Climate of the Past and Societal Responses, June 2024
Climate change is not a modern phenomenon and its occurrence in the past impacted human populations in many different ways, resulting in a variety of societal responses globally. The topic was the focus of an interdisciplinary conference organised by the researchers from the University of Bern and University of Yale, which took place in Bern in early June 2024.
The key topics of the conference were:
- Climate and environmental changes in the societal context
- Social vulnerability and resilience to climate change
- Spatial and temporal scales
- Novel methods and approaches to understand human-environmental systems.
The conference gathered researchers from the fields of history, archaeology, and environmental and climate sciences from six continents. Iwona was invited to join Dr Michele Buzon, Purdue University, to present on a bioarchaeological perspective on human responses to climate change in the ancient Nile Valley.
Climatic and environmental changes can lead to a biomedical reaction in the human body (such as infection, inflammation) which in turn results in demographic response through increased morbidity and mortality. In the Nile Valley, for example, seasonal flooding of the Nile would create specific conditions conducive to the spread of infectious disease, including a mosquito-borne malaria, which was endemic in Ancient Egypt. Iwona and Michele’s presentation used an anthropological and bioarchaeological approach to understand the impact of possible climate changes on human populations in the region, including evidence for changes in health status, physical activity and injury, and residential mobility during times associated with key climate events over time.
We continue to work on this topic with our interdisciplinary collaborators and the results of this research will be disseminated through publication.