Modern societies are increasingly confronted with natural hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and rockfalls, tsunamis, and extreme meteorological events. Assessing these hazards is of paramount importance to mitigate the risk. Instrumental records of such events cover only a short time span and expanding the time window of observation beyond instrumental times is essential to lower the uncertainties in hazard assessments. While historical studies allow a certain extension of the time window, the integration of geological, geomorphological, and archaeological records gives access to much longer time periods. Such an approach not only aims at identifying and parameterizing – often-unknown - palaeo-events, but also at learning how ancient societies coped with these hazards.
In the past decade such a multidisciplinary approach to earthquake hazard was successful. The INQUA Environmental Seismic Intensity Scale (ESI2007), using earthquake effects in the natural environment to parameterize strong seismic events in the past, illustrates this.
The aim of this session is to broaden the scope to the archaeological environment and to other natural hazards. We therefore welcome submissions concerning the identification, parameterization and modeling of ancient events at and around archaeological sites, not only in the perspective of hazard assessment and future risk mitigation but also to learn more about the reaction of ancient societies to these palaeo-events. We encourage contributions from both natural, Engineering and social sciences to stimulate interdisciplinary discussions on the lessons to be learned from the past.