2008/03/31 by Fredric L. Cheyette · 75 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Tree-ring climate responses #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Arable land #Period (music) #Archaeology #Geography #Reforestation #Excavation #Anomaly (physics) #Late Antiquity #Pasture #Climate change #Physical geography #Geology #Forestry #Agriculture #Art
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0254.2008.00225.x
published in Early Medieval Europe 16(2), 127-165 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2008/03/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Archaeological surveys and rescue archaeology have now dated the disappearance of occupied sites in late antiquity with considerable precision, especially in the Rhône valley and northern Gaul. Landscape archaeology has shown a conversion from arable to pasture and reforestation during the same period. Recent studies of the climate of the first millennium show that this was also an extended period of wet and cold climate. How these phenomena were connected is an important research question. A preliminary suggestion made here is that since reversion from arable to pasture affected regions as far apart as Italy and Poland it cannot simply be ascribed to the political and fiscal dislocation of the ancient world, but should be understood as one effect of the climatic anomaly.