Fimbulwinter AD 536

[Peterski]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrem...35%E2%80%93536

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fimbulwinter

"According to written records and supported by dendrochronology (tree ring) and archaeological evidence, for 12-18 months in AD 536-537, a thick, persistent dust veil or dry fog darkened the skies between Europe and Asia Minor."

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...and-use_impact

"A major demographic decline of 78–85% occurred during the late-Roman period (AD 270–450), after which first-millennium population numbers never again reached middle-Roman period levels."

https://www.thoughtco.com/dust-veil-...-europe-171628

"Archaeological evidence described by Gräslund and Price shows that Scandinavia might have experienced the worst troubles. Almost 75% of villages were abandoned in parts of Sweden, and areas of southern Norway show a decrease in formal burials—indicating that haste was required in interments—up to 90-95%."

https://www.thoughtco.com/ragnaroek-norse-myth-4150300

"But with the core story confidently dated to the later Iron Age between 550–1000 C.E., archaeologists Graslund and Price (2012) have suggested that Fimbulwinter was a real event. In the 6th century CE, a volcanic eruption left a thick, persistent dry fog in the air throughout Asia Minor and Europe that suppressed and shortened the summer seasons for several years. The episode known as the Dust Veil of 536 is documented in the literature and in physical evidence such as tree rings throughout Scandinavia and in many other places in the world.

Evidence suggests that Scandinavia may have borne the brunt of the Dust Veil effects; in some regions, 75–90 percent of its villages were abandoned. Graslund and Price suggest that Ragnarok's Great Winter is a folk memory of that event, and the final scenes when the sun, earth, gods, and humans are resurrected in a paradisiacal new world may be a reference to what must have seemed the miraculous end of the catastrophe."

[Peterski]

It was followed by the Justinian's Plague:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian

[Armatus]

Just recently read an article about that, apparently the worst year to be alive !

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018...-year-be-alive

A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year," wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from the years 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, McCormick says.

At a workshop at Harvard this week, the team reported that a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere early in 536. Two other massive eruptions followed, in 540 and 547.

[Peterski]

And Slavs were somehow able to expand in such harsh conditions.

[Peterski]

And Slavs were somehow able to expand in such harsh conditions.

Languages of Europe in 1100 AD (there are some mistakes in this map like East Prussia which should be Baltic and Eastern Austria which should be Slavic, but generally it is correct):

http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turk...zGCh7Fig26.jpg



The East Frankish-Slavic ethnic border was Limes Sorabicus:

https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limes_Sorabicus