Climate Change, Evolution and Transformations in Ancient Ancient Rome and Anatolia: Evidence for Adaptation and Change in the Epistemological Impact of Ancient Rome
It is important to acknowledge that (1) all proxy climate reconstructions are both approximate and limited; and (2) the human dimensions of effects and responses to climate (and other) change are complicated with internal diversity and varying systems from bottom to top (of any hierarchy) within societies and networks of external connections affording plural possible trajectories6,7. Climate anomalies or changes by themselves do not cause human societies to rise or fall. They are part of the context within which individuals, groups, and larger social, economic, and political entities make decisions, act, and react5,6,7,16,22,26,28,34,45,51,57. In the main text, there are arguments for multi-year climate and environmental challenges, such as unusual dry periods in a semi-arial context, that will challenge existing systems. There is no simple correlation of crisis equalling collapse; indeed, in history there are few cases of real total collapse, rather, there is transformation (adaptation)—for example, the end or marked change of an existing political system or hierarchical model (such as the end of an empire or state)—to accommodate changing circumstances and usually with considerable continuity in many of the other, underlying, aspects of life6,7,16,40,59,61. The scale of the collapse in such transformations depends on many factors, from the severity of any climate driver to the constitution and history of the relevant society. In particular, for circumstances in which a ‘rigidity trap’ applies, as a previously successful, long-term system becomes entrenched and homogenous across a large area, there may be a harsh transformation62.
The authors of the study suggest that a decrease in local rains during the twelfth century BC resulted in reduced tree growth in central Anatolia. The fall of the emperor and abandonment of the Hittite capital coincide with three consecutive years of dry weather in the central Anatolian climate.
The 13C data in Supplementary Table 2 has differing baselines and variations, with the average value being +19.68. There is a more recent time series called 13C on juniper from Anatolia. 100). The different baselines from different trees suggest that using and averaging the raw δ13C values is not appropriate. Since there appear to be indications of several common trends, we look at the data in terms of normalized values for each individual 13C series. The number 99. The overall trend in the 13C series is similar to the overall trend in 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110. The 28-point smoothing curve was chosen as representative of average human generation timescale in pre-modern times. We compare the smoothing curves constructed from individual data series versus the average one which is applied in the case of GOR-22 where the data is not all evenly distributed. The individual series all correspond well to the smoothed 13CCorZ curve. The 13CCorZ curve values are used to indicate general moisture availability in Fig. 2. This analysis is presented in support of the ring-width analysis and not as a stand-alone climate proxy. There are not many separate trees employed. The focus of our investigation is merely to ascertain whether tree-ring stable carbon values indicate likely drier conditions (in relative terms irrespective of possible age-related and other trends) consistent with the tree-ring width analysis. A moderate period from the 14th century BC to the 13th century BC was followed by a trend of noticeably dry conditions in the later 13th to initial 12th century BC. Outside the period of focus in this study, it is also noticeable that four trees indicate another arid episode in the record in the late-to-end 1020s bc (GOR RY1489–1494). There is a two-year consecutive lower growth interval GOR RY1487–1488. 8a), but the tree-ring width response is neither as substantial nor clearly indicated as the GOR RY1314–1316 or ~1198–1196 bc case. The 13C data from the cave is stable. The stable 13C and 18O data came from Kocain Cave. 43. There are two cave speleothem records that offer different indications of dry conditions towards and around 1200 bc.
Combining the tree-ring data and the climate records, the authors identified an abrupt drought that occurred in three consecutive years from 1198 to 1196 bc.
Figure 3 and Extended Data Figs. 6 and 7 use data from The Old World Drought Atlas58 which are archived and freely available from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data). To select and represent these data we used the Tree-Ring Drought Atlas Portal92 (freely available and open-access) located at http://drought.memphis.edu/ which facilitates analysis of the gridded reconstructions (last accessed November 2022).
“They just weren’t politically or economically prepared for that particular drought,” says Greaves. The capital could have moved to a new place called Tarhuntasso if there were not so many dry years. Archaeologists are still searching for the ruins of that new capital, he adds.
In the history of the Hittite empire, Anatolia, a global climate map from 1929 to 2009 based on modern climate records
The Hittite empire dominated most of Anatolia — the peninsula that roughly corresponds to the Asian part of modern Turkey — and parts of northern Syria between 1650 and 1200 bc. It collapsed shortly after 1200 bc, with no historical records of Hittite rulers after King Suppiluliuma II, who came to rule in 1207 bc.
The capital Hattusa, in Turkey’s Çorum province in central Anatolia, was the primary home of the gods of the Hittite world. “It was both a spiritual and political centre,” says Manning. But around 1200 bc, Hattusa was abandoned and emptied of its people, and was later burnt down.
To evaluate the frequency of droughts in the region and understand their spatial extent, the authors then looked at modern climate records between 1929 and 2009 from the meteorological station nearest to Gordian. They found that in roughly 1 of every 15 of the years, the annual rainfall was less than 250 millimetres — below the 300-mm minimum level of rainfall required to grow barley or wheat in the region.
But a drought that went on for more than two years would have stressed food resources, undermined the economic and political force of the empire and made it vulnerable to attack by other empires.
But for Harvey Weiss, the evidence from those three years misses the bigger picture. In his view, the paper “misrepresents the climate history of that period”, he says.
Instead, Weiss says an initial drought event occurred around 1190 and was the beginning of a 200-year mega-drought with 30% reduction in winter rainfall2. “Two or three years of drought are not much, but an abrupt mega-drought with high magnitude creates cascading effects” says Weiss. The mega-drought extended from Spain through the Mediterranean and Turkey, all the way to India, adds Weiss.