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Zonneveld KAF, Harper K, Klügel A, Chen L, De Lange G, Versteegh GJM. Climate change, society, and pandemic disease in Roman Italy between 200 BCE and 600 CE. Sci Adv 2024; 10:eadk1033. [PMID: 38277456 PMCID: PMC10816712 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk1033] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/02/2023] [Accepted: 12/27/2023] [Indexed: 01/28/2024]
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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Affiliation(s)
- Karin A. F. Zonneveld
- MARUM, Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Leobener Str. 8, 28359 Bremen, Germany
- Geosciences Department, University of Bremen, Klagenfurter Str., 28359 Bremen, Germany
| | - Kyle Harper
- Department of Classics and Letters, University of Oklahoma, 650 Parrington Oval, CARN 110, Norman, OK 73019-4042, USA
- Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Rd, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
| | - Andreas Klügel
- Geosciences Department, University of Bremen, Klagenfurter Str., 28359 Bremen, Germany
| | - Liang Chen
- Geosciences Department, University of Bremen, Klagenfurter Str., 28359 Bremen, Germany
| | - Gert De Lange
- Faculty of Geosciences, department of Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, University of Utrecht, Princetonplein 9, 3584 CC Utrecht, Netherlands
| | - Gerard J. M. Versteegh
- MARUM, Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Leobener Str. 8, 28359 Bremen, Germany
- Department of Physics and Earth Sciences, Constructor University Bremen, Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany
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