The Roman Empire’s rise and fall are recorded in tree rings
JAN 14, 2011
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024976
Science : A team led by Ulf Büntgen of the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape in Zurich correlated modern climate data with the thickness of growth rings in modern European trees. Having performed that calibration, the team then examined samples of ancient European trees going back 2500 years. They found a striking correlation between periods of political order, such as the rise of the Roman Empire between 300 BC and 200 AD, and periods of good, crop-growing weather. Conversely, periods of disorder, such as the the turmoil that surrounded the Black Death in the 14th century, correlated with periods of bad crop-growing weather. Büntgen’s findings appear in today’s Science.
© 2011 American Institute of Physics
