nicola di cosmo

The notion of China as being endowed with a nonmilitary culture has long colored our under-standing of Chinese history. The belief in the su-periority of civility over bellicosity derives from the traditional contrast between the concepts of wen, understood as literary and civil ...

... While the Kazakh sultan did not qualify, in the eyes of the Qing authorities, as a bearer of tribute, it would be too sweeping ... The eighth mission included three chiefs: Akhalakci Atiyan, who carried a golden button, of the Monggoldor tribe, Akhalakci Aijuli of the Chahar Sayak tribe ...

After a successful conquest of large parts of Syria in 1258 and 1259 CE, the Mongol army lost the battle of c 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 c Ayn Jālūt, which effectively halted the further expansion of the largest ever land-based empire. Zusammenfassung: Am 3. September des Jahres 1260 n. Chr. unterlagen die berittenen Mongolen erstmals in ihrer überaus erfolgreichen territorialen Westexpansion gegen die von Süden aufmarschierenden Mamluken in der Schlacht von c Ayn Jālūt. Diese Niederlage im heutigen Israel markiert einen welthistorischen Wendepunkt, in Folge dessen das Machtgefüge nicht nur im Mittleren Osten, sondern über ganz Eurasien neukonfiguriert wurde. Gleichwohl der geopolitischen Relevanz und trotz zahlreicher Erklärungsversuche ist es Wissenschaftlern bis heute nicht gelungen, die Niederlage der Mongolen bei cAyn Jālūt überzeugend zu erklären. In der vorliegenden Studie berücksichtigen wir raumzeitlich hochaufgelöste Klima-und Umweltveränderungen nach dem Ausbruch des indonesischen Vulkans Samalas circa 1257 n. Chr. Sowohl die jahrringbasierten Rekonstruktionen, als auch die Klimamodelle deuten auf eine starke Abkühlung und generell feuchtere Bedingungen von 1258 bis 1259 hin. Die durch einen der wohl größten Vulkanausbrüche der letzten 2500 Jahre ausgelösten Klimaschwankungen müssen als wichtiger Faktor für die Verzögerung des Mongolenfeldzuges mit seinen geschätzten 120,000 Kriegern und bis zu einer halben Million Pferden angesehen werden. Kühlere und feuchtere Bedingungen haben demnach die Eroberung weiter Teile Syriens zwischen Frühjahr 1258 und Herbst 1259 begünstigt, wohingegen die Rückkehr zu einem wärmeren und trockeneren Klima im Sommer 1260 n. Chr. die Mongolen schwächte und somit wohl zu ihrer Niederlage bei c Ayn Jālūt beitrug. Unsere Studie verdeutlicht die starke Abhängigkeit der mongolischen Kavallerie von Umweltfaktoren und liefert einen neuen Erklärungsansatz für ihr Scheitern in Syrien, was letztlich eine weitere Expansion der größten Landmacht verhinderte.

Mammalian herbivores are an essential component of grassland and savanna ecosystems, and with feedbacks to the climate system. To date, the response and feedbacks of mammalian herbivores to changes in both abiotic and biotic factors are poorly quantified and not adequately represented in the current global land surface modeling framework. In this study, we coupled herbivore population dynamics in a global land model (the Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model, DLEM 3.0) to simulate populations of horses, cattle, sheep, and goats, and their responses to changes in multiple environmental factors at the site level across different continents during 1980–2010. Simulated results show that the model is capable of reproducing observed herbivore population dynamics across all sites for these animal groups. Our simulation results also indicate that during this period, climate extremes led to a maximum mortality of 27% of the total herbivores in Mongolia. Across all sites, herbivores reduced aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and heterotrophic respiration (Rh) by 14% and 15%, respectively (p < 0.05). With adequate parame-terization, the model can be used for historical assessment and future prediction of mammalian herbivore populations and their relevant impacts on biogeochemical cycles. Our simulation results demonstrate a strong coupling between primary producers and consumers, indicating that inclusion of herbivores into the global land modeling framework is essential to better understand the potentially large effect of herbivores on carbon cycles in grassland and savanna ecosystems.

Environmental Stress and Steppe Nomads: Rethinking the History of the Uyghur Empire (744–840) with Paleoclimate Data Severe, prolonged droughts have been identified as a contributing factor in the decline of complex agricultural polities and civilizations, such as those of the Khmer city of Ankhor, the ancestral Puebloans, and the

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.

Climatic changes during the first half of the Common Era have been suggested to play a role in societal reorganizations in Europe 1,2 and Asia 3,4. In particular, the sixth century coincides with rising and falling civilizations 1–6 , pandemics 7,8 , human migration and political turmoil 8–13. 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 Rus-sian 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 feedbacks 15,16 , as well as a solar minimum 17. 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 plague 7,8

European nation states is not new, although the argument has never before been developed as extensively and systematically. 1 Victoria Tin-Bor Hui has piled enough information on both pans of her scales to instruct and intrigue even the most broadly educated readers, ...

... Khingan Range, are the most important waterways and natural avenues of communication between Central Mongolia, Transbaikalia, and northern ... The steppe regions became populated with diversified communities of Neolithic hunters and fishermen as well as Bronze Age ...

ELISABETH CROLL: Wise daughters from foreign lands: European women writers in China, xii, 265 pp. London, etc.: Pandora Press, 1989. £14.95. This study explores both the lives of six Western women who lived some time in China, and looks at China itself as seen through ...