apocalypse then! apocalypse now?

AARHUS UNIVERSITYITS3.5/NH3/CL1.4/SM1.4 PROFESSOR WITH SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

VEGU2021 FELIX RIEDESCHOOL OFCULTURE AND SOCIETY

APOCALYPSE THEN! APOCALYPSE NOW?

USING THE LAACHER SEE ERUPTION (13ka BP) FOR REALISTIC DISASTER SCENARIO DESIGN

VEGU2021 FELIX RIEDE

13 APRIL 2021 PROFESSOR WITH SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITIESAARHUS UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OFCULTURE AND SOCIETY

IN BRIEF

o Session: ITS3.5/NH3 – 'Learning from the past? The role of extreme events and natural hazards in the human past’

o vPICO presentation: Thursday, 29 April 2021, 09:19 CEST.o Breakout chat: Thursday, 29 April 2021, 09:32-10:30 CEST.

o Corresponding papers:o Riede, F., 2017. Past-Forwarding Ancient Calamities. Pathways for Making

Archaeology Relevant in Disaster Risk Reduction Research. Humanities 6, 79. https://doi.org/10.3390/h6040079

o Riede, F., Jackson, R.C., 2020. Do Deep-Time Disasters Hold Lessons for Contemporary Understandings of Resilience and Vulnerability?, in: Riede, F., Sheets, P. (Eds.), Going Forward by Looking Back: Archaeological Perspectives on Socio-Ecological Crisis, Response, and Collapse, Catastrophes in Context. Berghahn Books, New York, NY, pp. 35–73.

https://doi.org/10.3390/h6040079




THE 13KA BP LAACHER SEE ERUPTION

o Highly explosive (Plinian, phreatomagmatic) eruption.

o One of the largest volcanic events in the Northern Hemisphere during the Late Pleistocene.

o ~40 km ash column.o 20 km3+ of ejecta.o 1400 km2+ near-vent area

covered in volcanic deposits between 60 and 1m thickness.

o River Rhine temporarily dammed up.

o Burned woodlands and other macrobotanical remains.

o Animal tracks in the ash: birds, wolves/dogs, bear, horse and red deer.

o Archaeological sites of all sizes –most predating the eruption by 100+ years.

o 311,000 km2+ affected directly by ash fall.

o Laacher See ash (=tephra) found ~1100 km to NE and ~500 km to S.




THE LAACHER SEE ASH – CLIMATIC IMPACTS

Archaeological sites with stratigraphic association of cultural layer and LS tephra

LSE climate impact likely minor

Niem

eieretal.2021. Clim

ate of the Past 17, 633–652.




THE LAACHER SEE ASH – ECOSYSTEM IMPACTS

① Ash-fall destroyed vital

resources.

② Ash ingestion increased tooth

wear amongst prey and

humans.

③ Ash led to F-poisoning.

④ Inhaled ash irritated lungs and

eyes.

⑤ Areas of C Europe avoided –

networks disupted

⑥ Cosmological effects of

exteme event?

Archaeological sites with stratigraphic association of cultural layer and LS tephra




THE LAACHER SEE ASH – HUMAN IMPACTS

① Depopulation of C

Europe (Federal States of

Hessen and Thüringen).

② Emergence of the so-

called ‘Bromme culture’ in

southern Scandinavia as

sub-culture of the larger

Arch-backed Point

technocomplex.




THE LSE AS REALISTIC DISASTER SCENARIO

o Leder et al. (2017) have considered infrastructural loss under minimal plume eruption conditions but cross-sectoral impacts, clean-up costs, health burden and long-term residence of ash in the affected areas are not considered.




THE LSE AS REALISTIC DISASTER SCENARIO

t-nNatural experiments of the deep past

Past eruptions and their human impacts

t0The contemporary

t+nThe deep future

Multiple pathways of societal change

t+1The near future

The extreme event occurs

<< the evidence base of the past | possible future scenarios >>

The ☐ denotes a given case study where the shading indicates the relative societal similarity between past case society and present-day target society.

The ---- denotes the temporal sequence of pre-, syn, and –post-eruptive societal change.




BUILDING RESILIENCE IN THE MUSEUM

o Cf. Rees, M., 2017. Museums as catalysts for change. Nature Climate Change 7, 166.

o Exhibition that mirrors a potential future eruption in the actual past eruption.

o Showcasing the palaeo-science behind understanding past human impacts.

o Stimulates thinking about future vulnerability under Anthropocene climate change across generations.

AARHUSUNIVERSITY

apocalypse then! apocalypse now?

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