Climate in the Iron Age

[Brennus]

So the shift in the climate to a cooler and wetter climate in the late Bronze Age resulted in reforestation and a shift to pastoralism in general, due to a reduction in viable agricultural sites? Does this reflect on any of the cultures in EB like the Lugiones, who are mentioned in the preview (my main source of information about this period :P ) who were predominately pastoral? Or by this point, were the warming effects being felt and a general shift towards larger scale grain farming in North-western Europe was occurring?

Both the Lugiones and Sweboz will have the option for pastoral agriculture. There have also been discussions on allowing it for certain parts of Britain and Ireland, but not in the first release.

Thank you to Brennus and TiagoJRToledo. I read bits and pieces about this but there doesn't seem to be very much literature on the differences between what is and what was. I know that silting has had an effect on river courses and that erosion has had effects on coastlines etc.

Brennus, when you say that Yorkshire's coastline was greater...I was under the impression that there were flood-plains around the humber, and that there was a great deal of marshland, particularly in North Yorkshire. Am I wrong (or was that at a later date)?

Of particular interest to me is the coastline/rivers/marshes around East Anglia (particularly Norfolk). Any good sources for this kind of thing?

Your welcome.

Yes you are correct. When I say the coastline was larger I mean that the coast around Morcambe extended further out to sea. However, as you point out, the inland areas around the Humber were more sodden than today, something which is reflected in the archaeological record of the Iron Age.

Likewise, although the eastern coast of East Anglia extended further out to sea, the vast majority of the Norfolk Fens were swamp and marshlands. A similar situation also existed around the Bristol Channel. Iron Age communities took advantage of this landscape and it was in these regions that we have much evidence for salt production.

Regarding large-scale cereal farming in North-Western Europe, I recall reading that only after the great deforestation and draining efforts of the Northern regions of Europe (Belgica, Germania, Saxony) that started c. 8th century A.D was the extensive and intensive cultivation of cereals introduced in those regions. But again, don't quote me on this, as I may be embarrassingly wrong

That is correct.

Exactly. Social development seems to be greatly connected to climatic variation in ancient times.

That being the case how do you explain the marked continuity in settlement pattern and material culture in Galicia? Also we don't observe marked changes in the socio-settlement structure of the Netherlands and Jutland until about 100 years after we observe them in Gaul, Iberia and Britain.

[TiagoJRToledo]

That being the case how do you explain the marked continuity in settlement pattern and material culture in Galicia? Also we don't observe marked changes in the socio-settlement structure of the Netherlands and Jutland until about 100 years after we observe them in Gaul, Iberia and Britain.

Northern Portugal and Galicia are a special case, seeing as the social stratification originated from "prestigious" megalithic constructions, that originated a species of ancestor and heroic worship, and the descendants of these ancestors were regarded as more important in the community, which in turn lead them to leadership positions. Also, the terrain heavily influenced the sites that were chosen for settlement, and although this elevated and walled enclosures were easily defensible, they were a pain to access and to sustain commercial ties with far-off peoples, which in turn slowed down contacts and cultural exchange.

Regarding the second point, I would argue that the motor for socio-settlement structural change was the fact that contact with oriental cultures (Hellenes, Phoenicians), that had much more complex societies and architectural constructions, were spread across the Mediterranean Basin. It is easy to then infer that these contacts and ideas would take much longer to reach the Netherlands and Jutland, seeing as their main "envoys", the Romans and Southern Celts, confined themselves to the Left Bank of the Rhine, and due to military conflict, it took much longer for these "innovations" to permeate those regions.

[moonburn]

herm brennus the river of oblivion (styx (?) ) stayed in northwestern iberia so the romans where afraid of crossing rivers over there cause they believed they would forget everything

should make a nice cartoon romans taking straws to see who would go 1st on crossing a given river and then the dude who passed over to the other side (the poor 17 year old schmuck) when asked "hey decimus do you still remember who you are?" and then dude replyed "no who are you?" and the romans runned all south in panic

until someone stops and thinks "hey if he didn´t knew who he was how did he knew how to talk that we were talking to him and that his name is decimus?" - damm roman deserters XD

[Lysandros]

@Brennus and @TiagoJRToledo and @moonburn
Might any of you hint me at some literature which covers climate change in Syria and Mesopotamia (in fact, I'd be interested in the whole area of the Alexandrian/Seleucid empire at its largest extent, but especially in Syria and Mesopotamia) between 4th and 1st century BC?

[moonburn]

can´t help you there there´s just no books to mu knowledge most of my climatoligy knowledge comes from documentaries

i´m sure there´s planty of articles going around one extremly interesting altough not limitated to that time period was about the diferent strain of cereals and trying to pin point from where they came from and trough wich lands it went by to acquire certain caractheristics and at wich point trough domestication strains of diferent cereals became diferent species of the wild occurring seeds

ofc altough very interesting it opens more questions then answers since most wild species have been lost

the cheakpeak (not sure how to spell it right) was fairly interesting it went all the way to turkmenistan and quizirguistan trying to find the original plant and constantly being slapped in the face by new genetic modified seeds wich dogooders left on those distant lands to try and increase the productivity (wich actually only drains the soil and makes the farmer dependent on the seed salesman ...)

as you can imagine it brings about alot of conjecture on the climatological situation of the crescent quarter but overall it was far more fertile then today (wich is wierd cause back then there where no damms ... ) and the weather was milder and more forgiving since it allowed them to grow barley for beer soup production \p

http://books.google.it/books?id=IZ65...epage&q&f=true

about the seulecids maybe you can find references about clima there but not so sure you might have to infer from interpretations

[Lysandros]

Thank you, I already found a start in "A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East" by D. T. Potts (Editor). The very first chapter "Introduction to Geography, Climate, Topography, and Hydrology" (T.J. Wilkinson) could provide a good start, especially since the Companion is fairly new (2012). But I don't know yet whether he treated the topic well - I always suspect a barrier between Classicists and Geophysicists/other Scientists.

Edit: I found a book by geologists who say that from ~300 BC onwards the climate at least in the Ancient Near East reached favorable conditions, this is among what I was interested in.
http://books.google.de/books?hl=de&l...nistic&f=false

[Lusitani]

herm brennus the river of oblivion (styx (?) ) stayed in northwestern iberia so the romans where afraid of crossing rivers over there cause they believed they would forget everything

should make a nice cartoon romans taking straws to see who would go 1st on crossing a given river and then the dude who passed over to the other side (the poor 17 year old schmuck) when asked "hey decimus do you still remember who you are?" and then dude replyed "no who are you?" and the romans runned all south in panic

until someone stops and thinks "hey if he didn´t knew who he was how did he knew how to talk that we were talking to him and that his name is decimus?" - damm roman deserters XD

Pardon but, I believe you mean the river Lethes and not the Styx which...as far as i remember it was the mythological frontier between Earth and the Underworld for the Classical Greeks.

As for the Lethes, there is a legend here in Portugal that identifies that myth with the River Lima in Northern Portugal. It is said that, the roman consul Decimus Junius Brutus (#$%#& romans!!), crossed that river and then called his soldiers by name as they were afraid of crossing it and to loose their memory.

[sirtim]

That's right. Here on the other side of the border it's called the Limia, and apparently the legionaries didn't like idea of amnesia induced from from crossing it, because they equated it with the infamous Lethe. So Decimus Junius Brutus crossed and called them all one by one by name.

Problem is, how the hell do you remember the names of 5000 legionaries?

[moonburn]

if he was rich he had a specialized slave whoese only work was to remember the name of people

it was very usefull for political people trying to gain favour i can´t recall the name it was given to those specialized slave my classics teacher gave it once on the roman social organization and he went on for around 20 minutes explaining what kind of specialized slaves there where and what where their jobs the diference beteween state slaves and private slaves and so forth

after it he went into the original shopping centers or malls with 6 story where in the lower store there where fruits and vegetables and further up the scale more and more expensive products such as clothing armour and so forth

there´s also memory tricks once can use if you fallow the organized list all you have to remember is maniple1 century 1 8 names (10 if you count the 2 slaves) and so forth

nomenclatvr i think the name was or something very similar for that kind of slave

what one can find with some google skills
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenclator_(nomenclature)

the name was nomenclator and i imagine that if that junius wanted to have a political career he would have one such usefull caracther wich should exist in eb2 and it should give 1 influence

[Lusitani]

That's right. Here on the other side of the border it's called the Limia, and apparently the legionaries didn't like idea of amnesia induced from from crossing it, because they equated it with the infamous Lethe. So Decimus Junius Brutus crossed and called them all one by one by name.

Problem is, how the hell do you remember the names of 5000 legionaries?

Ermmm it's a legend :) ...

Anyway if something even close to that really happened, all he had to do was to shout the name of a couple of centurions for the whole herd to follow...I am sure he could remember those...bloody romans...