The Roman Empire was one of the principal globalised political entities in history. In its constituent regions, globalisation induced profound, complex and variable societal changes, emerging from the interplay between local conditions (environment, demography, subsistence economy) and ‘global’ factors, including epidemics, climate change and power struggles within the Empire. The project will employ cutting-edge computational methods for ‘big data’ analysis and simulation modelling to integrate bottom-up, data-driven archaeological analyses with top-down, theory-driven socio-economic models of globalisation. As a case study, it focuses on the Dutch part of the Lower Rhine region, which played a crucial role in protecting the Empire’s military and economic interests between the 1st-3rd century CE. Three main elements will be investigated: 1) the integration of the local (‘rural’), regional (‘provincial’) and supra-regional (‘imperial’) socio-economic system, 2) the role of taxation, appropriation of natural resources and military investment by the Roman Empire in shaping and maintaining this system, and 3) the effects of external, ‘global’ events on its long-term socio-economic resilience.
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