Posted on 12/05/2008 6:43:34 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The decline of the Roman and Byzantine empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes. Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region... Using oxygen isotope signatures and impurities -- such as organic matter flushed into the cave by surface rain -- trapped in the layered mineral deposits, Orland determined annual rainfall levels for the years the stalagmite was growing, from approximately 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D...the Eastern Mediterranean became drier between 100 A.D. and 700 A.D., a time when Roman and Byzantine power in the region waned, including steep drops in precipitation around 100 A.D. and 400 A.D... Their detailed climate record shows that the Eastern Mediterranean became drier between 100 A.D. and 700 A.D., a time when Roman and Byzantine power in the region waned, including steep drops in precipitation around 100 A.D. and 400 A.D. "Whether this is what weakened the Byzantines or not isn't known, but it is an interesting correlation," Valley says... The team is now applying the same techniques to older samples from the same cave. "One period of interest is the last glacial termination, around 19,000 years ago -- the most recent period in Earth's history when the whole globe experienced a warming of 4 to 5 degrees Celsius," Orland says.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.wisc.edu ...
I agree and should another plague of some kind occur, we may not be as able to contain it as we are the ever widening financial problems. Some things are just not containable.
Hey, the Romans needed water for their most civilizing achievements such as acqueducts, baths, fountains, indoor flushed plumbing and heated interiors via hot water pipes in their floors.
No sense in staying in god-forsaken deserts filled with barbarians and religious fanatics if you can’t take a dump, drink enough pure water, and get a relaxing bath.
Hey, at least in Judea they had no shortage of bath salts...
Yeah, they had bath salts in a world that preferred asses milk.
Byzantium after Basil the Second for about 50 years was prosperous, but they had demographic problems as well as typical Byzantine stupidity on the political side after that.
Would that be Basil the Bulgar Slayer?
The man hisself. If there was a strong heir European history would have been much different.
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