Understanding past climate and environmental change is crucial to predicting the potential wider implications of anthropogenic climate change. Arid and semi‐arid regions are particularly vulnerable due to the fine balance between water availability and societal demands. Should future anthropogenic and not surpass 2°C in the next century, then the Mediterranean Basin’s climate and environment will change in a way not seen since the late Holocene. Cyprus, as a semi‐arid island, has been identified as an area where biodiversity and agriculture are facing a complex threat from future variability in temperature and precipitation.The vulnerability of Cyprus to temperature and precipitation variability likely existed throughout the Holocene and may be a contributing factor to any societal collapse on Cyprus in the early and late Bronze Age. The specific processes by which climatic change disrupted societies is not well understood. Bronze Age texts do report periods of famine and crop failure. During this PhD you will investigate whether plant pathogens caused crop failure during intervals of past climate change. Working with partners in Cyprus and the UK, you will be supported to undertake fieldwork to gather the necessary samples to conduct geochemical, palynological and ancient environmental DNA analyses on Bronze Age sediments.
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