease connections, especially when locally constrained high-temporal resolution paleoclimate reconstructions are available. We present a temperature and precipitation reconstruction for ~200 BCE to ~600 CE, from a southern Italian marine sedimentary archive-the first high-resolution (~3 years) climate record from the heartland of the Roman Empire, stretching from the so-called Roman Climate Optimum to the Late Antique Little Ice Age. We document phases of instability and cooling from ~100 CE onward but more notably after ~130 CE. Pronounced cold phases between ~160 to 180 CE, ~245 to 275 CE, and after ~530 CE associate with pandemic disease, suggesting that climate stress interacted with social and biological variables. The importance of environment-disease dynamics in past civilizations underscores the need to incorporate health in risk assessments of climate change.

Original language	English
Article number	eadk1033
Number of pages	11
Journal	Science advances
Volume	10
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adk1033
Publication status	Published - 26 Jan 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2024 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).

Funding

financial support by the Geoscience Department at the University of Bremen (K.A.F.Z. and A.K.); Department of Classics and Letters, University of Oklahoma (K.H.); German Research Foundation, grant ZO114/15-1 (dating); German Science Foundation, grant DFG Cluster of Excellence (EXC): “The Ocean Floor - Earths Uncharted Interface” 2019-2025, RECEIVER Unit 3 (G.J.M.V.); German Science Foundation Heisenberg, grant VE86/2, 3, 4 (G.J.M.V.); and ESF, EUROMARC grants ZO114/2-1 and VE486/1 (G.J.M.V. and L.C.). Author contributions:

Funders	Funder number
DFG Cluster of Excellence
Department of Classics and Letters, University of Oklahoma
EUROMARC	VE486/1, ZO114/2-1
EXC	2019-2025, VE86/2
Geoscience Department at the University of Bremen
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft	ZO114/15-1
Europäischer Sozialfonds

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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abstract = "Records of past societies confronted with natural climate change can illuminate social responses to environmental stress and environment-disease connections, especially when locally constrained high-temporal resolution paleoclimate reconstructions are available. We present a temperature and precipitation reconstruction for ~200 BCE to ~600 CE, from a southern Italian marine sedimentary archive-the first high-resolution (~3 years) climate record from the heartland of the Roman Empire, stretching from the so-called Roman Climate Optimum to the Late Antique Little Ice Age. We document phases of instability and cooling from ~100 CE onward but more notably after ~130 CE. Pronounced cold phases between ~160 to 180 CE, ~245 to 275 CE, and after ~530 CE associate with pandemic disease, suggesting that climate stress interacted with social and biological variables. The importance of environment-disease dynamics in past civilizations underscores the need to incorporate health in risk assessments of climate change.",

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AU - Versteegh, Gerard J.M.

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Climate change, society, and pandemic disease in Roman Italy between 200 BCE and 600 CE

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

UN SDGs

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