Social tipping points of Anthropocene acceleration dynamics in European history, from Roman times to the Little Ice Age

The current crisis state of the planet, commonly called the Anthropocene, emerged as the result of the Great Acceleration in human consumption and environmental impact which followed the Second World War in the middle of the 20^th c. There is growing evidence suggesting that similar acceleration dynamics, characterised by exponential growth in human environmental impact, occurred locally or regionally at earlier stages in human history. It is, however, difficult to identify, quantify, and confirm such cases without high-resolution, well-dated historical or paleoenvironmental data. In this presentation, I review three cases of well-documented Anthropocene-like accelerations, from Roman Anatolia, medieval Poland, and early modern Greece. In all of these cases, it was political consolidation, even if short-lived, as well as economic integration, that created the social tipping point triggering exponential acceleration of human environmental impact. All of these acceleration phases also collapsed once the underlying social dynamics was no longer present.