Climate and Environment in the Pre-Modern World

(2.5-5 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The history of climate and environment are rapidly evolving fields of study that aim (1) to reconstruct environmental and climate conditions over past centuries and millennia and (2) understand how societies perceived and responded to changing environmental conditions and events such as natural disasters and extreme weather. These aims can be best achieved by combining evidence from both natural and human archives. In this module we will examine how natural archives such as tree-rings and sediment cores can be used to reveal climate and environmental variations in the past. We will then examine how this information can be combined with evidence from human archives, including written and archaeological records, to understand the social impacts of environmental change. In doing so, we will draw upon case studies from the ancient, medieval, and early modern eras. The case studies will bring us from ancient Egypt and Babylonia to the ancient American Southwest, and from there to Medieval Ireland, and into the oceanic realm. In these places we will examine the role of pre-modern societies in transforming the face of the earth, and how humans perceived and coped with a changing environment.