Duncan Keenan-Jones 1, Russell Drysdale 2
1 Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Australia, dkeenanjones@uq.edu.au
2 Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia, rnd@unimelb.edu.au
Rainfall and disaster in ancient Rome
ABSTRACT
Ancient Rome represents a rare opportunity to compare past rainfall records with an unusually extensive historical record. The few existing climate records covering this period and region suffer from dating uncertainty, discontinuity and human impact, however. This paper investigates the potential of dark layering in calcium carbonate deposits formed in Rome’s Anio Novus aqueduct as a high-resolution proxy for past variation in rainfall.
Dark-coloured layers within deposits from ancient Rome’s Anio Novus aqueduct have multi-scalar distribution and elevated organic concentrations consistent with formation during the organic-rich flows of the Anio Novus’ source water during storm events (Keenan-Jones et al. 2014). This paper presents stable isotopic measurements from the Anio Novus deposits to investigate whether dark layers represent annual cycles. Apart from its palaeoclimatic value, this rainfall record has the potential to illuminate the influence of climate on flooding, disease and fire, all concerns in densely-populated ancient Rome.
REFERNCES
Keenan-Jones, Foubert et al.. 2014. ‘Hierarchical Stratigraphy of Travertine Deposition in Ancient Roman Aqueducts. IN: Calandra, Ghini, & Mari (eds.) Lazio e Sabina 10 (Atti del Convegno “Decimo Incontro di Studi sul Lazio e la Sabina”, Roma, 4-6 giugno 2013). Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio. pp. 293-5. http://www.archeolazio.beniculturali.it/getFile.php?id=801
Relazione presentata alla conferenza “Archeologia e Speleologia, Subterranean Speleology” svoltasi a Roma il 2 Luglio 2019.
https://www.scintilena.com/conferenza-a-roma-su-archeologia-e-speleologia-subterranean-archaeology/07/03/