Department of Geography, Physical Geography, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany.
University of Colorado-Boulder Museum of Natural History, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA.
Sci Rep. 2022 Feb 18;12(1):2829. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-06659-w.
The repeated expansion of East Asian steppe cultures was a key driver of Eurasian history, forging new social, economic, and biological links across the continent. Climate has been suggested as important driver of these poorly understood cultural expansions, but paleoclimate records from the Mongolian Plateau often suffer from poor age control or ambiguous proxy interpretation. Here, we use a combination of geochemical analyses and comprehensive radiocarbon dating to establish the first robust and detailed record of paleohydrological conditions for Lake Telmen, Mongolia, covering the past ~ 4000 years. Our record shows that humid conditions coincided with solar minima, and hydrological modeling confirms the high sensitivity of the lake to paleoclimate changes. Careful comparisons with archaeological and historical records suggest that in the vast semi-arid grasslands of eastern Eurasia, solar minima led to reduced temperatures, less evaporation, and high biomass production, expanding the power base for pastoral economies and horse cavalry. Our findings suggest a crucial link between temperature dynamics in the Eastern Steppe and key social developments, such as the emergence of pastoral empires, and fuel concerns that global warming enhances water scarcity in the semi-arid regions of interior Eurasia.
东亚草原文化的反复扩张是欧亚大陆历史的一个关键驱动因素，在整个大陆上形成了新的社会、经济和生物联系。有人认为气候是这些人们知之甚少的文化扩张的重要驱动因素，但蒙古高原的古气候记录往往存在年代控制不佳或代用指标解释不明确的问题。在这里，我们结合地球化学分析和全面的放射性碳测年，建立了蒙古特尔门湖过去 4000 年以来首个稳健且详细的古水文条件记录。我们的记录表明，湿润的条件与太阳活动最小值相吻合，水文学模型证实了该湖泊对古气候变化的高度敏感性。与考古和历史记录的仔细比较表明，在欧亚大陆东部广阔的半干旱草原上，太阳活动最小值导致温度降低、蒸发减少和生物量增加，从而扩大了游牧经济和骑兵的权力基础。我们的研究结果表明，在东部草原地区的温度动态与关键的社会发展之间存在着至关重要的联系，例如游牧帝国的出现，并引发了人们对全球变暖加剧内陆欧亚半干旱地区水资源短缺的担忧。
