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"Alps Region History."
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Peasants, Lords, and State
Peasants, Lords, and State: Comparing Peasant Conditions in Scandinavia and the Eastern Alpine Region, 1000-1750 compares peasant self-determination in relation to manorial and territorial power structures in Scandinavia and the eastern Alpine region between 1000 and 1750.
eBook
Peasants, Lords, and State
Peasants, Lords and State: Comparing Peasant Conditions in Scandinavia and the Eastern Alpine Region, 1000-1750 challenges the once widespread view, rooted in the historical thinking of the nineteenth century, that Scandinavian and especially Norwegian peasants enjoyed a particular \"peasant freedom\" compared to their Continental counterparts. Markers of this supposed freedom were believed to be peasants' widespread ownership of land, extensive control over land and resources, and comprehensive judicial influence through the institution of the thing. The existence of slaves and unfree people was furthermore considered a marginal phenomenon. The contributors compare Scandinavia with the eastern Alpine region, two regions comprising fertile plains as well as rugged mountainous areas. This offers an opportunity to analyse the effect of topographical factors without neglecting the influence of manorial and territorial power structures over the long time-span of c.1000 to 1750. With contributions by Markus Cerman, Tore Iversen, Michael Mitterauer, John Ragnar Myking, Josef Riedmann, Werner Rösener, Helge Salvesen, and Stefan Sonderegger.
eBook
Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Alpenraums in vorindustrieller Zeit : Forschungsaufriss, -konzepte und -perspektiven
Der erste Tagungsband zum Handbuch zur Geschichte der Ökonomie des Alpenraums in präindustrieller Zeit schließt die Lücke einer raumübergreifenden Synopse der alpenländischen Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Renommierte Wissenschaftler untersuchen in drei Bänden den Raum und seine Menschen, den Alltag der Alpenbewohner sowie den Handel, Migration und Kommunikation.
eBook
Oeconomia Alpium I
Der erste Tagungsband zum Handbuch zur Geschichte der Ökonomie des Alpenraums in präindustrieller Zeit schließt die Lücke einer raumübergreifenden Synopse der alpenländischen Wirtschaftsgeschichte.
eBook
The mirror of the medieval
This book gives an eye-opening account of the ways various political and intellectual projects have appropriated the medieval past for their own ends, grounded in an analysis of contemporary struggles over power and identity in the Eastern Alps.
eBook
End of the Little Ice Age in the Alps forced by industrial black carbon
Glaciers in the European Alps began to retreat abruptly from their mid-19th century maximum, marking what appeared to be the end of the Little Ice Age. Alpine temperature and precipitation records suggest that glaciers should instead have continued to grow until circa 1910. Radiative forcing by increasing deposition of industrial black carbon to snow may represent the driver of the abrupt glacier retreats in the Alps that began in the mid-19th century. Ice cores indicate that black carbon concentrations increased abruptly in the mid-19th century and largely continued to increase into the 20th century, consistent with known increases in black carbon emissions from the industrialization of Western Europe. Inferred annual surface radiative forcings increased stepwise to 13-17 W·m⁻² between 1850 and 1880, and to 9-22 W·m⁻² in the early 1900s, with snowmelt season (April/May/June) forcings reaching greater than 35 W·m⁻² by the early 1900s. These snowmelt season radiative forcings would have resulted in additional annual snow melting of as much as 0.9 m water equivalent across the melt season. Simulations of glacier mass balances with radiative forcingequivalent changes in atmospheric temperatures result in conservative estimates of accumulating negative mass balances of magnitude -15 m water equivalent by 1900 and -30 m water equivalent by 1930, magnitudes and timing consistent with the observed retreat. These results suggest a possible physical explanation for the abrupt retreat of glaciers in the Alps in the mid-19th century that is consistent with existing temperature and precipitation records and reconstructions.
Journal Article
Cooling and societal change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to around 660 AD
Societal upheaval occurred across Eurasia in the sixth and seventh centuries. Tree-ring reconstructions suggest a period of pronounced cooling during this time associated with several volcanic eruptions.
Climatic changes during the first half of the Common Era have been suggested to play a role in societal reorganizations in Europe
1
,
2
and Asia
3
,
4
. In particular, the sixth century coincides with rising and falling civilizations
1
,
2
,
3
,
4
,
5
,
6
, pandemics
7
,
8
, human migration and political turmoil
8
,
9
,
10
,
11
,
12
,
13
. Our understanding of the magnitude and spatial extent as well as the possible causes and concurrences of climate change during this period is, however, still limited. Here we use tree-ring chronologies from the Russian Altai and European Alps to reconstruct summer temperatures over the past two millennia. We find an unprecedented, long-lasting and spatially synchronized cooling following a cluster of large volcanic eruptions in 536, 540 and 547
AD
(ref.
14
), which was probably sustained by ocean and sea-ice feedbacks
15
,
16
, as well as a solar minimum
17
. We thus identify the interval from 536 to about 660
AD
as the Late Antique Little Ice Age. Spanning most of the Northern Hemisphere, we suggest that this cold phase be considered as an additional environmental factor contributing to the establishment of the Justinian plague
7
,
8
, transformation of the eastern Roman Empire and collapse of the Sasanian Empire
1
,
2
,
5
, movements out of the Asian steppe and Arabian Peninsula
8
,
11
,
12
, spread of Slavic-speaking peoples
9
,
10
and political upheavals in China
13
.
Journal Article
Climatic and human impacts on mountain vegetation at Lauenensee (Bernese Alps, Switzerland) during the last 14,000 years
Lake sediments from Lauenensee (1381 m a.s.l.), a small lake in the Bernese Alps, were analysed to reconstruct the vegetation and fire history. The chronology is based on 11 calibrated radiocarbon dates on terrestrial plant macrofossils suggesting a basal age of 14,200 cal. BP. Pollen and macrofossil data imply that treeline never reached the lake catchment during the Bølling–Allerød interstadial. Treeline north of the Alps was depressed by c. 300 altitudinal meters, if compared with southern locations. We attribute this difference to colder temperatures and to unbuffered cold air excursions from the ice masses in northern Europe. Afforestation started after the Younger Dryas at 11,600 cal. BP. Early-Holocene tree-Betula and Pinus sylvestris forests were replaced by Abies alba forests around 7500 cal. BP. Continuous high-resolution pollen and macrofossil series allow quantitative assessments of vegetation dynamics at 5900–5200 cal. BP (first expansion of Picea abies, decline of Abies alba) and 4100–2900 cal. BP (first collapse of Abies alba). The first signs of human activity became noticeable during the late Neolithic c. 5700–5200 cal. BP. Cross-correlation analysis shows that the expansion of Alnus viridis and the replacement of Abies alba by Picea abies after c. 5500 cal. BP was most likely a consequence of human disturbance. Abies alba responded very sensitively to a combination of fire and grazing disturbance. Our results imply that the current dominance of Picea abies in the upper montane and subalpine belts is a consequence of anthropogenic activities through the millennia.
Journal Article
The end of the lake-dwellings in the Circum-Alpine region
After more than 3500 years of occupation in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, the many lake-dwellings around the Circum-Alpine region ‘suddenly’ came to an end. Throughout that period alternating phases of occupation and abandonment illustrate how resilient lacustrine populations were against change: cultural/environmental factors might have forced them to relocate temporarily, but they always returned to the lakes. So why were the lake-dwellings finally abandoned and what exactly happened towards the end of the Late Bronze Age that made the lake-dwellers change their way of life so drastically? The new research presented here draws upon the results of a four-year-long project dedicated to shedding light on this intriguing conundrum. Placing a particular emphasis upon the Bronze Age, a multidisciplinary team of researchers has studied the lake-dwelling phenomenon inside out, leaving no stones unturned, enabling identification of all possible interactive socioeconomic and environmental factors that can be subsequently tested against each other to prove (or disprove) their validity. By refitting the various pieces of the jigsaw a plausible, but also rather unexpected, picture emerges.
eBook