Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory, Department of Classics and Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus.
Nature. 2023 Feb;614(7949):719-724. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05693-y. Epub 2023 Feb 8.
The potential of climate change to substantially alter human history is a pressing concern, but the specific effects of different types of climate change remain unknown. This question can be addressed using palaeoclimatic and archaeological data. For instance, a 300-year, low-frequency shift to drier, cooler climate conditions around 1200 BC is frequently associated with the collapse of several ancient civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East. However, the precise details of synchronized climate and human-history-scale associations are lacking. The archaeological-historical record contains multiple instances of human societies successfully adapting to low-frequency climate change. It is likely that consecutive multi-year occurrences of rare, unexpected extreme climatic events may push a population beyond adaptation and centuries-old resilience practices. Here we examine the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1200 BC. The Hittites were one of the great powers in the ancient world across five centuries, with an empire centred in a semi-arid region in Anatolia with political and socioeconomic interconnections throughout the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean, which for a long time proved resilient despite facing regular and intersecting sociopolitical, economic and environmental challenges. Examination of ring width and stable isotope records obtained from contemporary juniper trees in central Anatolia provides a high-resolution dryness record. This analysis identifies an unusually severe continuous dry period from around 1198 to 1196 (±3) BC, potentially indicating a tipping point, and signals the type of episode that can overwhelm contemporary risk-buffering practices.
气候变化有可能极大地改变人类历史，这是一个紧迫的问题，但不同类型的气候变化的具体影响仍不清楚。这个问题可以通过古气候和考古学数据来解决。例如，公元前 1200 年左右，持续了 300 年的低频干燥、凉爽气候的转变，常常与东地中海和近东的几个古代文明的崩溃有关。然而，气候和人类历史规模关联的具体细节仍然缺乏。考古历史记录包含了多个人类社会成功适应低频气候变化的实例。很可能是连续多年罕见的意外极端气候事件的发生，可能会使人类社会超出适应和数百年的弹性实践能力。在这里，我们研究了公元前 1200 年左右赫梯帝国的崩溃。赫梯人是古代世界的强国之一，在五个世纪里拥有一个帝国，其中心位于安纳托利亚的半干旱地区，在古代近东和东地中海地区有着政治和社会经济的相互联系，尽管长期以来面临着经常出现的社会政治、经济和环境挑战，但它一直具有弹性。对从中亚那他利地区当代杜松树上获得的年轮宽度和稳定同位素记录的检查提供了一个高分辨率的干燥记录。该分析确定了一个异常严重的连续干旱期，大约从公元前 1198 年到 1196 年（±3），这可能表明已经达到了一个临界点，并预示着那种可能会超出当代风险缓冲实践的事件类型。
