BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Sabre//Sabre VObject 4.5.8//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Zurich X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/Zurich TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/Zurich BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:19810329T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:19961027T030000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news23@ancientclimate.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20221028T153114 DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220829 SUMMARY:The End of the Roman Climate Optimum DESCRIPTION:Palaeoclimatologists believe to have identified a period of unu sually warm and humid weather in Europe and the Mediterranean that expande d from roughly 200 BCE to 150 CE\, which they called the ‘Roman Climate Optimum’ or the ‘Roman warm period’. Some historians have linked thi s overall perseverance of unusually stable and favorable climatic conditio ns to the expansion of the Roman Empire to its greatest height\, and argue that these predominantly warm and humid conditions in large parts of the Empire enabled the delivery of sufficient supply to the growing urban popu lation around the Mediterranean and to the Roman army. From the middle of the second century CE\, climate change occurred at different rates\, from apparent near stasis during the early Empire to rapid fluctuations during the late Empire. A general cooling trend coincided and\, as some scholars argue\, contributed to the crisis of the Empire\, the Germanic migration\, civil wars\, and the subsequent ‘decline’ or ‘transformation’ of the Roman world. Furthermore\, differences in climate conditions in the We stern and Eastern Mediterranean have been hypothezised to mirror the diver ging fates of the Roman West and the Byzantine Empire. More recently\, oth er scholars based on regional datasets of climate proxies have reasoned th at establishing such a connection between the climatic conditions and its consequences for the history of the Roman Empire does not do justice to th e multitude of microclimates in Europe\, the Balkans\, the Middle East and North Africa on the one hand and the complexity of the material available on the other one.\\r\\nThis international conference will be the first th at is specifically devoted to the notion of a Roman Climate Optimum and it s impact on the fate of the Roman Empire. The conference will examine the implications of a Roman Climate Optimum for writing Roman environmental\, political\, social and economic history\, and will bring climate scientist s\, ancient historians and environmental archaeologists around one table. We aim at papers that focus on regional studies and pursue a synthesis of the evidence from written\, archaeological\, and natural climate archives. Special emphasis will be placed on the challenges of a collaboration betw een ancient historians\, archaeologists and palaeoclimatologists\, the met hodological difficulties in distinguishing between correlation and causali ty\, and methods of assessing the impact of climatic variability or change on ancient societies without oversimplifying causal connections. X-ALT-DESC:\n

Palaeoclimatologists believe to have identified a period of unusually warm and humid weather in Europe and the Mediterranean that exp anded from roughly 200 BCE to 150 CE\, which they called the ‘Roman Clim ate Optimum’ or the ‘Roman warm period’. Some historians have linked this overall perseverance of unusually stable and favorable climatic cond itions to the expansion of the Roman Empire to its greatest height\, and a rgue that these predominantly warm and humid conditions in large parts of the Empire enabled the delivery of sufficient supply to the growing urban population around the Mediterranean and to the Roman army. From the middle of the second century CE\, climate change occurred at different rates\, f rom apparent near stasis during the early Empire to rapid fluctuations dur ing the late Empire. A general cooling trend coincided and\, as some schol ars argue\, contributed to the crisis of the Empire\, the Germanic migrati on\, civil wars\, and the subsequent ‘decline’ or ‘transformation’ of the Roman world. Furthermore\, differences in climate conditions in th e Western and Eastern Mediterranean have been hypothezised to mirror the d iverging fates of the Roman West and the Byzantine Empire. More recently\, other scholars based on regional datasets of climate proxies have reasone d that establishing such a connection between the climatic conditions and its consequences for the history of the Roman Empire does not do justice t o the multitude of microclimates in Europe\, the Balkans\, the Middle East and North Africa on the one hand and the complexity of the material avail able on the other one.

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This international conference will be the f irst that is specifically devoted to the notion of a Roman Climate Optimum and its impact on the fate of the Roman Empire. The conference will exami ne the implications of a Roman Climate Optimum for writing Roman environme ntal\, political\, social and economic history\, and will bring climate sc ientists\, ancient historians and environmental archaeologists around one table. We aim at papers that focus on regional studies and pursue a synthe sis of the evidence from written\, archaeological\, and natural climate ar chives. Special emphasis will be placed on the challenges of a collaborati on between ancient historians\, archaeologists and palaeoclimatologists\, the methodological difficulties in distinguishing between correlation and causality\, and methods of assessing the impact of climatic variability or change on ancient societies without oversimplifying causal connections. DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20220901 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR