New evidence for climate impacts on ancient societies

Annual-resolved European summer climate has, for the first time ever, been reconstructed over the past 2,500 years. Tree rings reveal possible links between past climate variability and changes in human history. Climate change coincided with periods of socioeconomic, cultural and political turmoil associated with the Barbarian Migrations, the Black Death and Thirty Years' War. Photo: Die Jahrringforschung (Dendrochronologie) erlaubt eine Einschätzung von Temperatur und Feuchtigkeit für jedes einzelne Jahr. Die Jahrringe geben allerdings meist nur über die Wachstumszeit, also den Sommer, Aufschluss. An international research team of archaeologists, climatologists, geographers and historians including Kurt Nicolussi from the Institute of Geography at the University of Innsbruck compared variations in European summer climate with conspicuous events and episodes in human history. Their study provides new evidence that agrarian wealth and overall economic growth may was impacted by climate change.