• January 9, 2026 | 8:00 AM - 10:30 AM
• Continental 8/9, Ballroom Level

4I: Managing Altered Terrain and Waters in the Roman Provinces (Colloquium)

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Sponsored by:
AIA Roman Provincial Archaeology Interest Group (RPAIG) and AIA Subcommittee on Climate Change

Organizers:
Matthew Schueller, The College of William & Mary, and Andrew Welser, Duke University

Discussants:
Amanda Gaggioli, University of Memphis

Overview Statement:
Environmental and climate changes were ever-present across Rome’s Mediterranean-wide empire. Especially when notably sudden or impactful, some of these changes and people’s responses attracted literary mention that survives today (e.g., Pliny the Younger on Vesuvius’s eruption or natural phenomena in Strabo’s Geographica). For most enviro-climatic changes (categorized by F. Braudel as longue durée, conjonctures, or événement) across the Roman Empire geographically and chronologically, however, archaeology is more informative. Varied archaeological analyses can elucidate not only the scope of such changes and communities’ responses but also how human activity fueled them.

This panel explores enviro-climatic change, particularly through the theme of hydrology, in contexts around the Roman provinces (Britannia, Hispania, Macedonia, and Arabia) through various methodologies. Two questions guide its case studies. How did communities shape and get shaped by enviro-climatic change, and how can Roman antiquity inform modern approaches to the natural world?

First, “Roman Land Management at Magna Fort: Archaeological and Palaeoecological Evidence for Land Utilization” investigates how Romans changed the landscape to best suit a fort on the Romano-British frontier. Also from Britannia, the next study “Ditches and Drainage on the Roman Frontier: Controlling Water Movement at Vindolanda” uses second-century Vindolanda to investigate how the landscape was altered in ways that caused water control problems that were later mitigated with strategies like ditches. Similarly concerned with water control, “Silver, the Olive, and the Guadalquivir: Human-Driven Environmental Change in Hispania Baetica” argues that large-scale olive oil production in Iberia emerged from human modifications to the Guadalquivir River. “Riverside Erosion, Rising Groundwater, and Desiccation at Roman Stobi” takes the panel’s water theme to the Roman East; it connects flooding along Stobi’s lower terrace in the fifth-sixth centuries to enviro-climatic challenges at the site today, arguing that ancient responses to such changes parallel modern proposals. Water and aridity are linked in “Overcoming Resource Scarcity on the Edge of Empire: The Innovative Construction of Roman-Style Baths in Arabia,” too, which considers innovation in bathhouse construction to overcome resource scarcity in challenging environments.

Closing the panel, the discussant draws on political ecology to interweave its papers’ diverse approaches and material. In so doing, the discussant emphasizes that understanding human-environmental relationships requires considering Roman provincial contexts’ unique historical conditions. Overall, this panel explores the complex feedback loop between humans and nature in the Roman world and asks what the Romans can do for us when it comes to modern interactions with the natural world.