Climate Change and the Globalization of Disease in the Early Middle Ages with Tim Newfield
Episode 72 - July 29, 2021
Tim Newfield (Georgetown University) talks to Merle and Lee about the connected histories of climate change and diseases that become pandemics, focusing on the early medieval and late antique periods. Tim opens by discussing the global cooling events starting in 536 and how researchers know they happened through various proxy datasets, such as tree rings, along with how historians should approach using these types of natural sources. He then talks about the long-term climate cooling event, the Late Antique Little Ice Age, along with its supposed connections to the outbreak of the Justinianic Plague in 541. Tim also talks about why researchers have remained so focused on the influence of climate on plague. At the end, he discusses where he believes the field of pre-modern historical diseases is going and the influence of Covid in this trajectory.
Further Reading
- Newfield, Timothy P. “The Climate Downturn of 536–50,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History White, Sam, Pfister, Christian, Mauelshagen, Franz (Eds.) Palgrave, 2018, 447-493.
- Izdebski, Adam,, et al. “Realising Consilience: How Better Communication between Archaeologists, Historians and Natural Scientists Can Transform the Study of Past Climate Change in the Mediterranean.” Quaternary Science Reviews, Special Issue: Mediterranean Holocene Climate, Environment and Human Societies, 136 (March 15, 2016): 5–22.
- Sigl, M.,, et al. “Timing and Climate Forcing of Volcanic Eruptions for the Past 2,500 Years.” Nature 523, no. 7562 (July 2015): 543–49.
- Luterbacher, J., T. P. Newfield, E. Xoplaki, E. Nowatzki, N. Luther, M. Zhang, and N. Khelifi. “Past Pandemics and Climate Variability across the Mediterranean.” Euro-Mediterranean Journal for Environmental Integration 5, no. 2 (September 19, 2020): 46.
- Dijk, Evelien van, et al. “Was There a Volcanic Induced Long Lasting Cooling over the Northern Hemisphere in the Mid 6th and 7th Century?” Climate of the Past Discussions, May 20, 2021, 1–33.
Our Guest
Tim Newfield,
Assistant Professor, Georgetown University.
