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The disappearance of the ancient landscape and the climatic anomaly of the early Middle Ages: a question to be pursued
Author(s) -
Cheyette Fredric L.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
early medieval europe
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1468-0254
pISSN - 0963-9462
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0254.2008.00225.x
Subject(s) - arable land , period (music) , archaeology , geography , reforestation , excavation , anomaly (physics) , late antiquity , pasture , climate change , physical geography , geology , forestry , agriculture , art , oceanography , physics , condensed matter physics , aesthetics
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.