In the last decade the search for data about the planet’s environmental history has raised questions about how climate change has influenced human civilizations in the past. We find out how the era of the Trojan War and the Exodus was beset by a rapidly cooling climate leading to drought, famine and the collapse of multiple civilizations.
The 1st Millenium BCE in the Mediterranean is the birth of the modern world. We’ll explore the environmental conditions that made this possible, and how people working with new technologies took advantage of a favourable climate to create classical civilization – the network of cities all around the region that Rome united, by force, into a single world empire.
When Rome’s Empire was at its height in the 2nd Century CE, it was struck by the first in a series of devastating plagues – the first recorded pandemics in history. From this point on, Rome’s story is one of economic decline - and eventually of collapse. What can science tell us about how these events may be connected, and how did Rome’s Empire invite disaster?
In the last decade the search for data about the planet’s environmental history has raised questions about how climate change has influenced human civilizations in the past. We find out how the era of the Trojan War and the Exodus was beset by a rapidly cooling climate leading to drought, famine and the collapse of multiple civilizations.
The 1st Millenium BCE in the Mediterranean is the birth of the modern world. We’ll explore the environmental conditions that made this possible, and how people working with new technologies took advantage of a favourable climate to create classical civilization – the network of cities all around the region that Rome united, by force, into a single world empire.
When Rome’s Empire was at its height in the 2nd Century CE, it was struck by the first in a series of devastating plagues – the first recorded pandemics in history. From this point on, Rome’s story is one of economic decline - and eventually of collapse. What can science tell us about how these events may be connected, and how did Rome’s Empire invite disaster?