Papers by Jordan Pickett
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PLOS One, 2022
This paper develops a regional dataset of change at 381 settlements for Lycia-Pamphylia in southw... more This paper develops a regional dataset of change at 381 settlements for Lycia-Pamphylia in southwest Anatolia (Turkey) from volume 8 of the Tabula Imperii Byzantini-a compilation of historical toponyms and archaeological evidence. This region is rich in archaeological remains and high-quality paleo-climatic and-environmental archives. Our archaeological synthesis enables direct comparison of these datasets to discuss current hypotheses of climate impacts on historical societies. A Roman Climatic Optimum, characterized by warmer and wetter conditions, facilitating Roman expansion in the 1 st-2 nd centuries CE cannot be supported here, as Early Byzantine settlement did not benefit from enhanced precipitation in the 4 th-6 th centuries CE as often supposed. However, widespread settlement decline in a period with challenging archaeological chronologies (c. 550-650 CE) was likely caused by a "perfect storm" of environmental, climatic, seismic, pathogenic and socioeconomic factors, though a shift to drier conditions from c.
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Human Ecology, 2018
This paper focuses on earthquakes as the most frequent type of SCE (short-term cataclysmic event)... more This paper focuses on earthquakes as the most frequent type of SCE (short-term cataclysmic event) with signatures in the three main sources used to reconstruct the premodern environment, namely historical records, archaeological findings, and paleoclimate proxies. We examine methodological issues in archaeoseismology (including earthquake catalogs, statistics, and the measurement of societal resilience to earthquakes in premodern societies in the eastern Mediterranean), before investigating societal earthquake response in the region. The behavior of different groups within these societies, such as the central government or local elites, is assessed in this context. The regenerative or adaptive aspects of seismic events are demonstrated with consideration of their archaeological footprints. This paper concludes that complex societies in the Eastern Mediterranean during the past two millennia were largely resilient to earthquakes at the state-level, though local effects on the aspect and character of urban settlement could be more pronounced.
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The present work introduces the first architectural energetics analysis of a medieval tumulus fro... more The present work introduces the first architectural energetics analysis of a medieval tumulus from the Eurasian / Pontic steppe. In contrast to New World earthworks, tumuli on the steppe were constructed 1) with sod taken from the environment immediately surrounding the construction site, 2) with the use of draft animals and metal tools, and 3) in identifiable phases as part of funerary rituals over a period of weeks or months. These variables introduce problems which are confronted through 1) the application of novel historically attested rates for construction and 2) the creation of new, replicable mathematical methods for modeling materials transport.
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Long abstract / online publication of paper presented at the 23rd Congress of Byzantine Studies i... more Long abstract / online publication of paper presented at the 23rd Congress of Byzantine Studies in Belgrade, 22 - 27 August 2016
Co-panelists: James Crow, John Haldon, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Giovanni Stranieri, Mihailo Popovic, Athanasios Vionis, Maciej Kokoszko
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The work entitled de Aedificiis, Ktismata, or Buildings by Procopius of Caesarea-written during t... more The work entitled de Aedificiis, Ktismata, or Buildings by Procopius of Caesarea-written during the latter years of the emperor Justinian's reign-is witness to an evolving imperial Roman relationship between nature and the built environment mediated by architecture and infrastructure (written c. 559, Justinian r. 527 – 565 AD). Even after Antiquity, this relationship sustained uniquely Roman identities with particular forms of monumental construction and interventions on the landscape. Water was an especially crucial component in the constellation of behaviors and monuments enabled by empire: the striding arches of Roman aqueducts advertised the security and abundance of water inside the empire's cities, where travelers and citizens benefited from baths and fountains, all supplied by free, state-provided water. Aqueducts and baths were critical genres of building in the architectural 'tool-kit' for laudatory representations of Roman urbanism. Yet by the time of Procopius's composition in the sixth century, the traditional relationship between empire and water was in deep flux. Close reading of the Buildings in its socio-historical and literary contexts reveals it to be a significantly evolved specimen of attitudes, practices, and ideologies concerning water across the early Byzantine world when compared with earlier Roman precedents, whether or not we might judge these changes to have been deemed salutary by their conservative author, Procopius.
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J. Pickett, “Temples, Churches, Cisterns and Pipes: Water in Late Antique Ephesus,” in De Aquaedu... more J. Pickett, “Temples, Churches, Cisterns and Pipes: Water in Late Antique Ephesus,” in De Aquaeductu Atque Aqua Urbium Lyciae Pamphyliae Pisidiae: The Legacy of Sextus Julius Frontinus, International Congress on the History of Water Management and Hydraulic Engineering in the Mediterranean Region. Antalya, October 31 – November 9, 2014, ed. G. Wiplinger, Babesch Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archaeology Supplement 27 (Leuven: Babesch/Peeters, 2016): pp. 297-312
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in press, “The environmental, archaeological and historical evidence for climatic changes and the... more in press, “The environmental, archaeological and historical evidence for climatic changes and their societal impacts in the Eastern Mediterranean in Late Antiquity”, with A. Izdebski, N. Roberts, and T. Waliszewski for Quaternary Science Review 2015.
This paper examines the evidence for climatic changes in the Eastern Mediterranean for the period 200-800 AD and offers hypotheses on the role of climatic fluctuations in the societal developments that occurred in this region at the end of Antiquity. The geographical focus of the paper includes Anatolia and the Levant, two major regions of the Eastern Roman Empire that are rich in environmental, historical and archaeological data.
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early draft (2011)
submitted with book manuscript for review to Cambridge Univ. Press February 2017
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Public Talks and Lectures by Jordan Pickett
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https://xxl.hypotheses.org/
In association with Freie Universität, Deutsches Archäologisches Ins... more https://xxl.hypotheses.org/
In association with Freie Universität, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Berlin, Stiftung Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Technische Universität Berlin, Land Brandenburg Landesamt für Denkmalpfelge
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Papers by Jordan Pickett
Co-panelists: James Crow, John Haldon, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Giovanni Stranieri, Mihailo Popovic, Athanasios Vionis, Maciej Kokoszko
This paper examines the evidence for climatic changes in the Eastern Mediterranean for the period 200-800 AD and offers hypotheses on the role of climatic fluctuations in the societal developments that occurred in this region at the end of Antiquity. The geographical focus of the paper includes Anatolia and the Levant, two major regions of the Eastern Roman Empire that are rich in environmental, historical and archaeological data.
Public Talks and Lectures by Jordan Pickett
In association with Freie Universität, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Berlin, Stiftung Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Technische Universität Berlin, Land Brandenburg Landesamt für Denkmalpfelge
Co-panelists: James Crow, John Haldon, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Giovanni Stranieri, Mihailo Popovic, Athanasios Vionis, Maciej Kokoszko
This paper examines the evidence for climatic changes in the Eastern Mediterranean for the period 200-800 AD and offers hypotheses on the role of climatic fluctuations in the societal developments that occurred in this region at the end of Antiquity. The geographical focus of the paper includes Anatolia and the Levant, two major regions of the Eastern Roman Empire that are rich in environmental, historical and archaeological data.
In association with Freie Universität, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Berlin, Stiftung Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Technische Universität Berlin, Land Brandenburg Landesamt für Denkmalpfelge
For details and full program please visit http://www.sas.upenn.edu/arthistory/events/constructing-sacred-space-career-celebration-robert-ousterhout
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/04/05/old-city-cemetery-offers-fsu-students-lessons-history-archaeology/467139002/