536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
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536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
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Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#2Maybe not for Americans :) The eruption was hypothesized to have occurred in North America but did the team try to cross reference with native accounts of that time period?
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#3Maybe not for Americans :) The eruption was hypothesized to have occurred in North America but did the team try to cross reference with native accounts of that time period?
Given that ~90% of native Americans were killed over the first decades of European contact by smallpox, measles, and war, it's entirely possible that there had been a worse year for them.
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#4Maybe not for Americans :) The eruption was hypothesized to have occurred in North America but did the team try to cross reference with native accounts of that time period?
North American natives were not good about writing stuff down, and by the time Europeans showed up it was almost a millennium later so the records would have been scanty even if the Europeans hadn't gone on insane rampages spreading death, disease, and destruction everywhere they went.
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#5I’ve recently gotten through this period in the “History of Byzantium” podcast series. Justinian had just recently retaken many of the old western Roman provinces, not least of which was Rome itself, and the breadbasket of North Africa. Things were finally looking good for the Romans again when the plague hit. The armies were unfortunately overextended and now half their ranks were dead or dying. It was an irresistible target for the Persians, the steppe horsemen and the Goths which ultimately weakened them all just in time for the Arab invasions.
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#6Maybe not for Americans :) The eruption was hypothesized to have occurred in North America but did the team try to cross reference with native accounts of that time period?
Sounds like it was a cold time
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#7Reminds me of the year without a summer[1].
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#8The Christian revolution around that time in Europe also put civilisation back there. See “The Darkening Age” by Catherine Nixey
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#9Maybe not for Americans :) The eruption was hypothesized to have occurred in North America but did the team try to cross reference with native accounts of that time period?
North American natives were not good about writing stuff down, and by the time Europeans showed up it was almost a millennium later so the records would have been scanty even if the Europeans hadn't gone on insane rampages spreading death, disease, and destruction everywhere they went.
Doesn't "not good" in this context mean NEVER. Are there any native tribes/peoples that had a writing system before European contact? AFAICT, it's one of the main causes so many native languages are dying/extinct.
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#10These kinds of cataclysmic volcanic eruptions could happen today right?
What's.......our intended process for dealing with this?
Are there any technical solutions for dispersing ash from the atmosphere?
I know this is a stupidly naive question to some degree - how do you prevent acts of god, but I am curious if someone has thought about it.