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After a successful conquest of large parts of Syria in 1258 and 1259 CE, the Mongol army lost the battle of 'Ayn Jālūt against Mamluks on September 3, 1260 CE. Recognized as a turning point in world history, their sudden defeat triggered the reconfiguration of strategic alliances and geopolitical power not only in the Middle East, but also across much of Eurasia. Despite decades of research, scholars have not yet reached consensus over the causes of the Mongol reverse. Here, we revisit previous arguments in light of climate and environmental changes in the aftermath of one the largest volcanic forcings in the past 2500 years, the Samalas eruption ~1257 CE. Regional tree ring-based climate reconstructions and state-of-the-art Earth System Model simulations reveal cooler and wetter conditions from spring 1258 to autumn 1259 CE for the eastern Mediterranean/Arabian region. We therefore hypothesize that the post-Samalas climate anomaly and associated environmental variability affected an estimated 120,000 Mongol soldiers and up to half a million of their horses during the conquest. More specifically, we argue that colder and wetter climates in 1258 and 1259 CE, while complicating and slowing the campaign in certain areas, such as the mountainous regions in the Caucasus and Anatolia, also facilitated the assault on Syria between January and March 1260. A return to warmer and dryer conditions in the summer of 1260 CE, however, likely reduced the regional carrying capacity and may therefore have forced a mass withdrawal of the Mongols from the region that contributed to the Mamluks’ victory. In pointing to a distinct environmental dependency of the Mongols, we offer a new explanation of their defeat at 'Ayn Jālūt, which effectively halted the further expansion of the largest ever land-based empire.

The use of paleoclimate data in historical work has become a new and dynamic endeavor in several areas of historical research. This chapter is concerned with the empires created by pastoral nomads in the steppe regions of Eastern and Central Eurasia over approximately three millennia, from the early appearance of complex Scythian and Siberian polities in the early first millennium BCE to the Dzungar empire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This essay aims to show how paleoclimate data may be used to illuminate connections, dynamics, and causal nexuses in the important, and yet often overlooked, historical experience of pastoral peoples and the empires they created. Paleoclimate data are especially important to supplement the scarce documentary sources left behind by pastoral nomads.

Societal upheaval occurred across Eurasia in the sixth and seventh centuries. Tree-ring reconstructions suggest a period of pronounced cooling during this time associated with several volcanic eruptions. Climatic changes during the first half of the Common Era have been suggested to play a role in societal reorganizations in Europe1,2 and Asia3,4. In particular, the sixth century coincides with rising and falling civilizations1,2,3,4,5,6, pandemics7,8, human migration and political turmoil8,9,10,11,12,13. Our understanding of the magnitude and spatial extent as well as the possible causes and concurrences of climate change during this period is, however, still limited. Here we use tree-ring chronologies from the Russian Altai and European Alps to reconstruct summer temperatures over the past two millennia. We find an unprecedented, long-lasting and spatially synchronized cooling following a cluster of large volcanic eruptions in 536, 540 and 547 AD (ref. 14), which was probably sustained by ocean and sea-ice feedbacks15,16, as well as a solar minimum17. We thus identify the interval from 536 to about 660 AD as the Late Antique Little Ice Age. Spanning most of the Northern Hemisphere, we suggest that this cold phase be considered as an additional environmental factor contributing to the establishment of the Justinian plague7,8, transformation of the eastern Roman Empire and collapse of the Sasanian Empire1,2,5, movements out of the Asian steppe and Arabian Peninsula8,11,12, spread of Slavic-speaking peoples9,10 and political upheavals in China13.

The Eldgjá lava flood is considered Iceland’s largest volcanic eruption of the Common Era. While it is well established that it occurred after the Settlement of Iceland (circa 874 CE), the date of this great event has remained uncertain. This has hampered investigation of the eruption’s impacts, if any, on climate and society. Here, we use high-temporal resolution glaciochemical records from Greenland to show that the eruption began in spring 939 CE and continued, at least episodically, until at least autumn 940 CE. Contemporary chronicles identify the spread of a remarkable haze in 939 CE, and tree ring-based reconstructions reveal pronounced northern hemisphere summer cooling in 940 CE, consistent with the eruption’s high yield of sulphur to the atmosphere. Consecutive severe winters and privations may also be associated with climatic effects of the volcanic aerosol veil. Iceland’s formal conversion to Christianity dates to 999/1000 CE, within two generations or so of the Eldgjá eruption. The end of the pagan pantheon is foretold in Iceland’s renowned medieval poem, Vǫluspá (‘the prophecy of the seeress’). Several lines of the poem describe dramatic eruptive activity and attendant meteorological effects in an allusion to the fiery terminus of the pagan gods. We suggest that they draw on first-hand experiences of the Eldgjá eruption and that this retrospection of harrowing volcanic events in the poem was intentional, with the purpose of stimulating Iceland’s Christianisation over the latter half of the tenth century. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10584-018-2171-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Newly available paleoclimate data and a re-evaluation of the historical and archaeological evidence regarding the Uyghur Empire (744–840)—one of several nomadic empires to emerge on the Inner Asian steppe—suggests that the assumption of a direct causal link between drought and the stability of nomadic societies is not always justified. The fact that a severe drought lasting nearly seven decades did not cause the Uyghur Empire to collapse, to wage war, or to disintegrate gives rise to speculations about which of its characteristics enabled it to withstand unfavorable climatic conditions and environmental change. More broadly, it raises questions about the complex suite of strategies and responses that may have been available to steppe societies in the face of environmental stress.

The collapse of the Eastern Turk Empire (ETE, ca. 584–630 CE) in 630 CE marked the rise of Tang China as the paramount power on the Silk Road. It was followed by the Tang defeat of the Western Turk Empire in 659 and opened a phase of Chinese expansion into central Asia. Climate-induced environmental changes as well as economic and political consequences are mentioned in medieval Chinese records as major factors in the ETE collapse. The role of cooler temperatures has also been discussed in current scholarship. Here, we re-evaluate this question by assessing the available historical sources in the light of a global network of 16 tree-ring chronologies for this period, which reveal distinct summer cooling in the ETE heartland between 626 and 632 CE. Reconstructed peak cooling of up to − 3.4 °C in 627 and 628 CE (relative to the 1961–90 mean climatology) coincided with heavy snowfall and severe frost events in the territory of the ETE. A strong sulfate spike in Greenland ice cores that has been dated circa 626 CE is implicated in the abrupt surface cooling. We argue that the climatic perturbation and associated reduction in vegetation growth and livestock mortality are relevant in understanding the causes of the fall of the ETE but these indirect drivers must be evaluated within a comprehensive analysis of political relations within both the Turk and the Tang leadership. Our study underscores and contextualizes the vulnerability of past nomadic societies to small and episodic climate fluctuations, particularly when coupled with concurrent socioeconomic, political, and demographic changes.

U. Buntgen received funding from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of CR within the National Sustainability Program I (NPU I; GN LO1415), and additional support was provided by NSF grant 0909541. We are particularly thankful to the NEEM project and its participants.

In our 2016 article in Scientific Reports, we advanced a new hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 CE, based on a joint analysis of climatic, environmental, and historical data. The re-evaluation now offered by Pinke et al. casts doubt on this hypothesis. However, their arguments are based on a level of generality that fails to appreciate the specific conditions of the Mongol invasion, do not offer new or different climatic data, and are supported by anachronistic production data and environmental information, which cannot be related to the period in question. While we acknowledge the importance of an open debate, we stand by our conclusions.

The Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe and especially its sudden withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 CE, has generated much speculation and an array of controversial theories. None of them, however, considered multifaceted environmental drivers and the coupled analysis of historical reports and natural archives. Here we investigate annually resolved, absolutely dated and spatially explicit paleoclimatic evidence between 1230 and 1250 CE. Documentary sources and tree-ring chronologies reveal warm and dry summers from 1238–1241, followed by cold and wet conditions in early-1242. Marshy terrain across the Hungarian plain most likely reduced pastureland and decreased mobility, as well as the military effectiveness of the Mongol cavalry, while despoliation and depopulation ostensibly contributed to widespread famine. These circumstances arguably contributed to the determination of the Mongols to abandon Hungary and return to Russia. While overcoming deterministic and reductionist arguments, our ‘environmental hypothesis’ demonstrates the importance of minor climatic fluctuations on major historical events.

At the invitation of the current Editor of Early China I have accepted to write a response to Sophia-Karin Psarras's review of my book, published in 2002, Ancient China and Its Enemies, The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (Early China 31, 2007: 227–259, published in June 2010).As a frequent book reviewer myself and former book review editor, I do believe that reviews have an important role in academia, but it is a role sometime abused, and something needs to be said when the credibility of a book and its author is treated in a manner that, by any standard, can only be regarded as prosecutorial. A point-by-point rebuttal would be a tedious and unnecessary exercise, and therefore I shall address only a few illustrative issues.On p. 231 I am accused of appropriating Lin Yun's language and of having taken terms from him without proper attribution (implying some kind of plagiarism). But in the passage that immediately precedes the incriminating excerpts, I say: “The standard typology of the Northern Zone's complex metal inventory, provided by Lin Yun [my emphasis] includes daggers, axes with short sockets, axes with tubular sockets, mirrors, and ‘bow shaped’ objects.” Did the reviewer miss this?

The term Pax Mongolica indicates a period of time (c. 1280-1360) during which Mongol domination seemingly guaranteed security on the Eurasian commercial routes. At this time the Italian maritime powers of Genoa and Venice established their commercial “emporia” on the Black Sea. This essay examines the links between Mongol-controlled continental Asia and Italian-controlled maritime trade by separating the sphere of interests of the Venetian and Genoese governments from the sphere of activities of private merchants, whose presence in China and Central Asia depended heavily upon Mongol support. The end of the Pax Mongolica had a different impact on both of these two spheres.Le terme Pax Mongolica indique une période (environ 1280-1360) pendant laquelle la domination mongole assurait apparemment la sécurité des itinéraires commerciaux eurasiatiques. A cette époque les puissances maritimes de Gênes et de Venise établissaient leurs ‘emporia’ commerciaux sur la Mer Noire. Cette contribution étudie les liens entre l’Asie continentale contrôlée par les Mongols et le commerce maritime, contrôlé par les Italiens en séparant la sphère d’intérêt des gouvernements vénitiens et génois de la sphère d’action des commerçants privés, dont la présence en Chine et Asie centrale dépendait du soutien mongol. La fin de la Pax Mongolica devrait affecter ces deux sphères de façon différente.

Although many studies have associated the demise of complex societies with deteriorating climate, few have investigated the connection between an ameliorating environment, surplus resources, energy, and the rise of empires. The 13th-century Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in world history. Although drought has been proposed as one factor that spurred these conquests, no high-resolution moisture data are available during the rapid development of the Mongol Empire. Here we present a 1,112-y tree-ring reconstruction of warm-season water balance derived from Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica) trees in central Mongolia. Our reconstruction accounts for 56% of the variability in the regional water balance and is significantly correlated with steppe productivity across central Mongolia. In combination with a gridded temperature reconstruction, our results indicate that the regional climate during the conquests of Chinggis Khan's (Genghis Khan's) 13th-century Mongol Empire was warm and persistently wet. This period, characterized by 15 consecutive years of above-average moisture in central Mongolia and coinciding with the rise of Chinggis Khan, is unprecedented over the last 1,112 y. We propose that these climate conditions promoted high grassland productivity and favored the formation of Mongol political and military power. Tree-ring and meteorological data also suggest that the early 21st-century drought in central Mongolia was the hottest drought in the last 1,112 y, consistent with projections of warming over Inner Asia. Future warming may overwhelm increases in precipitation leading to similar heat droughts, with potentially severe consequences for modern Mongolia.

The history of empires created by inner Asian peoples bears direct relevance to the conceptualization of world history down to the early modern period, as their impact on surrounding civilizations resulted in long-lasting demographic, economic, and political changes. This essay explores the basic mechanisms of state formation in inner Asia and presents an argument for the periodization of inner Asian history based on the incremental ability of inner Asian empires to extract from outside sources the wealth necessary for the maintenance of political and military state apparatus. On this basis, the essay proposes a four-phase periodization, including ages of tribute empires (209 B.C.- A.D. 551), trade-tribute empires (551Ð907), dual-administration empires (907Ð1259), and direct-taxation empires (1260Ð1796).

(1998). Qing Colonial Administration in Inner Asia. The International History Review: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 287-309.

Historical knowledge of Central Asia in China dates back to the second century B.C., and is associated with the odyssean journey of the imperial envoy Zhang Qian. Contacts between China and Central Asia had certainly been in existence long before then. The momentum behind the expansion of communication is commonly traced back to the development of a mobile way of life among the pastoral peoples of the Central Asian steppe, and to the increased level of economic specialization of farmers and herders, which provided both a means and a need for trade. Findings from the burials of the Pazyryk culture [Hiebert, 1992] show the extraordinary network of exchange woven by the pastoral nomadic cultures of the Sayano-Altai region. Though the findings cannot document the existence of any actual trade, it is clear that these people had access to products that were produced far away, in China and possibly the Near East. The evolution of the early nomadic cultures is also associated with developments in metallurgical pr...

Such non-chinese people as the rong, di, and hu are often portrayed in the traditional historiography of ancient China as greedy, aggressive, and acquisitive (Sinor 1978; Honey 1990). Chinese writings of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1050–256b.c.) contain many instances of unflattering statements aimed at foreign peoples: theZuo zhuancompares the Rong and Di to wolves (ZZ, 1:209); theZhan guo cesays the state of Qin shares the same attributes as the Rong and Di—the heart of a tiger or wolf, greed, and cruelty (ZGC, 11:869; cf. Crump 1970:436). Foreign peoples were often considered “have-nots” with an insatiable lust for Chinese goods, mainly silk, grains, and, later, tea. This stereotype, which developed in the historical sources along with the process of crystallization of the Chinese ethnocultural identity and codification of the written and oral traditions, was regarded as sufficient to account for otherwise complex social and political phenomena. In the course of time, with the historical development of powerful nomadic states confronting China militarily and politically, the attributes of “greedy” and “ravenous” stuck essentially to those people who “moved in search of grass and water”: the pastoral nomads.

The proclamation of the Qing dynasty in 1636 signalled the beginning of a new phase in both Chinese and Inner Asian history The dynasty established by the Manchurian Aisin Gioro royal clan was going in a few years to conquer China and rule it down to the year 1911. During this period of time the political and territorial configuration of the eastern part of Inner Asia, and in particular Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, would be transformed as the Qing extended their rule over these regions. The year 1636 marked not only a new dynastic beginning, but also the end of a period of consolidation during which the Jin dynasty founded by Nurhaci in 1616 and continued by his son Hong Taiji (r. 1627–43) led to the completion of several military and political projects. These projects were milestones on the road to the self-strengthening of the Manchu regime vis-a-vis the Ming, while at the same time anticipated the transformations in the political and social fabric of the Inner Asian borderlands under Qing rule. Early achievements included the unification of the Manchurian aristocratic kingdoms, the military defeat of the Ming and conquest of the Liaodong peninsula, and successful expeditions against Korea. Above all, however, it was arguably the success of the Manchus' multisided policy with regard to the south Mongol tribes that contributed the most to stabilizing the Inner Asian front and allowing the Manchus to reorganize the Mongols as a component of the newly minted Qing dynasty.