
© University of Wisconsin-MadisonGrowth bands are visible in a polished cross-section of a stalagmite from Soreq Cave near Jerusalem, Israel. Stalagmites form from calcite and other minerals deposited by water in caves and contain chemical signatures of the climate and other physical conditions that existed as the formation grew. Geochemical analysis of a similar stalagmite from the same cave has revealed that large climate changes in the Eastern Mediterranean 1,400 years ago, including increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D., may have contributed to the downfall of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in the region.
The decline of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes.
Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal
Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region.
The researchers, led by University of Wisconsin-Madison geology graduate student Ian Orland and professor John Valley, reconstructed the high-resolution climate record based on geochemical analysis of a stalagmite from Soreq Cave, located in the Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve near Jerusalem.
Comment: The 'brain damage" is more correctly defined as pyschopathy. Psychopaths have no sense of long-term consequences. They're hard-wired to pay attention only to their own desires and goals, without considering the wider ramifications of those goals.