What sorts of evidence tell us about climate change in past times? How does using such evidence complicate the traditional job of the historian as an interpreter of texts?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A. Evidence of climate change
1. indicators of falling temperatures in the North Atlantic and parts of
Eurasia are abundant
2. evidence of the growth of glaciers illustrates the cooling trend
3. contemporary descriptions show that people in Europe began to feel
the cold
4. on the North Sea coast of England, divers can still visit drowned
villages, victims of the rips the floods of the era tore in the coastline
5. official chronicles show the increase in severe winters in China
6. evidence is too slight for certainty but there is archeological artifacts
left behind to show Hohokam civilization
B. Complications of evidence
1. Most of what we know about the ecological disasters of the era comes
from Eurasia and relates to Europe
2. for some other areas, only scattered archaeological studies help
3. must use legal records of the kinds that establish the social
consequences of ecological change in Europe