IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 221: Environmental Impacts and Societal Responses: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Pre-Modern Famines, I

Monday 4 July 2016, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:	Heidelberg Center for the Environment, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg / Abteilung Wirtschafts-, Sozial- und Umweltgeschichte, Universität Bern
Organiser:	Maximilian Schuh, Historisches Seminar, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
Moderator/Chair:	Dominik Collet, Heidelberg Center for the Environment, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
Paper 221-a	Ask the Trees!: Dendroclimatology as an Approach to Reconstruct Extreme Weather Events Leading to Famine (Language: English) Carolin Rethorn, Heidelberg Center for the Environment, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Index terms: Science, Technology
Paper 221-b	Climate, Crop Failure, and Famine in Pre-Modern Finland: Tree-Ring Evidence for Climate-Society Interactions (Language: English) Heli Huhtamaa, Historiches Institut, Universität Bern / Department of Geographical & Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland Index terms: Administration, Daily Life, Economics - General
Paper 221-c	Hungry Hungary: Food Shortage, Need, Famine, and Their Detectable Causes in Medieval Hungary (Language: English) Andrea Kiss, Institut für Wasserbau und Ingenieurhydrologie, Technische Universität Wien / University of Szeged Index terms: Archaeology - General, Technology
Abstract	Pre-modern societies relying on agrarian production were extremely vulnerable to hunger and famine. Adverse climatic impacts as well as changing political, social and economic conditions quickly resulted in catastrophes that affected many people. The session series examines causes, courses, and consequences of famines in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period from an interdisciplinary, transepochal, and global perspective. Natural and cultural aspects of famines as well as their entanglement are in the focus of the session series. The contributions of the first session discuss dendrochronological evidence from the archives of nature, correlate them with written evidence from premodern Finland and identify detectable causes of famines in medieval Hungary. Thus the advantages and problems of including data from the natural sciences in historical research can be discussed.