Settlement, environment, and climate change in SW Anatolia: dynamics of regional variation and the end of Antiquity
Settlement, environment, and climate change in SW Anatolia: dynamics of regional variation and the end of Antiquity
This paper develops a regional dataset of change at 381 settlements for Lycia-Pamphylia in southwest Anatolia (Turkey) from volume 8 of the Tabula Imperii Byzantini–a compilation of historical toponyms and archaeological evidence. This region is rich in archaeological remains and high-quality paleo-climatic and -environmental archives. Our archaeological synthesis enables direct comparison of these datasets to discuss current hypotheses of climate impacts on historical societies. A Roman Climatic Optimum, characterized by warmer and wetter conditions, facilitating Roman expansion in the 1st-2nd centuries CE cannot be supported here, as Early Byzantine settlement did not benefit from enhanced precipitation in the 4th-6th centuries CE as often supposed. However, widespread settlement decline in a period with challenging archaeological chronologies (c. 550–650 CE) was likely caused by a “perfect storm” of environmental, climatic, seismic, pathogenic and socio-economic factors, though a shift to drier conditions from c. 460 CE appears to have preceded other factors by at least a century.
Jacobson, Matthew
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Pickett, Jordan
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Gascoigne, Alison
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Fleitmann, Dominik
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Elton, Hugh
8a325382-4402-4831-a5ab-cd5931f9b728
27 June 2022
Jacobson, Matthew
64d8b3bb-3fbc-486d-8dbc-8e984147aebd
Pickett, Jordan
15d4773a-6ff5-4bf6-857e-bd937ee96526
Gascoigne, Alison
a24fc628-51a6-44fe-8c15-536eebffb3a0
Fleitmann, Dominik
31bb0803-e8fb-457d-b393-e65d2ada612c
Elton, Hugh
8a325382-4402-4831-a5ab-cd5931f9b728
Jacobson, Matthew, Pickett, Jordan, Gascoigne, Alison, Fleitmann, Dominik and Elton, Hugh
(2022)
Settlement, environment, and climate change in SW Anatolia: dynamics of regional variation and the end of Antiquity.
PLoS ONE, 17 (6 June), [e0270295].
(doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0270295).
Abstract
This paper develops a regional dataset of change at 381 settlements for Lycia-Pamphylia in southwest Anatolia (Turkey) from volume 8 of the Tabula Imperii Byzantini–a compilation of historical toponyms and archaeological evidence. This region is rich in archaeological remains and high-quality paleo-climatic and -environmental archives. Our archaeological synthesis enables direct comparison of these datasets to discuss current hypotheses of climate impacts on historical societies. A Roman Climatic Optimum, characterized by warmer and wetter conditions, facilitating Roman expansion in the 1st-2nd centuries CE cannot be supported here, as Early Byzantine settlement did not benefit from enhanced precipitation in the 4th-6th centuries CE as often supposed. However, widespread settlement decline in a period with challenging archaeological chronologies (c. 550–650 CE) was likely caused by a “perfect storm” of environmental, climatic, seismic, pathogenic and socio-economic factors, though a shift to drier conditions from c. 460 CE appears to have preceded other factors by at least a century.
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Accepted/In Press date: 17 June 2022
Published date: 27 June 2022
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Funding Information:
This work was supported by the AHRC South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (Grant AH/L503939/1 to M. J. Jacobson). Additional support was provided by Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, both at the University of Georgia. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. There was no additional external funding received for this study.
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© 2022 Jacobson et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Local EPrints ID: 467685
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/467685
ISSN: 1932-6203
PURE UUID: 5e443328-ad86-400e-843a-93124814369a
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Date deposited: 19 Jul 2022 16:46
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:12
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Author:
Matthew Jacobson
Author:
Jordan Pickett
Author:
Dominik Fleitmann
Author:
Hugh Elton
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