Modern science reveals the environmental forces that have shaped human history

In the last decade, the search for data about the planet’s environmental history has raised questions about how climate change has influenced human civilizations in the past. We find out how the era of the Trojan War and the Exodus was beset by a rapidly cooling climate.

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Was climate change behind the sudden collapse of multiple civilizations 3200 years ago?

BRONZE AGE CATASTROPHE

The 1st Millenium BCE in the Mediterranean is the birth of the modern world. We’ll explore the environmental conditions that made this possible, and how people working with new technologies took advantage of a favorable climate to create a classical civilization.

How a centuries-long explosion of civilization all around the Mediterranean creates the Roman Empire.

CITIES AND EMPIRES

With the help of top scientists and historians including Kyle Harper, author of bestseller The Fate of Rome, we look into what science is now telling us about the impact of disease in toppling the Roman Empire.

How science weighs up the evidence for the impact of catastrophic plagues on the Roman Empire.