Adam Izdebski
Biographic Data
| ID | 3590168 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adam Izdebski |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adam |
| FAMILY NAME | Izdebski |
| SIGNATURE | IZDEBSKI A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Jagiellonian University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3456-5478 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 77 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Isolation and Identity in a 5th/6th century Ostrogothic Rural Community in Frascaro, Italy
This study investigates the mobility and integration of a rural Ostrogothic community in Frascaro in Northern Italy (~490–550 CE) through the combination of strontium isotope analysis (87Sr/86Sr) and archaeological context. While there are written sources about the Ostrogothic presence in Italy, direct evidence of Ostrogothic communities in Northern Italy remains limited, particularly outside strategic or military contexts. This study represents …
A Companion to the Environmental History of Byzantium
The Emergence of Interdisciplinary Environmental History
With the efflorescence of palaeoscientific approaches to the past, historians have been confronted with a wealth of new evidence on both human and natural phenomena, from human disease and migration to landscape change and climate. These new data require a rewriting of our narratives of the past, questioning what constitutes an authoritative historical source and who is entitled to recount history to contemporary societies. Humanities-based histo…
Palaeoclimatology of Byzantine Lands (AD 300–1500)
This chapter begins with an overview of the climate system and then provides spatial maps of seasonal temperature, precipitation, and drought for the central and eastern Mediterranean covering the past 70 years. We then present the basic concepts of palaeoclimatology, i.e. how to derive quantitative climate information from documentary and natural proxies for the pre-instrumental period. We discuss the availability, distribution, potential, and l…
Past Answers to Present Concerns. The Relevance of the Premodern Past for 21st Century Policy Planners
How is history relevant to the present, or indeed the future? Governments around the world have used history to inform planning and decision‐making in various fields for years, but more recently it has taken on a renewed importance as governments grapple with increasingly complex challenges arising from the impacts of climatic change. Yet identifying “lessons from the past” is not straightforward. Especially in the case of big questions about his…
Perspectives on Public Policy in Societal-Environmental Crises
This open access book analyzes societal-environmental interactions in policy and planning, with historical societies as complex adaptive systems.
Managing the Roman Empire for the Long Term
This chapter analyses the reasons for the survival of the eastern Roman state from three different but complementary angles: imperial administration, the environmental conditions impacting land-use for the period, and the ability of the state to leverage resources. We conclude that a major contributory factor in survival was the effective use of natural resources and a self-reinforcing social-ecological system through which the state and its elit…
Landscape Response to Dynamic Human Pressure in the Paliouras Lagoon, Halkidiki Peninsula, Macedonia, Greece
High-resolution pollen analysis of a sediment core recovered from Paliouras lagoon (Greece) allowed us to reconstruct the environmental dynamics of the Halkidiki peninsula during the last 4000 years. Palynological results have been interpreted and compared with detailed historical data, showing distinct phases of human-landscape interactions from the Bronze Age until recent times. Pollen spectra revealed an environment characterized by Mediterran…
L'émergence d'une histoire environnementale interdisciplinaire
Avec l'efflorescence des approches paléoscientifiques du passé, les historiens ont été confrontés à une multitude de nouveaux indices sur des phénomènes tant humains que naturels, des maladies aux migrations en passant par les transformations du paysage et le climat. Ces données inédites exigent une réécriture des récits portant sur les périodes lointaines, remettant en cause à la fois les fondements de l'autorité des sources historiques traditio…
Towards a rigorous understanding of societal responses to climate change
Demystifying Collapse
Collapse is a term that has attracted much attention in social science literature in recent years, but there remain substantial areas of disagreement about how it should be understood in historical contexts. More specifically, the use of the term collapse often merely serves to dramatize long-past events, to push human actors into the background, and to mystify the past intellectually. At the same time, since human societies are complex systems, …
Landscape Change and Trade in Ancient Greece
In this article we use pollen data from six sites in southern Greece to study long-term vegetation change in this region from 1000 BCE to 600 CE. Based on insights from environmental history, we interpret our estimated trends in the regional presence of cereal, olive and vine pollen as proxies for structural changes in agricultural production. We present evidence that there was a market economy in ancient Greece and a major trade expansion severa…
Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome
Pollen-inferred regional vegetation patterns and demographic change in Southern Anatolia through the Holocene
Southern Anatolia is a highly significant area within the Mediterranean, particularly in terms of understanding how agriculture moved into Europe from neighbouring regions. This study uses pollen, palaeoclimate and archaeological evidence to investigate the relationships between demography and vegetation change, and to explore how the development of agriculture varied spatially. Data from 21 fossil pollen records have been transformed into forest…
History meets palaeoscience
History and archaeology have a well-established engagement with issues of premodern societal development and the interaction between physical and cultural environments; together, they offer a holistic view that can generate insights into the nature of cultural resilience and adaptation, as well as responses to catastrophe. Grasping the challenges that climate change presents and evolving appropriate policies that promote and support mitigation an…
Landscape, Nature and the Sacred in Byzantium
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire. A response to Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome (2)
This is the second of a three‐section review of Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome in which we examine in detail Harper's treatment of two allegedly widespread and mortal Roman outbreaks of disease. In the case of the second‐century Antonine plague, we demonstrate that Harper overlooked a major controversy and instead portrayed an oversimplified narrative of a catastrophic event. In the case of the third‐century Cyprianic plague, we call attention to…
The Social Burden of Resilience
We examine the social burden associated with resilience to environmental shocks in pre-modern societies. We argue that analyses of state-level interventions to mitigate the consequences of catastrophic events tend to isolate these measures from their larger social contexts and thereby overlook the uneven distribution of their burden across different groups. We use three cases of pre-modern societies in the northeastern Mediterranean - the sixth c…
Modelling Climate and Societal Resilience in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Last Millennium
This article analyses high-quality hydroclimate proxy records and spatial reconstructions from the Central and Eastern Mediterranean and compares them with two Earth System Model simulations (CCSM4, MPI-ESM-P) for the Crusader period in the Levant (1095-1290 CE), the Mamluk regime in Transjordan (1260-1516 CE) and the Ottoman crisis and Celâlî Rebellion (1580-1610 CE). During the three time intervals, environmental and climatic stress tested the …
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire
Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome , written for a popular audience, uses the environment to explain the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The book asserts that Rome fell as a result of environmental stress, in particular through a combination of pandemic disease and climate change. Although we agree that the environment can and should be integrated within traditional historical accounts, we challenge the book's claims on several issues. These in…
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire
This is the last of a three‐part review of Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome . Here, we scrutinize Harper's treatment of the Justinianic Plague, demonstrating how he crafts a convincing narrative based on rhetorical flourishes but little evidence. We call further attention to several internal contradictions within the chapter and misinterpretations of evidence. We conclude this series of articles with a reflection on Harper's deterministic approach …
Not the End of the World? Post-Classical Decline and Recovery in Rural Anatolia
Eseh Notepad
Bread and Class in Medieval Society
Bread was a basic food staple as well as a marker of status in medieval societies. A study of Byzantine and Islamic textual sources combined with an archaeological scientific study of teeth remains from four excavated sites in modern Turkey demonstrates that literary stereotypes about access to high-quality bread may have held in densely populated urban settlements but not in society on a wider scale. Peasants, the lowest social group, also had a…
Realising consilience
This paper reviews the methodological and practical issues relevant to the ways in which natural scientists, historians and archaeologists may collaborate in the study of past climatic changes in the Mediterranean basin. We begin by discussing the methodologies of these three disciplines in the context of the consilience debate, that is, attempts to unify different research methodologies that address similar problems. We demonstrate that there ar…
Not the End of the World? Post-Classical Decline and Recovery in Rural Anatolia
Pollen-inferred regional vegetation patterns and demographic change in Southern Anatolia through the Holocene
Southern Anatolia is a highly significant area within the Mediterranean, particularly in terms of understanding how agriculture moved into Europe from neighbouring regions. This study uses pollen, palaeoclimate and archaeological evidence to investigate the relationships between demography and vegetation change, and to explore how the development of agriculture varied spatially. Data from 21 fossil pollen records have been transformed into forest…
The Climate and Environment of Byzantine Anatolia
The integration of high-resolution archaeological, textual, and environmental data with longer-term, low-resolution data affords greater precision in identifying some of the causal relationships underlying societal change. Regional and microregional case studies about the Byzantine world-in particular, Anatolia, which for several centuries was the heart of that world-reveal many of the difficulties that researchers face when attempting to assess …
Landscape Change and Trade in Ancient Greece
In this article we use pollen data from six sites in southern Greece to study long-term vegetation change in this region from 1000 BCE to 600 CE. Based on insights from environmental history, we interpret our estimated trends in the regional presence of cereal, olive and vine pollen as proxies for structural changes in agricultural production. We present evidence that there was a market economy in ancient Greece and a major trade expansion severa…
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire
Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome , written for a popular audience, uses the environment to explain the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The book asserts that Rome fell as a result of environmental stress, in particular through a combination of pandemic disease and climate change. Although we agree that the environment can and should be integrated within traditional historical accounts, we challenge the book's claims on several issues. These in…
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire
This is the last of a three‐part review of Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome . Here, we scrutinize Harper's treatment of the Justinianic Plague, demonstrating how he crafts a convincing narrative based on rhetorical flourishes but little evidence. We call further attention to several internal contradictions within the chapter and misinterpretations of evidence. We conclude this series of articles with a reflection on Harper's deterministic approach …
On the use of palynological data in economic history
Past Answers to Present Concerns. The Relevance of the Premodern Past for 21st Century Policy Planners
How is history relevant to the present, or indeed the future? Governments around the world have used history to inform planning and decision‐making in various fields for years, but more recently it has taken on a renewed importance as governments grapple with increasingly complex challenges arising from the impacts of climatic change. Yet identifying “lessons from the past” is not straightforward. Especially in the case of big questions about his…
L'émergence d'une histoire environnementale interdisciplinaire
Avec l'efflorescence des approches paléoscientifiques du passé, les historiens ont été confrontés à une multitude de nouveaux indices sur des phénomènes tant humains que naturels, des maladies aux migrations en passant par les transformations du paysage et le climat. Ces données inédites exigent une réécriture des récits portant sur les périodes lointaines, remettant en cause à la fois les fondements de l'autorité des sources historiques traditio…
Bread and Class in Medieval Society
Bread was a basic food staple as well as a marker of status in medieval societies. A study of Byzantine and Islamic textual sources combined with an archaeological scientific study of teeth remains from four excavated sites in modern Turkey demonstrates that literary stereotypes about access to high-quality bread may have held in densely populated urban settlements but not in society on a wider scale. Peasants, the lowest social group, also had a…
Bishops in Late Antique Italy
Those who study late antique society and its religion within the framework established by Peter Brown argue that ecclesiastical leaders, thanks to their social power, undertook numerous important social and political roles already in the fifth century. It is possible, however, to disagree with this position and to argue for a different view of local politics, which asserts that the view founded by Brown ignores the diversity of local circumstance…
The Climate and Environment of Byzantine Anatolia
The integration of high-resolution archaeological, textual, and environmental data with longer-term, low-resolution data affords greater precision in identifying some of the causal relationships underlying societal change. Regional and microregional case studies about the Byzantine world-in particular, Anatolia, which for several centuries was the heart of that world-reveal many of the difficulties that researchers face when attempting to assess …
Setting the Scene for an Environmental History of Late Antiquity
Environmental history is a well-established discipline that until recently focused mainly on the modern era and was dominated by historians. Numerous scholars agree today that this needs to change: a focus on Late Antiquity can help this happen. To make it possible, we should concentrate our efforts on three parallel projects. First, make late antique studies more interdisciplinary, i.e. joining the efforts of historians, archaeologists and natur…
Realising consilience
This paper reviews the methodological and practical issues relevant to the ways in which natural scientists, historians and archaeologists may collaborate in the study of past climatic changes in the Mediterranean basin. We begin by discussing the methodologies of these three disciplines in the context of the consilience debate, that is, attempts to unify different research methodologies that address similar problems. We demonstrate that there ar…
The environmental, archaeological and historical evidence for regional climatic changes and their societal impacts in the Eastern Mediterranean in Late Antiquity
Settlement, Land Use and Society in the Late Antique Mediterranean, 4th–7th c. An Overview
This paper outlines some key transformations in rural society and settlement patterns in the 4th to 7th c. western Mediterranean, as revealed by archaeological evidence. An overview of discernible trends and current debates about their socio-political contexts is illustrated with examples of well-investigated sites. From this data, two contrasting patterns emerge: intensive, and partly state-stimulated, cultivation of land; systematic animal bree…
Climatic Changes and Their Impacts in the Mediterranean during the First Millennium AD
Many events and developments in human history have been suspected to be, at least partly, influenced by climate and environmental changes. In order to investigate climate impacts on societies, reliable palaeoclimatic data of adequate dating precision, resolution, spatial representativeness, and so on, are needed. This paper presents a survey and analysis of published palaeoclimatic data of the Mediterranean for the 1st millennium AD , and identif…
Catastrophes Aside
On the use of palynological data in economic history
Eseh Notepad
Bread and Class in Medieval Society
Bread was a basic food staple as well as a marker of status in medieval societies. A study of Byzantine and Islamic textual sources combined with an archaeological scientific study of teeth remains from four excavated sites in modern Turkey demonstrates that literary stereotypes about access to high-quality bread may have held in densely populated urban settlements but not in society on a wider scale. Peasants, the lowest social group, also had a…
History meets palaeoscience
History and archaeology have a well-established engagement with issues of premodern societal development and the interaction between physical and cultural environments; together, they offer a holistic view that can generate insights into the nature of cultural resilience and adaptation, as well as responses to catastrophe. Grasping the challenges that climate change presents and evolving appropriate policies that promote and support mitigation an…
Landscape, Nature and the Sacred in Byzantium
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire. A response to Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome (2)
This is the second of a three‐section review of Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome in which we examine in detail Harper's treatment of two allegedly widespread and mortal Roman outbreaks of disease. In the case of the second‐century Antonine plague, we demonstrate that Harper overlooked a major controversy and instead portrayed an oversimplified narrative of a catastrophic event. In the case of the third‐century Cyprianic plague, we call attention to…
The Social Burden of Resilience
We examine the social burden associated with resilience to environmental shocks in pre-modern societies. We argue that analyses of state-level interventions to mitigate the consequences of catastrophic events tend to isolate these measures from their larger social contexts and thereby overlook the uneven distribution of their burden across different groups. We use three cases of pre-modern societies in the northeastern Mediterranean - the sixth c…
Modelling Climate and Societal Resilience in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Last Millennium
This article analyses high-quality hydroclimate proxy records and spatial reconstructions from the Central and Eastern Mediterranean and compares them with two Earth System Model simulations (CCSM4, MPI-ESM-P) for the Crusader period in the Levant (1095-1290 CE), the Mamluk regime in Transjordan (1260-1516 CE) and the Ottoman crisis and Celâlî Rebellion (1580-1610 CE). During the three time intervals, environmental and climatic stress tested the …
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire
Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome , written for a popular audience, uses the environment to explain the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The book asserts that Rome fell as a result of environmental stress, in particular through a combination of pandemic disease and climate change. Although we agree that the environment can and should be integrated within traditional historical accounts, we challenge the book's claims on several issues. These in…
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire
This is the last of a three‐part review of Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome . Here, we scrutinize Harper's treatment of the Justinianic Plague, demonstrating how he crafts a convincing narrative based on rhetorical flourishes but little evidence. We call further attention to several internal contradictions within the chapter and misinterpretations of evidence. We conclude this series of articles with a reflection on Harper's deterministic approach …
Not the End of the World? Post-Classical Decline and Recovery in Rural Anatolia
Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome
Pollen-inferred regional vegetation patterns and demographic change in Southern Anatolia through the Holocene
Southern Anatolia is a highly significant area within the Mediterranean, particularly in terms of understanding how agriculture moved into Europe from neighbouring regions. This study uses pollen, palaeoclimate and archaeological evidence to investigate the relationships between demography and vegetation change, and to explore how the development of agriculture varied spatially. Data from 21 fossil pollen records have been transformed into forest…
Demystifying Collapse
Collapse is a term that has attracted much attention in social science literature in recent years, but there remain substantial areas of disagreement about how it should be understood in historical contexts. More specifically, the use of the term collapse often merely serves to dramatize long-past events, to push human actors into the background, and to mystify the past intellectually. At the same time, since human societies are complex systems, …
Landscape Change and Trade in Ancient Greece
In this article we use pollen data from six sites in southern Greece to study long-term vegetation change in this region from 1000 BCE to 600 CE. Based on insights from environmental history, we interpret our estimated trends in the regional presence of cereal, olive and vine pollen as proxies for structural changes in agricultural production. We present evidence that there was a market economy in ancient Greece and a major trade expansion severa…
Towards a rigorous understanding of societal responses to climate change
Perspectives on Public Policy in Societal-Environmental Crises
This open access book analyzes societal-environmental interactions in policy and planning, with historical societies as complex adaptive systems.
Archaeology (19 works) · History (19 works) · Geography (18 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (17 works) · Climate change (11 works) · Ecology (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History (9 works) · Biology (9 works)