Lecture by Dr habil Patrick Roberts: Discovering Jena and its surroundings through the ages

Since the 1950s, urban population growth and the associated pollution and environmental impacts have been regarded as key indicators of the ‘Great Acceleration’ of human interference with the Earth system. As the proportion of the population living in urban settlements continues to rise, understanding these interactions is crucial to finding sustainable pathways through the Anthropocene. However, the interactions between urban settlements and their surroundings have a long history, and understanding this is essential for deriving more reliable baseline data and insights for contemporary urban research and policy. In Jena, for example, there is evidence that the city’s surroundings have experienced significant fluctuations in terms of forest cover, hydrology and environmental pollution over the last 1,000 years. In this talk, I will demonstrate how we combine the study of trees, sediment cores, aerial and laboratory-based laser analyses, as well as quantitative history and archaeology, to gain new insights into the history of Jena and its surroundings – insights that can offer us a fresh perspective on our lives today.