The workshop serving as the inaugural meeting for this project was held at Princeton University.

The meeting examined the evidence and interpretations for climate change and its environmental impact in Anatolia from the 2nd century to the 20th century CE in a broad comparative perspective. 

The emphasis was on key issues of palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental research and their integration with historical and archaeological data.  Data and case studies from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods in Anatolia, placed in the context of broader studies of environmental and societal change in the Near East and Eurasia, were the focus for the discussion. 

Participants included: Samantha Allcock (Bournmouth University), Deniz Bozkurt (University of Chile), Marica Cassis (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Nicola Di Cosmo (Institute of Advanced Study), Owen Doonan (California State University Northridge), Warren Eastwood (University of Birmingham), Hugh Elton (Trent University/Ontario), Dominik Fleitmann (Reading University), John Haldon (Princeton University), Adam Izdebski (Jagiellonian University in Kraków),  Sturt Manning (Cornell University), Lee Mordechai (Princeton), Tim Newfield (Princeton), Jim Newhard (College of Charleston), Kathleen Nicholl (University of Utah), (Sena Akçer Ön (Muğla University), Shufen Pan (Auburn University), Jordan Pickett (UPenn), C. Neil Roberts (University of Plymouth), Arlene Rosen (UT Austin), Çetin Şenkul (Isparta University), Hanqin Tian (Auburn University), Niholas Trepanier (University of Mississipppi), Sam White (OSU), Elena Xoplaki (Justus-Liebig University Giessen).

Abstracts:

1. Arlene Rosen (UT Austin)
   Managing for risk and resilience in ancient empires of semi-arid regions during Late Antiquity in the Levant and China
2. Deniz Bozkurt (University of Chile)
   Regional climate processes and large-scale forcing over the Anatolian peninsula
3. Nicola Di Cosmo (IAS, Princeton)
   The political ecology of nomadic empires: from dependency to vulnerability                   
4. Tim Newfield (Princeton)
   Climate, livestock and disease. Data, problems and interpretations
5. Lee Mordechai (Princeton)
   Earthquakes: Extent, Effects and Evidence
6. Dominik Fleitmann (Reading), Elena Xoplaki (Giessen), Adam Izdebski (Warsaw):
   The medieval climate anomaly and Byzantium. A review of evidence on economic performance, social unrest, large-scale migrations and climatic fluctuations in the SE Balkans and Anatolia AD 850-1300 
7. Owen Doonan (UC Northridge):
   Too much of a good thing? Economic success, sustainability and resilience in Pontus, 1^st-8^th c. CE
8. Samantha Allcock (Bournmouth):
   Adaptive cycles and changing resiliency in Byzantine Cappadocia
9. Neil Roberts (Plymouth)
   Droughts and rural settlement in Ottoman Anatolia
10. Warren Eastwood (Birmingham) and Çetin Şenkul (Isparta)
    The Ottoman tax registers and palaeoecological pollen data: towards a model of 16^th century agricultural production in Cappadocia, Turkey
11. Sena Akçer Ön (Muğla)
    Multi-proxy core results from Lake Bafa (Muğla–Aydin) and Küçükçekmece lagoon (Istanbul) 
12. Marica Cassis (Newfoundland):
    The Early and Middle Byzantine Periods at Çadır Höyük: New Data and New Directions
13. Jordan Pickett (UPenn)
    Climate Change and Cultural Response during Late Antiquity
14. Adam Izdebski (Warsaw)
    Realising consilience: issues of communication between archaeologists, historians and scientists