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Heritage
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The Archaeology of Climate Change
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The Archaeology of Climate Change

A special issue of Heritage (ISSN 2571-9408).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 2711

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Sharon Steadman

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Sociology/Anthropology, State University of New York, Cortland. P.O. Box 2000, Cortland, NY 13045, USA
Interests: archaeology of Anatolia; architecture; religion; ancient climate
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. John Frederick Haldon

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of History, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
Interests: archaeology and history of the Byzantine Empire; ancient and medieval state formation; environmental history; premodern societal resilience

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change is a hot topic in the 21st century. Those engaged in the archaeological pursuit of knowledge know that there have been many periods when similar conversations occurred among individuals in both the distant and more recent past.

We invite paper submissions for publication in this Heritage theme Special Issue titled “The Archaeology of Climate Change.” We welcome manuscripts focusing on any area of the globe, as well as any archaeological period.

We invite authors to submit manuscripts focusing on one or more of the following themes:

  • Scientific/archaeological methodologies for identifying/tracking ancient climate change;
  • The impacts of climate change on political, social, economic, and/or religious behaviors in communities;
  • The impacts of climate change on agricultural, land-management, and/or animal husbandry activities in communities;
  • Power dynamics initiated, exacerbated, or eradicated by climate change;
  • Archaeological evidence of ancient responses to climate change, particularly with regard to sustainability strategies introduced or practiced to manage climate-induced crises.

While submissions on the above-noted topics will form the majority of this Special Issue, we also welcome manuscripts that study topics outside of, or only tangentially related to, those outlined in the bullet-point list.

Manuscripts will first be reviewed by the Guest Editors, who may request changes to the manuscript; subsequent to their final approval, manuscripts will undergo a peer-review process.

We look forward to receiving submissions from interested authors. The open-access nature of Heritage will ensure that the valuable data contained therein will be immediately available to those interested in learning about this extremely relevant topic.

Prof. Dr. Sharon Steadman
Prof. Dr. John Frederick Haldon
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Heritage is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • archaeology
  • climate change
  • methodology
  • ecology
  • adaptation

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 354 KiB  
Article
Climate and the Ancient World: Beyond Present Concerns to Complications, Where Details Matter
by Sturt W. Manning
Heritage 2025, 8(5), 168; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8050168 - 8 May 2025
Viewed by 443
Abstract
Current modern attention and concern about (human-driven) climate change has prompted much focus on the historical/archaeological relevance and role of (natural) climate change in the past. The topic is both relevant and important—and especially those short(er)-term events that perhaps helped trigger historically substantive [...] Read more.
Current modern attention and concern about (human-driven) climate change has prompted much focus on the historical/archaeological relevance and role of (natural) climate change in the past. The topic is both relevant and important—and especially those short(er)-term events that perhaps helped trigger historically substantive change episodes. But, at the same time, initial, somewhat naïve enthusiasm has now run headlong into the limitations of the available data sources before the early modern era, and the many complications of establishing actual causal associations. These need to be, first, closely defined in terms of timing and effects, and then also, second, established as relevant to the specific human societies/civilizations and contexts in question. This paper seeks to highlight the need for appropriate care and rigorous method when seeking to associate climate and environmental events with the available ancient historical and archaeological evidence, and investigates three illustrative, problematic, cases from the Classical Mediterranean world. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Archaeology of Climate Change)
22 pages, 9846 KiB  
Article
Palaeoclimate Change in the Southern Black Sea Region and Its Impact on the Fate of Rome—From Megadrought to Collapse of Rome’s ›Polis Command Economy‹
by Julia M. Koch
Heritage 2025, 8(5), 160; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8050160 - 3 May 2025
Viewed by 702
Abstract
In recent scholarship, the impact of palaeoclimate change is often understood as a main factor contributing to the fragmentation and “fall” of Rome’s empire. The various attempts at postulating disastrous effects of temperature shifts in the fifth to sixth centuries—cooling caused harvest failures, [...] Read more.
In recent scholarship, the impact of palaeoclimate change is often understood as a main factor contributing to the fragmentation and “fall” of Rome’s empire. The various attempts at postulating disastrous effects of temperature shifts in the fifth to sixth centuries—cooling caused harvest failures, famine, political and social unrest, and disruptions in food supply—have been criticized for a good reason: compelling causal links between cooler weather conditions and decreasing agricultural productivity are missing. The socio-economic and political impact of a prolonged climate-related Late Roman drought (ca. 360–440 CE), however, has been widely overlooked. This paper aims to compare palaeoecological data from cave speleothems and lake sediments that indicate palaeoclimate and environmental change through precipitation shifts in the southern Black Sea region with the archaeological data of the urban granary in Pompeiopolis. Combining these data offers fresh insights into Roman environmental imperialism, command ecologies and economies, and the impact of climate change on Rome’s tax system that kept the network of redistributive food supply running. This archaeo-environmental approach sheds light on the ecological vulnerability of integrated economies, failures of the dysfunctional metabolic regimes of ›polis command economies‹, and the chain of cause-and-effect provoking the “fall” of Rome. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Archaeology of Climate Change)
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14 pages, 1186 KiB  
Article
The Evolving Landscape of Inquiry: Climate’s Growing Importance in Reconstructing Ancient China
by Yitzchak Jaffe, Andrew Womack and Anke Hein
Heritage 2025, 8(4), 125; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8040125 - 31 Mar 2025
Viewed by 838
Abstract
This paper examines the growth of climate change discussions in narratives concerning the development and evolution of human societies in Ancient China over the past two decades. This shift reflects climate’s ascension from a marginal factor to a central player in reconstructions of [...] Read more.
This paper examines the growth of climate change discussions in narratives concerning the development and evolution of human societies in Ancient China over the past two decades. This shift reflects climate’s ascension from a marginal factor to a central player in reconstructions of past human actions and societies. We provide an overview of the expanding research on ancient human–climate interactions in China’s prehistory and early history, emphasizing the increasing importance attached to climate as a major player in the rise and, significantly, the collapse of these societies. Through a meta-analysis of publication trends in the last two decades, we identify the chronological periods and topics where climate has come to be interpreted as having a notable impact. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Archaeology of Climate Change)
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