Environmental Archive
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Feasting with Early Medieval Chiefs: Locating Political Action through Environmental Archaeology
Posted on May 18, 2013 | No CommentsThis excellent paper was the first given in the session on Early Medieval Europe. It looked at various archaeological excavations in Iceland and Denmark and the political role feasting played in pre-Christian Viking societies. -
The Highland Tiger: Scotland’s critically Endangered Wildcat
Posted on April 17, 2013 | No CommentsThe Highland Tiger has roots that run deep in Scottish consciousness. The area now called Caithness means 'Land of the Cats' or 'Land of the Cat People.' -
Black Sun, High Flame, and Flood: Volcanic Hazards in Iceland
Posted on April 1, 2013 | No CommentsIceland is one of the most volcanically active areas on earth, but were it not for the description of the end of the world in the poem Völuspá, one might think volcanic activity made little impression on Medieval Icelanders. -
The Light was retreating before Darkness: Tales of the Witch hunt and climate change
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsLittle by little, out of the old conviction —pagan and Christian— of evil interference in atmospheric phenomena evolved the belief that some people may use malign sorcery to set off whirlwinds hail, frosts, floods and other destructive weather events. -
An Environmental History of the Middle Ages: The Crucible of Nature
Posted on February 16, 2013 | No CommentsJohn Aberth focuses his study on three key areas: the natural elements of air, water, and earth; the forest; and wild and domestic animals. -
An Investigation Into the Use of Color As a Device to Convey Memes During The Little Ice Age
Posted on January 7, 2013 | No CommentsNo single element in art drives emotion more effectively than color. The Greeks knew this and deliberately painted their marble works for the purpose of eliciting a reaction in the viewer. -
Dark ages and dark areas: global deforestation in the deep past
Posted on January 1, 2013 | No CommentsThe ‘darkness’ that envelopes the ages and areas of the forest of the past consists broadly of two elements. First, there are the problems intrinsic to forests as living ecosystems or entities. Many of these are still more or less uncertain and murky. Second, there are the difficulties of knowing what human activity took place. -
The Sadness of the woods is bright: Deforestation and conservation in the Middle Ages
Posted on December 30, 2012 | No CommentsMiddle Age and Renaissance poets and dramatists pictured the deserts and mountains as ugly, treacherous and inhospitable areas; forests as shadowy, wild places often inhabited by evil spirits, demons and witches, bestial creatures, wild men and beasts. -
The Impact of Climate Change on Late Medieval English Culture
Posted on December 28, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis challenges the extremes of both environmental determinism and the modernist perspective that humanity exists in social and/or cultural isolation from the natural environment. -
Greenland’s Viking settlers gorged on seals
Posted on December 17, 2012 | No CommentsA Danish-Canadian research team has demonstrated the Norse society did not die out due to an inability to adapt to the Greenlandic diet: an isotopic analysis of their bones shows they ate plenty of seals. -
Environmental impact of the Baltic Crusades: deforestation, animal extinction, dogs no longer on the menu
Posted on December 11, 2012 | No CommentsA multidisciplinary project seeks to understand the environmental impact of the Baltic Crusades. Horses, for example, aided the Christians in battle, while the castles the Crusaders built decimated forests. -
Medieval Cures from The Alphabet of Galen
Posted on December 7, 2012 | No CommentsUse green mint to stop hiccups, radish to relieve aching joints and donkey dung as toothpaste! Some medieval cures from the Alphabet of Galen, the pharmacy handbook of the Middle Ages. -
Wormholes from centuries-old art prints reveal history
Posted on November 26, 2012 | No CommentsWormholes reproduced in wood-printed illustrations dating back to the Middle Ages are offering researchers to track both the ecology of beetles and the spread of printing in Europe. -
Hot Holiday Reads!
Posted on November 23, 2012 | No CommentsPut down those turkey left-overs and check out some of these hot holiday reads! -
Catastrophe and Conspiracy: The evidence of the sixth century Byzantine sources for the AD 536 environmental event
Posted on November 11, 2012 | No CommentsFurthermore, as the historical record shows, the history of mankind did not end in 536 AD. To argue that the environmental event plunged the developed world into the Middle Ages is farfetched from a historical point of view. -
Earliest historical records of typhoons in China
Posted on October 29, 2012 | No CommentsThe typhoon as a weather phenomenon was frequently mentioned, described, and discussed in many works, including history books, poems and government documents, in the ninth century AD. -
An Ecological History in the Middle Ages? Theoretical bases and sources
Posted on October 16, 2012 | No CommentsThis article presents the possibilities offered of building a History, in this case of the Middle Ages, that considers the relations people have had with the natural spaces and ihe urban environment where their lives have developed. -
The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail
Posted on October 12, 2012 | No CommentsW. Jeffrey Bolster takes us through a millennium-long environmental history of our impact on one of the largest ecosystems in the world. -
The Disposal of Human Waste: A comparison between Ancient Rome and Medieval London
Posted on October 11, 2012 | No CommentsThis essay examines the waste disposal options used in Ancient Rome and Medieval London, two cities that dealt with sewage in different ways. -
Climate Change in the Recent Past: Selected Climate Events from Historical Records
Posted on September 23, 2012 | No CommentsAnother important sign of a mild climate during the MWP is the fact that England was a major wineproducing country. Between 1100 and 1300, vineyards spread across southern and central England and as far north as Hereford. -
Islamic Attitudes to Disasters in the Middle Ages: A Comparison of Earthquakes and Plagues
Posted on September 9, 2012 | No CommentsBy comparing two natural disasters, earthquakes and epidemics, in particular the plague, this article tries to reconstruct general features of debates around disasters in medieval Islam. -
How Great Was the Great Famine of 1314-22: Between Ecology and Institutions
Posted on September 7, 2012 | No CommentsThe first aspect to be examined is the extent of harvest failures within different crop sectors. The second issue is to what degree was the Great Famine of 1314-22 a subsistence crisis...My project is based on over 3,000 manorial and monastic accounts compiled between c.1310 and 1350. -
Some weather events from the 14th century
Posted on August 24, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper discusses the different kinds of allusions to weather events which can be found in various 14th century written sources in Hungary -
Arboriculture and the Environment in Manosque, 1341-1404
Posted on July 19, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis uses records of criminal inquisitions from 1341 to 1404 to take up the question of medieval environmental consciousness. -
Tree-Ring data shows that Northern Europe has been cooling over the last 2000 years
Posted on July 11, 2012 | No CommentsWas the climate during Roman and Medieval times warmer than today?
