GROUP LEADER
Adam Izdebski
Adam Izdebski is interdisciplinary historian and professor of human ecology at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. He is the corresponding Principal Investigator of the ERC Synergy Grant EUROpest, which studies late medieval and early modern epidemics. In 2018-2025, he was leading an independent research group in environmental history at the Max Planck Institute of Science of Human History / Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany. His research interests cover climate change, pandemics, biodiversity, and the interaction of economic development and ecological dynamics in the Late Holocene. He has been involved in several science for policy initiatives and since May 2025 he is a deputy chair of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission.
Key publications
- Spitzig A., Rösch M., Woodbridge J., Bauch M., Guzowski P., Erhart P., Fyfe R., Marinova E., Izdebski A., Cultural innovation can increase and maintain biodiversity: A case study from medieval Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 122 (47) e2506266122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.
2506266122 - Izdebski A., Czerwiński S., Jankowiak M., et al., Unbalanced social–ecologic acceleration led to state formation failure in early medieval Poland. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 122 (2025) e2409056122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.
2409056122 - Defant S., Carabia A., Fetner R., Craig-Atkins E., Fernandes R., Martino G. P., Costa S., Sołtysiak A., Izdebski A., Isotopic data reveal a localist Roman population in late Roman Albintimilium, Liguria. Scientific Reports 15, 12097 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s4159
8-025-92851-7 - Doğan M., Fiołna S., Duman B., Eastwood W., Haldon J., Izdebski A., Şenkul Ç., Environmental change and globalization dynamics in Roman Anatolia: Stabilizing an accelerating system. Science Advances 11, eadt7107 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciad
v.adt7107 - Masci L., Liakopoulos G., (…), Izdebski A., Masi A. Consilience in practice: social–ecological dynamics of the Lake Volvi region (Greece) during the last two millennia. Journal of Quaternary Science (2024) 10.1002/jqs.3645.
- Tian Y., Koncz I., Defant S., (…), Izdebski A., Geary P., Veeramah K.R. The Role of Emerging Elites in the Formation and Development of Communities after the Fall of the Roman Empire. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121 (2024) e2317868121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.
2317868121 - Izdebski A., Guzowski P., et al. Palaeoecological data indicates land-use changes across Europe linked to spatial heterogeneity in mortality during the Black Death pandemic. Nature Ecology and Evolution 6 (2022) 297-306.
- Izdebski A., Bloomfield K., et al., L’émergence d’une histoire environnementale interdisciplinaire. Une approche conjointe de l’Holocène tardif / The emergence of interdisciplinary environmental history: bridging the gap between the humanistic and scientific approaches to the Late Holocene, Annales HSS 77/2 (2022) 1-48.
- Haldon J., Izdebski A., et al., SDG 13: Climate Action. How Societies Succeeded or Failed to Respond to Environmental Disruption. In: Gorman D., Gutmann M., Before the SDGs. A Historical Companion to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Oxford 2022, Oxford University Press, in press.
- Dagomar D., Anchukaitis K., Bauch M., Burnham J., Carnegy F., Cui J., de Luna K., Guzowski P., Hambrecht G., Huhtamaa H., Izdebski A., et al. Towards a Rigorous Understanding of Societal Responses to Climate Change. Nature 591 (2021): 539–50.
- Zanchetta G., Bini M., Bloomfield K., Izdebski A., et al. Beyond One-Way Determinism: San Frediano’s Miracle andClimate Change in Central and Northern Italy in Late Antiquity, Climatic Change 165 (2021): 25.
- Izdebski A., Persian Christians. In: E. Wipszycka, Monks and hierarchic church in Egypt and the Levant in Late Antiquity, JJP Supplement, Peeters 2021, in press (as appendix).
- Izdebski A., Słoczyński T., Bonnier A., Koloch G., Kouli K., Landscape Change and Trade in Ancient Greece: Evidence from Pollen Data, Economic Journal (2020): 10.1093/ej/ueaa026.
- Mordechai L., Eisenberg M., Newfield T., Izdebski A., Kay J., Poinar H, The Justinianic Plague: An inconsequential pandemic?, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116/51 (2019): 25546-25554.
- Izdebski, A., L. Mordechai, S. White. The Social Burden of Resilience: A Historical Perspective. Human Ecology, 46 (2018) 291-303.
- Haldon, J., L. Mordechai, T.P. Newfield, A.F. Chase, A. Izdebski, P. Guzowski, I. Labuhn, N. Roberts. History Meets Palaeoscience: Consilience and Collaboration in Studying Past Societal Responses to Environmental Change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 9 March 2018, 201716912.
- Izdebski A., Jaworski M., Üstündağ H., Sołtysiak A., Bread and class in medieval society: foodways in Anatolia, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 48:3 (2017) 1-23.
- Izdebski A., Pickett, J., Roberts N., Waliszewski T., The environmental, archaeological and historical evidence for climatic changes and their societal impacts in the Eastern Mediterranean in Late Antiquity, Quaternary Science Reviews 136 (2016) 189-208.
- Izdebski A., Koloch G., Słoczyński T., Wolicka M., On the Use of Palynological Data in Economic History: New Methods and an Application to Agricultural Output in Central Europe,
0–2000 AD, Explorations in Economic History 59 (2016) 17-39. - Izdebski A., Holmgren K., Weiberg E., Stocker S., Büntgen U., Florenzano A., Gogou A., Leroy S.A.G., Luterbacher J., Martrat B., Masi A., Mercuri A.M., Montagna P., Sadori L., Schneider A., Sicre M.-A., Triantaphyllou M., Xoplaki E., Realising consilience: how better communication between archaeologists, historians and geoscientists can transform the study of past climate change in the Mediterranean, Quaternary Science Reviews 136 (2016) 5-22.
- Izdebski A., Holmgren K., Weiberg E., Stocker S., Büntgen U., Florenzano A., Gogou A., Leroy S.A.G., Luterbacher J., Martrat B., Masi A., Mercuri A.M., Montagna P., Sadori L., Schneider A., Sicre M.-A., Triantaphyllou M., Xoplaki E., Realising consilience: how better communication between archaeologists, historians and geoscientists can transform the study of past climate change in the Mediterranean, Quaternary Science Reviews 136 (2016) 5-22.
- Izdebski A., Holmgren K., Weiberg E., Stocker S., Büntgen U., Florenzano A., Gogou A., Leroy S.A.G., Luterbacher J., Martrat B., Masi A., Mercuri A.M., Montagna P., Sadori L., Schneider A., Sicre M.-A., Triantaphyllou M., Xoplaki E., Realising consilience: how better communication between archaeologists, historians and geoscientists can transform the study of past climate change in the Mediterranean, Quaternary Science Reviews 136 (2016) 5-22.
Our group leader in media
Piast Poland – The Rise, Development, and Fall in the Light of New Research – Prof. Adam Izdebski
Poland Grew Out of the Forest: What Archaeology and Ecology Tell Us About the State of the First Piasts – Adam Izdebski