Essay by Eric Worrall
New Hampshire professors claim the ancient Silphium herb died from climate change, not because the Romans greedily picked every last plant.
Caesar’s favorite herb was the ancient Roman Viagra. Until climate change kills it
Perfumes, tonics – even love potions – silphium were prized by the ancient Romans, but its success sowed the seeds of its own downfall.
James Tapper Sunday May 15, 2022 19.00 AEST
Of all the mysteries of ancient Rome, the silphium is one of the most intriguing. The Romans loved herbs just as much as we love chocolate. They use silphium as a perfume, as a medicine, as an aphrodisiac, and turn it into a condiment, called a laser, that they pour into most dishes. It was so valuable that Julius Caesar kept more than half a ton in his treasury.
However, it became extinct less than a century later, in Nero’s time, and for nearly 2,000 years, people remained puzzled as to why.
Researchers now believe it is the first victim of man-made climate change – and warn that we should heed the lesson of silphium or risk losing species Botanicals are the basis of many modern flavors.
Paul Pollaro and Paul Robertson of the University of New Hampshire say their study, published in Border in Preservation Scienceshowed that urban growth and accompanying deforestation changed the local microclimate where silphium thrived.
“You will often see the story that it [became extinct] Due to a combination of overharvesting and overgrazing – sheep love it and that makes the meat more valuable,” says Pollaro. “Our argument is that no matter how much is harvested, if the climate changes, the silphium will go extinct anyway.”
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Summary of the study;
Re-evaluating the role of anthropogenic climate change in the Silphium extinction
Paul Pollarofirst * and Paul Robertson2
firstCollege of Life and Agricultural Sciences, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA
2College of Liberal Arts, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA
The famous ancient herb, known to the Romans as silphium (Greek silphion), is considered the first recorded case of human-caused extinction of species. Modern scholars largely believe that direct exploitation (e.g., over-harvesting; overgrazing) was the primary cause of silphium’s extinction, due to the overwhelming demand for the plant. in ancient times. Recent work has revealed the stringent cold stratification requirements for germination of silphium’s closest relatives, suggesting the possibility that silphium shares these germination requirements. Environmental changes recorded in ancient Cyrenaica (e.g., rampant deforestation; arable land expansion) could have led to the rapid rates of desertification in the region as well as direct disturbances. habitat of silphium, effectively eliminating the conditions necessary for successful germination and development of silphium in its native range. Contrary to previous conclusions, this evidence suggests that human-induced environmental change was a major factor in the extinction of silphium, marking silphium as the first recorded extinction caused by humans. people caused by climate.
Read more: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2021.785962/full
The study refutes the idea that non-human factors are a concern;
… On a related note, the lack of clear evidence for non-anthropogenic ecological drivers of extinction in the ancient literary record is enhanced by our knowledge. about the great value of silphium; That means such factors (predatory, pathogenic, or otherwise) would be remarkable to our ancient sources and thus the absence of relevant evidence suggests that no have any major concerns. …
Read more: Same link as above
But it is surprising that the drying method is not well understood in North Africa. There is solid evidence that North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula experienced alternating periods of dry and wet periods.
Green Sahara: Wet periods in Africa due to changes in Earth’s orbit
By: Peter B. deMenocal & Jessica E. Tierney © 2012 Nature Education
Quote: deMenocal, PB & Tierney, JE (2012) Green Sahara: Wet periods in Africa due to changes in Earth’s orbit. Nature Education Knowledge3 (10): twelfth
Paleontological and archaeological evidence tells us that, 11,000-5,000 years ago, Earth’s slow orbit transformed the present-day Sahara into a land covered with vegetation and lakes. .
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Although the African paleontological records shown in Figures 2 and 3 document the continent-wide spread of the Wet Period in Africa, transitions into and out of the AHP may be asynchronous over the whole of North Africa (Hoelzmann et al., 2002 year; Kuper and Kröpelin, 2006), they are also unlikely to be suddenly uniform (eg Figures 3d and e) everywhere. For example, a pollen record of regenerative variability east of the Sahara, extracted from a sediment core from Lake Yoa in northern Chad, documents Wet conditions gradually end in the range of 5–3 ka BP (Kröpelin et al., 2008). In addition, paleontological and paleontological data fragments from eastern Sahara indicate that the transition away from the wet period occurred over time, with arid conditions establishing earlier in the region. north (Egypt) and later in the south (Sudan and East Africa; Hoelzmann et al., 2002 year; Kuper and Kröpelin, 2006).
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Libya, where the herb Silphium grows, is a huge part of the drying process.
I don’t deny that deforestation plays a role, and that over-harvesting of this precious herb will play a major role in the eventual extinction – over-harvesting may have covered up. scarcity, leading Roman writers of the time to see a rapidly increasing risk of extinction. .
But blaming human-caused causes does not give significant weight to the much larger natural force in the region, which must have brought plants that rely on wet conditions to the brink. exists, seems to be ignoring the obvious.
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