The project
From the 5th century AD major political, economic and social transitions took place on the Italian peninsula, together with the occurrence of the so-called Justinian Plague pandemic, which further contributed to demographic contraction. All these events marked the end of the Roman period and the beginning of the Middle Ages.
L.A.L.I.A.
Late Antique Little Ice Age
Recent multidisciplinary research is revealing that this 6th century crisis was strongly influenced by unfavourable climatic events. Palaeoclimatic research has evidenced a worsening of climatic conditions in the Mediterranean area, with glacier advances, increase in rainfall, and volcanic eruptions leading to what has been termed “Late Antique Little Ice Age” (LALIA) from approximately 536 to 660 AD. This period is well known from the environmental, archaeological and historical point of view, but is poorly investigated from the bioarchaeological perspective. Yet bioarchaeological evidence can offer important opportunities to investigate the complex interaction between environment and past populations.
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Our Mission
The project BIOLALIA intends to elucidate the sensitivity of human systems to the full range of climatic variations as they occurred during the abrupt cooling phase of Late Antiquity.
A selection of 10 osteoarchaeological collections from northern and central Italian sites characterised by excellent archaeological documentation will be analysed through a multidisciplinary approach.
Climate and paleopathology
Palaeopathological analysis will evaluate and interpret several parameters potentially related to climatic and environmental factors, such as physiological stress indicators (stature, cribra cranii, cribra orbitalia, linear enamel hypoplasia), and health indicators (maxillary sinusitis, otitis media, periosteal new bone formation). Stable isotope analysis will be carried out to provide information about dietary patterns during climate-induced challenges. Finally, a pilot study will be carried out on the microscopy of dental calculus, an ectopic material which entraps micro-particles, providing insights into aspects of individual lifeways other than nutrition.
Skeletal, biochemical and light microscopic data will be combined with high-quality contextual information for a discussion of lifeways and health conditions of late antique Italy.
Unveiling Resilience
The Emerging Frontier of Bioarchaeology in Understanding Human Response to Climate Change
The bioarchaeology of climate change represents a pioneering and innovative avenue of inquiry poised to unveil critical insights into the factors underpinning human resilience amidst adverse climatic conditions of the past. Through meticulous analysis of skeletal remains, this burgeoning field has the potential to elucidate the intricate interplay between environmental challenges and adaptive strategies employed by ancient populations. By unraveling the physiological, dietary, and health responses of past societies to climatic fluctuations, bioarchaeologists endeavor to uncover the resilient mechanisms that enabled human communities to thrive in the face of environmental adversity.
Echoes of the Past
Leveraging BIOLALIA's Insights for Present and Future Climate Research
The knowledge gained with BIOLALIA can provide a historical perspective to climate research applied to the present. Bioarchaeological records offer the potential to detect and understand how past human groups have responded to a period characterised by negative climate events, forming a sound basis for predicting how climate change could impact on our lives in the future and to the evaluation of a range of possible solutions.