Responses to Environmental Change in the Roman World

Question any 21^st century Americans about changes to the natural environment, and you will receive as many different answers as individuals asked. It should not surprise us that the trajectory of Romans recognizing and commenting on their changing natural environment is similarly inconsistent and owes as much to literary, socio-political, and cultural factors as it does to climatological ones. Those climate changes are coming into ever sharper focus as scientists publish geochemical analyses of Mediterranean environmental proxies.

Between 1960 and 1970, the population of the state of Florida increased by 78%, the largest percent increase in the history of the state, due directly to the commercialization of air-conditioning that guarantees a comfortable climate year-round: “Houses facing every part of the sky may have a wintery summer, a summery winter, and not with its normal changes is a year passed.” These are not the words of a Florida real-estate agent. This is an excerpt of a controversia recorded by Seneca the Elder (Con. 5.5).

Animals variously mirror both nature and culture in many aspects. Natural environments provide a habitat to situate animals and ultimately supply the resources necessary to sustain them. Cultural agents modify and manipulate these animals through husbandry, breeding, culling, hunting and other measures linked to the animal use and exploitation. Nature and culture further interact to affect animals as contributors to climate and landscape change. Zooarchaeology provides primary evidence to track this integrated dynamic among animals, culture and environment.