ABSTRACT

Editors’ note Jean Grove’s chapter looks at our understanding of environmental change over the past few millennia, and then concentrates on change in the past one millennium and its impact on particular human societies. She concentrates on the Medieval Warm Epoch (c. AD 900 to c. 1250-1300), during which the Vikings settled Greenland, and the Little Ice Age (c. fourteenth century to nineteenth century). The fluctuations in this period were so minor, especially in comparison with many that preceded them earlier in the Quaternary, that they might be expected to have been of little importance to humanity. But, as Grove shows, these fluctuations were important in human terms; they were changes with which different societies had to contend, some adapting successfully, others failing. Grove’s illustration that in the more complex economy of medieval England during periods of stress there were gainers as well as losers (most of the latter being the poorest members of society) should be remembered when thinking how the contemporary world community may react to change.