HCMH’s post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Paolo Cimadomo will be speaking at the hybrid international conference “The End of the Roman Climate Optimum and the Disintegration of the Roman Empire” taking place in Binn, Switzerland, on August 29- September 1, 2022.

His lecture entitled “A view from the East. The impact of climate change on the life of the Roman Near East” will take place on Wednesday, August 31, at 14:30–15:00.

Abstract:
The pressure exerted by human activity has inevitably transformed the landscape. Conversely, we could wonder if the climate and environment have had any impact on human demography and on human lifestyles, in particular for people who lived in adverse environments, such as arid and semi-arid areas. The interactions and interdependence between nomads and agriculturalists in the Near East are an important topic of world history, but our knowledge of the phenomenon is very much hindered by a dearth of information on nomads, especially their early history, as they left few literary sources and often very shallow archaeological remains for historians to explore. Sedentary societies sometimes provide information about them. Furthermore, archaeology can provide us several hints of this interaction thanks to the support of studies about ancient environment. This paper aims to analyse the archaeological, climatic, and geographical aspects of the area between Southern Syria and Northern Jordan during the third and fifth centuries CE. In fact, this period is characterised by a drier climatic phase. This period may have caused troubles between nomads and sedentary people, as both sought to retain control of the steppes on the fringes of the desert.
The principal goal is to find proofs of the relationships between (semi-)nomads and sedentary peoples and to analyse their nature. Were they conflictual or peaceful? This paper will try to give an answer through the analysis of the palaeoenvironmental context, of the human impact on the area, and of Roman political choices.

More about the conference