The last two thousand years are a relatively unexplored territory for the effects of climate on society in the Near East. Yet, with the increased availability of literary resources, this period is extremely interesting for the study of effects of climate. While generally as arid as today, there are several warmer/wetter and colder/more arid episodes, such as the Roman Warm Period, the 535AD drought, the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age. Professor Dominik Fleitmann is part of the 2K Initiative and research by him and other members of the group aims to get high resolution climatic archives to document climatic changes during this period more precisely.