Moreland, J.F. (2019) AD536 - Back to nature? Acta Archaeologica, 89 (1). pp. 91-111. ISSN 0065-101X
Abstract
A spate of archaeological, historical and scientific publications have recently argued that the dust veil from a volcanic eruption (or series of eruptions) caused climatic change, which ‘forced’ significant historical transformations in the middle of the sixth century AD. In this paper, I situate this phenomenon within a more general return to environmental determinism in archaeological explanation, a return which itself needs to be understood in the context both of contemporary fears about the devastation to be unleashed by the climatic change we have made, and of the rise of precise measurement in environmental and archaeological science. I do not doubt the reality of the climatic change reconstructed for AD536/546 but, given the coarseness of the dating of the historical transformations, I do question the causal connections drawn between the former and the latter. I suggest that for many archaeologists, the AD536 event (and similar phenomena) functions much as written texts once did – as both the framework for analysis and as the explanation of historical process.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 Wiley. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Acta Archaeologica. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Archaeology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 18 Jan 2019 10:13 |
Last Modified: | 15 Jan 2021 01:38 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0390.2018.12194.x |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/j.1600-0390.2018.12194.x |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:141240 |