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.
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.
