A new open-access article published in Climatic Change, titled "Drought, Conflict and the Use of Historical Data and Methodologies in Interdisciplinary Palaeoclimatic Research" (Foxhall Forbes et al., 2026), offers a direct critical response to a study published in the same journal in 2025: Norman et al., Droughts and conflicts during the late Roman period (Clim. Chang 178, 2025).
The authors argue that Norman et al.'s conclusions, which link drought causally to the so-called "barbarian conspiracy" of 367 CE and to other late Roman conflicts, are not adequately supported by the historical evidence cited, and that the study applies no discernible historical methodology to its textual sources. The response examines four areas of concern in detail: the interpretation of the "barbarian conspiracy"; the portrayal of the late Roman agricultural economy; the composition and reliability of the study's conflict dataset; and the use of coin hoards as a proxy for historical unrest.
The article concludes that while future interdisciplinary research on the relationship between climate and conflict in the late Roman period may well yield valuable findings, the textual evidence as handled by Norman et al. cannot support the claims made. The authors emphasise that effective interdisciplinary research must allow all participating disciplines to engage on their own terms and with their own standards of rigour.
The article is co-authored by a team of fourteen scholars from institutions across Europe. Among them is BCDSS postdoctoral researcher James M. Harland, who is also affiliated to the Institut für Geschichtswissenschaft (Abteilung Alte Geschichte) at the University of Bonn. The article is published open access and is available via DOI: 10.1007/s10584-026-04112-9.