University of Cambridge study says severe drought caused invasion
Picts, Scotti and Saxons inflicted crushing blows on weakened Roman defences in the spring and summer of AD367.Senior Roman commanders were captured or killed and it took two years for generals to restore order. Picts, people who inhabited northern Scotland in Roman times, attacked the province by land and sea. The Scotti from modern-day Ireland invaded broadly in the west, and Saxons from the continent landed in the south.The final remnants of official Roman administration left Britain some 40 years later.Prof Ulf Büntgen said: "Three consecutive droughts would have had a devastating impact on the productivity of Roman Britain's most important agricultural region. "As Roman writers tell us, this resulted in food shortages with all of the destabilizing societal effects this brings."The droughts led to crop failure as they no longer had the wet climate they were used to in order to thrive. They happened during a poor period for Roman Britain where food and military resources were being stripped and placed elsewhere.
The researchers expanded their climate-conflict analysis to the entire Roman Empire for the period 350–476 CE. They reconstructed the climate conditions immediately before and after 106 battles and found that a statistically significant number of battles were fought following dry years.
Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
2 days ago
- BBC News
Disadvantaged children STEM boost from Oxbridge £6.5m donation
An anonymous donation of £6.5m has been made to to help socio-economically disadvantaged children's money will be used to expand Oxford University's outreach work with students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, the institution donor has also made a gift to the University of Cambridge, to support projects aimed at increasing participation and attainment in STEM James Naismith, head of the mathematical, physical and life sciences at Oxford, said the "generous" gift would help the university "support the next generation of scientists, mathematicians and engineers". The money will be used to fund three outreach projects taking place at the university from October first is a targeted GCSE maths mentoring programme, designed to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds by giving them weekly maths 850 students will benefit from it in the first four years, the university second project is an expansion of an online outreach programme for 14-19 year olds to help them develop physics and maths programme has been running sine 2021, but the university said the donation would expand it from 500 participating students per year to 1, money will also support the bridging programme, an initiative for students during the period between receiving an offer and completing their first year as an Cambridge, the money will fund two programmes that are also designed to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds succeed in the two universities will run the programmes separately, they will share resources and materials, Oxford University said. You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
BBC News
3 days ago
- BBC News
Experts try new method to help butterflies hit by record heat
Adaptations to some butterflies' habitats are being made to help them cope with erratic weather driven by climate Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is hoping for a bumper year for butterflies in 2025 following the record-breaking spring heat, but warns overall the insects' populations are drastically trust is trialling four e-shaped mounds, called butterfly banks, on its Coombe Bisset reserve to offer the creatures a space both to warm up and to cool down during Longley, the trust's conservation lead for the south of Wiltshire, said: "If you have a decline in butterflies then that shows a worrying degradation of the ecosystem that supports them." Butterfly banks are normally "S" shaped to provide maximum surface area for the creatures to sun themselves, as often they get insufficient warmth to the new "E" shape, which was developed by ecologists from the University of Cambridge, also provides shady nooks for the insects to cool themselves during ecologist involved in the project explained the mounds of chalk are designed to mimic Wiltshire's chalk planes - a vital butterfly habitat that has disappeared from other parts of the country. Ms Longley said record-breaking weather of any kind is a really worrisome sign of how climate change is affecting all these environments. "It's the unpredictable nature of it that causes so many problems."The opportunity to get an early start has done a lot of butterfly species a lot of good."But the worry now is that if this moves into a summer drought, we might see problems with not enough food plants and not enough nectar resources for them," she added. Last year's annual butterfly count revealed eight species had the worst year on record and the total number of butterflies recorded dropped by 600,000 compared to 2023's Longley said the drop was largely down to habitat fragmentation due to urban development and agriculture as well as erratic weather, and described butterflies as a good "indicator species" of the health of the habitat around them. "Due to their specific requirements in terms of food plants and weather conditions, they can really show the wider trends in the natural landscape," she said.
Powys County Times
4 days ago
- Powys County Times
Heart issues among endurance athletes studied by scientists
Older male endurance athletes may be at higher risk of heart scarring and related complications, according to a new study. Sudden cardiac death is a 'leading cause of mortality' in athletes, experts said as they set out to investigate whether endurance athletes had heart scarring and linked heart rhythm problems. Academics studied 106 former competitive cyclists and triathletes who exercise for more than 10 hours a week for at least 15 years. Experts from the University of Leeds scanned their hearts and had an implantable loop recorder fitted to assess their heart rhythms. They found that 50 of the 106 athletes (47%) had scarring on their hearts, particularly in the left ventricle – the main pumping chamber of the heart. This compares to 11% of 27 non endurance athletes studied for comparison. During a two-year follow up period they found that 22% of the athletes had an abnormal heart rhythm, according to the study which was funded by the the British Heart Foundation and published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging. They concluded that the athletes who had heart scarring were over 4.5 times more likely to experience an abnormal heart rhythm episode – which is linked with an increased risk of sudden cardiac arrest – compared to those without scarring. It is thought that among endurance athletes scarring could be caused by levels of exercise when the heart has to work even harder to pump blood. Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, clinical director at the British Heart Foundation and consultant cardiologist, said: 'There's no doubt that exercise is good for our hearts – it helps to reduce blood pressure and cholesterol, manage our weight, and it boosts our mental health. 'But in some veteran male athletes, this early research suggests that intense exercise over many years may have affected their heart health. 'More research in veteran endurance athletes – both in men and women – will be needed to identify the small number of people who have the kind of heart scarring, together with other risk factors, that mean their life could be saved by having an implantable defibrillator.' One of the athletes who took part in the trial was Brian Cookson, keen cyclist and former president of British Cycling and Union Cycliste Internationale – cycling's world governing body. The 74-year-old grandfather from Whalley, Lancashire, said the trial could have saved his life. While training at the Manchester Velodrome he started feeling unwell and his sports watch recorded his heart rate had reached 238 beats per minute (bpm), and stayed that way for around 15 minutes. 'I was pushing it a little bit on the track, but not absolutely full gas, as we say in cycling,' Mr Cookson said. He contacted the team involved with the study who reviewed data from his implanted device to record his heart rhythm. They were able to see he had suffered an episode of ventricular tachycardia – an abnormally fast heartbeat where the heart's ventricles contract too quickly and do not pump blood around the body effectively. 'The next day, I got a call. They said, 'Stop riding your bike, don't do anything more strenuous than walking until we can get you in here because we think you need an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD)',' he said. He was fitted with one of the devices in August last year which shocks the heart if it goes into an abnormal rhythm. Mr Cookson, who is still cycling, said: 'I keep a closer eye on my heart rate now and if I'm getting to 150bpm I'll start backing off. 'I'm so grateful to have been part of this study. It might well have saved my life. 'Without it, I might have carried on pushing myself until something more serious happened.' Dr Peter Swoboda, associate professor in cardiology and consultant cardiologist at the University of Leeds, who led the study, said: 'In our study, the athletes who experienced dangerous heart rhythms often had symptoms first. 'I'd encourage anyone who experiences blackouts, dizziness, chest pain or breathlessness, whether during sport or at rest, to speak to their doctor and get it checked out. 'These results shouldn't put people off regular exercise. 'Our study focused on a very select group, and not all the athletes involved were found to have scarring in their hearts. We can all benefit from being more active, and this study is an important step towards helping people take part in sport as safely as possible.'
