A journey throught our society

I will argue that the main reason why we don’t take necessary actions against global heating is that we are caught in the tragedy of commons. This means that we need collective action to save humanity. We need a world government. But how can such an instituition come in place in time? I speculate about the possibility, but I also take seriously the possible fact that we fail. What is the moral importance of human failure?

In the 8th century BCE, Rome was one of many small city-states on the Italian Peninsula, but it quickly grew into a city with a population of over 1 million inhabitants. Rome was one of the largest urban centers of the ancient world and controlled an empire with territory on three continents, spanning the entirety of the Mediterranean—or Mare Nostrum, “our sea,” as the Romans called it. We see evidence that even from Rome’s early days, the city was a mosaic of inhabitants from across the empire and remained so even after the fragmentation of the Western Roman Empire. Furthermore, we find that gene flow between Rome and surrounding regions closely mirrors Rome’s geopolitical interactions, with one of the most dramatic changes occurring with the move of the imperial capital to Byzantium. This talk will explore what we can learn by combining ancient DNA with the rich archaeological and historical record of ancient Rome.

Much is known, and much has been written, in truth or legend, about Al-Andalus. The Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages was truly a fascinating stage that witnessed the rise and fall of Caliphs, petty kingdoms, and dynasties during seven centuries of acculturation, assimilation, linguistic intertwining, coexistence and conflict in a society of the so-called three cultures. But what really happened beyond the grand narratives of historical names? Did anyone actually come from far Arabia to settle? What was it like for the common people to live through such a transformative period? In this talk, we'll try to peek into these questions through the lens of ancient DNA.