Post on 29-May-2022
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.
VEGU2021 FELIX RIEDE
13 APRIL 2021 PROFESSOR WITH SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITIESAARHUS UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OFCULTURE AND SOCIETY
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.
VEGU2021 FELIX RIEDE
13 APRIL 2021 PROFESSOR WITH SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITIESAARHUS UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OFCULTURE AND SOCIETY
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.
VEGU2021 FELIX RIEDE
13 APRIL 2021 PROFESSOR WITH SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITIESAARHUS UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OFCULTURE AND SOCIETY
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
VEGU2021 FELIX RIEDE
13 APRIL 2021 PROFESSOR WITH SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITIESAARHUS UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OFCULTURE AND SOCIETY
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.
VEGU2021 FELIX RIEDE
13 APRIL 2021 PROFESSOR WITH SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITIESAARHUS UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OFCULTURE AND SOCIETY
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.
VEGU2021 FELIX RIEDE
13 APRIL 2021 PROFESSOR WITH SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITIESAARHUS UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OFCULTURE AND SOCIETY
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.
VEGU2021 FELIX RIEDE
13 APRIL 2021 PROFESSOR WITH SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITIESAARHUS UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OFCULTURE AND SOCIETY
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.
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