INTRO | HIGHLIGHTS | FEATURES | INTERVIEWS | PERSPECTIVES
‘Historical documents and archaeology tell a very
interesting story in the Middle Ages and the story that
developed is extraordinarily modern’, says Gerrard.
In many cases societies throughout Europe were ‘risk
sensitive’ both in how they responded to different kinds
of risks, normally to hazards, but also to famine and
disease which were persistent at this time. In the case of
low-probability, high-impact events such as earthquakes,
whether people were prepared or not depended on
whether the hazard event had occurred before within
living memory. ‘If they didn’t take place during someone’s
generation or their father’s generation, there’s not the
same learning process. There isn’t a memory embedded
there within the community that gives them the
confidence to respond’, says Gerrard. But often there
was a lasting memory of hazardous events, and there is
archaeological evidence from across Europe showing that
people were proactive in managing them. Low-frequency,
high-magnitude events were usually the most catastrophic,
because preparedness was lower.
When remains of the town wall in Andújar, in southern
Spain, were uncovered by archaeologists they told a story
of how the people who lived there responded to risk. The
wall was destroyed by an earthquake in 1170. When it
was rebuilt the foundations of the wall were cemented,
and plugged to ensure that it was more resistant to the
next earthquake. The builders in Andújar changed their
construction practices in response to seismic risk, an early
example of a ‘build back better’ strategy. An excavation in
Glastonbury, in the UK, revealed a similar story.
When St Michael’s Church at the top of Glastonbury
Tor was excavated by archaeo