Join MIT Anthropology for a virtual lecture and discussion

Co-sponsored by MIT History and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS)

Nicola Di Cosmo, Luce Foundation Professor in East Asian Studies, Institute for Advanced Study

Discussants:
David McGee (EAPS)
Manduhai Buyandelger (Anthropology)

Register at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYrfu6pqj8oHtHdPMmio4XjleD_y4y4Hk_d 
to receive Zoom meeting room invitation + password

Climate data can lead to new interpretations of historical events and, more broadly, the co-dependency between human and natural systems. The world-historical significance of the nomadic empires that emerged in the steppe regions of Inner Asia over the past two and a half millennia is beyond question. Nevertheless, the economic, social, and political processes involved in their rise and fall is poorly understood. The availability of high-definition proxy-generated paleoclimatic reconstructions holds new promise to advance knowledge of the pastoral nomads who built these empires. How to access and deploy climate data in historical analysis, however, can be controversial, as shown in recent narratives of “collapse”. The case of nomadic empires is especially challenging because much of the knowledge base is derived from archaeological and ethnographic research, rather than documentary archives. Through case studies from the ancient Türk (7th c. CE), Uyghur (8th-9th c. CE) and Mongol (13th-14th c. CE) empires, this paper develops a model for more expansive multi-disciplinary methods and richer reinterpretation.

Transcript auto-generated by Zoom AI and edited by Kate Gormley
Questions? Contact Kate Gormley

0:00:00.000,0:00:00.560
Heather Paxson:  Everybody...

0:00:00.560,0:00:01.703
Let's

0:00:05.360,0:00:08.960
Thank you all for joining us
today. I'm Heather Paxson, 

0:00:08.960,0:00:15.200
Program Head of  MIT Anthropology and I'd
like to thank, to begin, MIT's History section,

0:00:15.840,0:00:17.040
and the Department of Earth, 

0:00:17.040,0:00:21.760
Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
for co-sponsoring this special event.

0:00:22.640,0:00:25.280
In a moment, I'll turn
things over to Tristan Brown, 

0:00:25.280,0:00:29.360
Assistant Professor in History at
MIT, to introduce our main speaker:

0:00:29.360,0:00:33.600
Dr. Nicola Di Cosmo who's joining
us today from Princeton University.

0:00:34.480,0:00:39.280
Following Professor Di Cosmo's lecture, we will
hear discussant comments from two MIT colleagues.

0:00:40.000,0:00:43.200
David McGee, a paleoclimatologist and Associate 

0:00:43.200,0:00:46.800
Professor in the Department of Earth,
Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences,

0:00:47.520,0:00:49.040
and Manduai Buyandelger, 

0:00:49.040,0:00:53.840
a distinguished scholar of Mongolian studies
and Associate Professor of Anthropology.

0:00:54.960,0:00:59.600
Following their remarks, Professor Di Cosmo
will offer brief comments and response,

0:00:59.600,0:01:03.520
and then we will open the floor to your
questions and a moderated discussion.

0:01:04.240,0:01:07.680
The chat feature is now open
for commenting throughout,

0:01:07.680,0:01:10.480
but to pose a direct question
to one of our speakers, which 

0:01:10.480,0:01:13.360
we will collect together at the end, not as we go.

0:01:14.000,0:01:17.200
But go ahead and put them in the
questions as they occur to you.

0:01:17.200,0:01:20.720
We ask that you please type
it into the Q&A box. Right?

0:01:20.720,0:01:22.880
So, the chat for sort of informal comments, 

0:01:23.520,0:01:28.000
you know, as we go, and actual, direct questions
to our speakers, please use the Q&A box.

0:01:29.280,0:01:34.160
So with that, it's my pleasure now to
introduce, and to welcome, Tristan Brown,

0:01:34.160,0:01:38.000
a social and cultural historian
of late imperial and modern China, 

0:01:38.000,0:01:43.760
and a new faculty colleague of ours in
History. So thank you Tristan, and welcome.

0:01:43.760,0:01:45.760
Tristan Brown : Thank you, Heather.

0:01:46.480,0:01:48.640
Good afternoon and thank you all for coming 

0:01:49.200,0:01:56.080
on behalf of MIT Anthropology, History and
Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences,

0:01:56.080,0:02:01.440
it is my great pleasure to introduce
today's speaker, Professor Nicola Di Cosmo.

0:02:01.440,0:02:04.080
Professor Di Cosmo is the
Luce Foundation Professor 

0:02:04.080,0:02:08.320
in East Asian Studies at the Institute of
Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey.

0:02:08.960,0:02:12.560
He's one of the leading
specialists of Inner Asian history 

0:02:12.560,0:02:15.040
in the history of Chinese
frontiers in the world today.

0:02:15.840,0:02:19.680
Professor Di Cosmo has published
so much on so many different topics 

0:02:20.720,0:02:25.600
it's almost impossible for me to do justice to
his work in just a few words, but I will try.

0:02:26.400,0:02:30.240
His research, which has spanned from
prehistory to the modern period, 

0:02:30.240,0:02:32.880
centers the perspectives and voices of Inner Asian 

0:02:32.880,0:02:38.160
peoples ... who have been all too often
left out of traditional historiography.

0:02:38.800,0:02:44.880
His book, "Ancient China and Its Enemies: The
Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History,"

0:02:44.880,0:02:49.040
among many things, provided an
interesting revisionist perspective 

0:02:49.040,0:02:52.640
on one of the most famous subjects of
all in Chinese history, The Great Wall.

0:02:53.360,0:02:56.480
People have often thought of the
Great Wall as a defensive wall 

0:02:56.480,0:02:59.920
keeping people out of the
lands we know today as China.

0:03:00.560,0:03:05.040
But Professor Di Cosmo showed how the long
walls constructed by the early Chinese 

0:03:05.040,0:03:10.560
states primarily sought to control nomadic
movement and even, sometimes, claim territory.

0:03:11.200,0:03:16.400
Professor Di Cosmo has also written widely on the last Chinese dynasty: The Qing.

0:03:17.040,0:03:20.240
The Qing dynasty was established
during the 17th century, 

0:03:20.240,0:03:23.760
when a group of people from beyond the
Great Wall, the Manchus, conquered China.

0:03:23.760,0:03:26.160
Tristan Brown : His books on this subject include 

0:03:26.160,0:03:29.520
"Manchu-Mongol Relations on
the Eve of the Qing Conquest,"

0:03:29.520,0:03:32.640
and "The Diary of a Manchu Soldier
in Seventeenth Century China".

0:03:33.360,0:03:38.080
For their significance, I'll just say
that... the Manchu language was once 

0:03:38.080,0:03:42.880
seen as relatively unimportant for
understanding the history of China.

0:03:42.880,0:03:46.000
But today, Manchu language sources are now used 

0:03:46.000,0:03:50.800
by many scholars in the field in great
part due to Professor Di Cosmo's influence

0:03:51.600,0:03:56.880
Professor Di Cosmo helped shape the research agenda of an entire generation of scholars

0:03:56.880,0:04:03.040
- and was highly influential to many - including my own thinking of Qing in Chinese history.

0:04:03.920,0:04:08.640
Professor Di Cosmo's extension of his
great skill and employing a wide range 

0:04:08.640,0:04:14.320
of sources for tackling difficult historical
questions has now extended to climate science.

0:04:14.320,0:04:18.720
Here, he's been making substantial contributions to the field of environmental history.

0:04:18.720,0:04:21.760
He's the co-author of a recent celebrated paper in 

0:04:21.760,0:04:25.600
Nature Geoscience on the Little
Ice Age of Late Antiquity.

0:04:26.160,0:04:31.040
In the spirit of MIT's commitment to
tackling climate change issues through

0:04:31.040,0:04:32.880
multidisciplinary initiatives 

0:04:32.880,0:04:36.880
we are thrilled to have Professor
Di Cosmo with us today for his talk:

0:04:36.880,0:04:42.560
"Climate, History, and Nomadic Empires: Case Studies and Questions of Method " with that, 

0:04:42.560,0:04:44.480
let's welcome :Professor Nicola Di Cosmo.

0:04:49.760,0:04:53.040
 Nicola Di Cosmo: Thank you very, very much, Professor Brown, for this, 

0:04:53.920,0:04:57.360
I think really embarrassing,
overly generous introduction.

0:04:57.360,0:05:01.600
And I'd like also to thank the History, Anthropology, 

0:05:01.600,0:05:08.240
and also the Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science Departments for this incredibly kind

0:05:08.880,0:05:16.000
invitation, in particular, Professor Manduhai Buyandelger
and Professor Heather Paxton.

0:05:16.000,0:05:20.160
And of course, I like to thank also
Professor David McGee for participation, 

0:05:20.160,0:05:22.720
his participation in this in this talk.

0:05:23.280,0:05:28.800
Now - I'm going to share the
screen now - so that you can see my 

0:05:28.800,0:05:37.840
PowerPoint presentation and speak
from a corner of your screen.

0:05:39.920,0:05:46.640
So, my interest, as Professor
Brown just so kindly mentioned, 

0:05:47.200,0:05:51.840
is in the history of nomads, pastoral nomads,

0:05:52.640,0:05:58.000
and in the rise of nomadic empires, both in
East Asia, and more broadly, in world history.

0:05:58.800,0:06:03.520
Um, recently, by recently. I
mean, really, eight years ago, 

0:06:04.080,0:06:10.640
I started to get more interested in climatic
issues and in the climate history of

0:06:12.080,0:06:18.240
what we call inner Asia. That is the
central landmass of the Eurasian continent.

0:06:19.600,0:06:24.160
Partly, you know, the... to understand
better certain historical dynamics within 

0:06:24.160,0:06:26.240
the history of nomadic empires

0:06:26.240,0:06:34.640
and just to illustrate what I'm talking about when I speak of nomadic empires. Let me just show how

0:06:36.320,0:06:40.000
they extended their influence across a very large

0:06:42.560,0:06:46.160
landmass in Eurasia and also a very long 

0:06:46.160,0:06:53.600
temporal chronological span. And, we can start from the Scythians in the fifth century BCE 

0:06:54.720,0:06:59.520
and other nomads dominating the
space, the steppes, let's say between

0:07:01.280,0:07:06.240
China and Siberia, Mongolia, Central
Asia, all the way to Eastern Europe, 

0:07:06.240,0:07:11.680
then we get to the Xiongnu Empire
in establishing northern China and

0:07:12.880,0:07:20.080
extending again to Mongolia and into Central Asia from the second, third actually century BCE, 

0:07:20.080,0:07:25.280
all the way to the First and Second Century, CE, so another 400 years of history.

0:07:26.160,0:07:31.280
Very important was the ancient Türk
Empire established in the sixth century. 

0:07:31.280,0:07:38.880
And again, we have one and nomadic power unifying the whole central Eurasian landmass.

0:07:39.760,0:07:44.960
Again from China, all the way
to the south Russian steppes.

0:07:46.880,0:07:50.160
And then there were many other
empires, perhaps not quite as 

0:07:50.160,0:07:55.600
as as expansive until we get of,
course, the Mongol explosion.

0:07:55.600,0:08:04.320
The Mongol Empire, that is, you can see
here at the time of this maximum expansion

0:08:04.320,0:08:12.800
from the Chinese and Mongolian Empires in the east, all the way to Central Asia, Middle East, 

0:08:12.800,0:08:18.160
Iran, Iraq, and then, of course, Russia,
the so called Golden Horn empire.

0:08:18.160,0:08:28.320
So these are very important historical
protagonists, let's say, of world history.

0:08:29.200,0:08:32.640
And, of course, that great impact
in Chinese history in particular.

0:08:34.560,0:08:41.520
What - what is a problem in the study of
these empires is the scarcity of sources.

0:08:41.520,0:08:47.840
So, we use a lot of different sources
from archaeological sources, to 

0:08:47.840,0:08:49.840
documents, many different languages.

0:08:50.480,0:08:56.400
And, of course, also a lot of contemporary
ethnography, anthropological theory, 

0:08:56.960,0:08:58.720
and climate data.

0:08:58.720,0:09:05.520
Actually, they can tell us quite a lot
about their history because, in part because 

0:09:05.520,0:09:13.680
the the pastoral economy and the ecology of the
steppe region is so sensitive, so delicate...

0:09:14.360,0:09:21.840
umm.. so vulnerable, also to southern
climatic variability climate shocks and, 

0:09:22.400,0:09:28.560
just to illustrate what I mean, I want to show you something that happened very recently.

0:09:29.840,0:09:35.840
Two disasters that happened in
Mongolia and in Inner Mongolia.

0:09:36.400,0:09:40.160
One is a classic Dzud, that is a winter disaster,

0:09:41.760,0:09:50.560
a catastrophic collapse of the
livestock, increasing mortality, of course,

0:09:50.560,0:09:59.200
of cows, horses, and sheep and due to very low temperatures, freezing of groundwater

0:09:59.920,0:10:03.840
and/or very heavy snow falls
that prevent the animals from 

0:10:05.120,0:10:12.240
from getting this nutrition from
the grasses provided by the steppes

0:10:12.240,0:10:20.160
Or, on the other hand, very severe drought,
such as that that hit Inner Mongolia, in 2011. 

0:10:21.120,0:10:25.360
So these are frequent and recurrent disasters in

0:10:27.280,0:10:33.760
In the... again, in the ecology
of pastoral nomads that,

0:10:33.760,0:10:42.720
where today, may lead to, just
like in the past, to massive losses 

0:10:43.280,0:10:48.640
in the livestock and massive mortality

0:10:48.640,0:10:53.440
and therefore..and therefore, famine
and therefor social and economic crisis.

0:10:54.320,0:10:55.840
The State of Mongolia, 

0:10:55.840,0:11:01.280
about 20 years ago, appealed to the
international community for assistance

0:11:01.840,0:11:07.600
and that kind of situation immediately
triggers a number of questions in historians:

0:11:08.640,0:11:12.480
what happened in the past
when of course we don't have

0:11:14.400,0:11:20.160
United Nations, or other forms
of international cooperation?

0:11:21.440,0:11:27.840
when such a disaster occurs
or, on the other hand, what may 

0:11:28.800,0:11:33.760
be the effect of hyper-activity on the grassland?

0:11:33.760,0:11:39.840
Where we have an excess, let's say, all
of cattle and horses sheep and so on.

0:11:39.840,0:11:45.280
So, these are the pastoral production.
In other words, is very sensitive.. 

0:11:45.840,0:11:48.400
very sensitive to climate variation and

0:11:50.080,0:11:57.520
we can have either a collapse of the economy, or a large increase of the productivity 

0:11:57.520,0:12:00.720
within a very short time span.

0:12:03.360,0:12:11.720
So let me just jump into some of some of the research that I've done together with, um,

0:12:12.240,0:12:16.480
a number of other people who are actually
much more important than I am in this.

0:12:17.520,0:12:26.640
And the first article that we published was
the result of a project carried out with the 

0:12:26.640,0:12:31.200
Paleoclimatologists who had done quite
a lot of research in in Mongolia.

0:12:32.560,0:12:37.840
Their aim was really to reconstruct,
based on the tree ring research, 

0:12:39.120,0:12:41.760
the climate history of Mongolia.

0:12:41.760,0:12:48.000
And what they found, and then that's
when I was called to join this project.

0:12:48.720,0:13:00.800
What they found was a period in which there was a consistent... consistently, considerable

0:13:02.160,0:13:05.600
Above average precipitation in Mongolia.

0:13:05.600,0:13:10.880
The area of investigation was
Orkhon Valley in central Mongolia.

0:13:12.160,0:13:21.440
And here you can see this
period from 10...1210 to 1227

0:13:22.880,0:13:27.120
That is 17 years, which is a fairly long time, 

0:13:27.920,0:13:33.760
they call it a pluvial - now, I'm not sure
whether this is an ah... accepted term.

0:13:33.760,0:13:40.160
But anyway, and long term in which
precipitation was consistently above average.

0:13:41.840,0:13:47.840
And... that particular that particular

0:13:48.800,0:13:55.520
consideration led us to look into the
history of the Mongol Empire, at this time.

0:13:55.520,0:14:02.880
And we found a correlation between that
period of above average precipitation and the

0:14:04.560,0:14:15.680
maximum - let's say, energy - of the
Chinggis Khan expansion of the Mongol Empire

0:14:15.680,0:14:19.760
into neighboring areas, in
particular, eastern China, 

0:14:20.480,0:14:26.160
northern China all the way
into Central Asia and Russia.

0:14:26.800,0:14:29.840
So this was a period of about 20 years from

0:14:32.160,0:14:39.760
of very intense military activity and
intense military activity that could 

0:14:39.760,0:14:47.200
not be really explained in any in any
way. So we came up with a hypothesis.

0:14:47.200,0:14:50.800
The so-called Grassland
High-Productivity Hypothesis, in which we

0:14:53.680,0:14:58.880
connected the climate data in this...
in this, in this... political and 

0:14:58.880,0:15:07.680
military expansion of the Mongols and...
trying to assess the sort of effects,

0:15:08.400,0:15:17.920
again, on the political and military level of
the climate turn that that.. that probably caused 

0:15:18.640,0:15:23.600
the steppe, the grassland,
to become more productive.

0:15:24.240,0:15:34.560
Thanks to warmer and wetter conditions. So what we have here is a list of for possible

0:15:36.480,0:15:44.800
changes that connect. Let's say this
climate and historical data or events.

0:15:45.760,0:15:51.280
One is, of course, the rapid economic recovery of the Mongols after a very long period

0:15:51.280,0:15:57.840
in which Mongolia had been
devastated by civil wars.

0:15:59.280,0:16:02.880
But more - even more important
than that, was the fact that 

0:16:04.080,0:16:08.640
this type of economy, this type of of climate.

0:16:10.160,0:16:14.560
allowed a lower mortality
of the animals and therefore 

0:16:14.560,0:16:19.680
a constant supply of horses to
be used for military purposes.

0:16:20.960,0:16:25.840
So the high carrying capacity of
the of the land really supported, 

0:16:27.040,0:16:31.520
not just not just the livelihood of the people,

0:16:31.520,0:16:37.440
but also the possibility of maintaining a
centralized government and a centralized army.

0:16:38.560,0:16:46.320
Moreover, it is possible - and this is confirmed by some preliminary archaeological excavation -

0:16:46.320,0:16:51.200
that agricultural production
also expanded at the same time.

0:16:51.920,0:16:59.120
So, we came up with a new hypothesis, and that is that these intense military activity and all the 

0:16:59.120,0:17:03.920
campaigns carried out by Chinggis Khan
against the Jin, the Xi Xia, and all the other

0:17:03.920,0:17:09.920
regions around Mongolia, was
really possible thanks to an 

0:17:09.920,0:17:16.080
excess of grassland productions, whereas
a previous theory had maintained that

0:17:16.800,0:17:23.840
the Mongols were pushed out of Mongolia
because of worsening climate condition.

0:17:23.840,0:17:28.800
In fact, because of a drought. So we
actually turned around for that kind of

0:17:30.080,0:17:36.160
the kind of thinking and... and assumed, based on the climate data, something quite different.

0:17:37.680,0:17:40.560
Another interesting, interesting.

0:17:41.920,0:17:43.760
study (interesting to me) but

0:17:45.120,0:17:48.240
that, that address the different, different cause 

0:17:48.240,0:17:51.920
and different problem. And
that is the vulnerability of

0:17:54.080,0:18:02.560
nomadic empires to sudden climate shocks. By sudden climate shock, I mean, something like 

0:18:02.560,0:18:05.680
that Dzud event that we've seen just before

0:18:07.760,0:18:15.280
in.. in Mongolia and that is: what
happens to a to an empire, when we

0:18:19.280,0:18:26.000
when there is a collapse, essentially, of the of the pastoral economy that in, theory supports it?

0:18:27.600,0:18:31.040
now, the case of the Eastern Türk
Empire seems to present a very, 

0:18:31.680,0:18:36.400
very clear case in which we could connect climate.

0:18:38.000,0:18:41.840
climate shock with a ... a political collapse.

0:18:46.240,0:18:52.480
In 630, the Eastern Türk Empire, which,
which um... occupied Mongolia and parts 

0:18:52.480,0:18:59.040
of Inner Mongolia today - suddenly disappeared - was attacked by the Chinese and destroyed.

0:19:00.000,0:19:06.320
Now, we - we looked at the tree ring
chronologies again and also 

0:19:06.320,0:19:10.080
at greenland ice cores that
connected this period -

0:19:10.080,0:19:18.000
between 627 and 630 to a volcanic
explosion that again, modified, or forced, 

0:19:18.000,0:19:22.640
climate into lower... into lower temperatures.

0:19:22.640,0:19:31.440
These lower temperatures occurred also within the period of generally depressed temperature

0:19:31.440,0:19:36.480
that we have eferred to in a different paper
that was kindly mentioned by Professor Brown 

0:19:36.480,0:19:38.320
as the Late Antique Little Ice Age.

0:19:39.840,0:19:45.840
Um... So, what the climate data actually showed,

0:19:45.840,0:19:54.480
was that probably, the disasters that hit
the Eastern Türk Empire - documented in 

0:19:54.480,0:20:00.000
the Chinese sources - in the winter of 628 and 629

0:20:00.880,0:20:07.920
were probably due to this lowering
of cooling of the temperature because 

0:20:07.920,0:20:10.400
of the effects of the climate.

0:20:10.960,0:20:15.840
The volcanic eruption, and the
consequent climate forcing, which 

0:20:15.840,0:20:21.760
caused high mortality among the animals
and widespread famine within the empire.

0:20:22.400,0:20:29.280
So - those disasterous climate conditions - what happened was - they ignited an economic crisis.

0:20:29.920,0:20:32.160
Now, the economic crisis was then, 

0:20:33.600,0:20:39.600
could then, be attributed - to the high dependency of the Eastern Türk Empire on pastoral economy.

0:20:39.600,0:20:42.720
This is actually very important
data. The important fact.

0:20:43.360,0:20:47.680
Because we, we are not clear actually about the, 

0:20:47.680,0:20:51.840
let's say, economic and financial
foundations of some of these empires,

0:20:51.840,0:20:56.240
some of them rely on taxation
and tribute to and on other

0:20:56.960,0:21:02.240
let's say, revenue streams. But the
Eastern Türk Empire seem to be especially 

0:21:02.240,0:21:08.560
reliant on pastoral production
and that's why, once they were

0:21:09.440,0:21:17.600
hit very, very severely by this, the climate
disasters, they could not recover very quickly.

0:21:18.240,0:21:23.360
So, what did they do? They tried to increase that taxation on subject peoples but

0:21:24.480,0:21:27.040
that caused alienation, that caused hostility, 

0:21:27.600,0:21:34.080
of subordinate leaders, and.. and then, again, the whole political establishment started to...

0:21:39.440,0:21:49.040
lose... to weaken, let's say, and lose
its grip on the... subordinate tribes

0:21:49.040,0:21:54.720
and.. and therefore, causing some
internal rivalries, infighting, and so on.

0:21:54.720,0:21:59.280
Meanwhile, the Chinese army moved to
the border and just waited - waited 

0:21:59.280,0:22:03.840
for the Türk Empire - for the Türk
Kahgan, the head of the empire,

0:22:06.240,0:22:08.080
to become, essentially, powerless.

0:22:09.200,0:22:12.720
They moved in, and they wiped
out, essentially, the Türk Empire.

0:22:12.720,0:22:20.480
So - this was a very interesting case to...
analyze what.. what the vulnerabilities 

0:22:21.120,0:22:24.000
of one of these nomadic empires could be.

0:22:24.000,0:22:28.960
And in this case, it was the main
vulnerability was identified in the

0:22:30.320,0:22:40.080
almost exclusive dependency of... the
political leadership on the pastoral economy.

0:22:40.080,0:22:41.200
Once that was done, 

0:22:41.760,0:22:47.600
then the whole establishment, the whole
political establishment, started to crumble.

0:22:49.040,0:22:53.840
Also, it's important to notice
that this climatic induced 

0:22:54.560,0:22:58.400
economic stress does not cause, necessarily,

0:22:59.440,0:23:04.080
the nomads to either invade China
or to migrate to some other place, 

0:23:04.080,0:23:09.120
as it is often assumed, in
fact, too often in, in the...

0:23:09.760,0:23:17.680
let's say, historical climatology of China.
There are very... maybe, simplistic assumptions

0:23:17.680,0:23:21.040
that the nomads always attack
when there is a crisis.

0:23:21.040,0:23:24.640
In fact, they don't. They simply
weaken, sometimes, to the point 

0:23:24.640,0:23:30.480
that they are then attacked and wiped
out by some... some other enemy.

0:23:30.480,0:23:31.760
In this case, China.

0:23:33.800,0:23:38.160
Um, but what happens - and this
is another case that illustrates 

0:23:38.160,0:23:43.440
a different type of climatic
change, a climatic challenge -

0:23:43.440,0:23:47.920
what happens when, instead of a sudden shock,

0:23:47.920,0:23:56.720
we have em... a worsening of the climatic
conditions over a long period of time?

0:23:56.720,0:24:02.880
And the question here is: how
can the nomads and nomadic empire

0:24:03.440,0:24:08.880
adapt to changing the climatic conditions and therefore to changing environmental conditions?

0:24:10.240,0:24:15.600
And, in order to address this problem,
we look at the Uyghur Empire, which is 

0:24:15.600,0:24:18.000
basically successor of the Türk Empire...

0:24:19.400,0:24:27.440
um, same pretty much the same region, Mongolia, Northern... Northern China and Inner Mongolia.

0:24:29.040,0:24:34.800
The Uyghur Empire is very different from
other empires in the sense that it is,

0:24:35.680,0:24:40.720
it has special characteristics that
I will illustrate very soon. Anyway -

0:24:40.720,0:24:46.240
we started from the climate... from
the climate analysis, which showed: 

0:24:46.240,0:24:48.560
this very long - 60 year long -

0:24:48.560,0:24:51.040
drought in Central Mongolia.

0:24:52.640,0:24:56.000
Probably, there was a drought
actually beyond Central Mongolia, 

0:24:56.000,0:24:57.760
also in Northern China and so on.

0:24:57.760,0:25:02.240
But, these two tree ring
chronologies that we used, were...

0:25:02.800,0:25:05.440
referred specifically to the Orkhan Valley,

0:25:05.440,0:25:10.720
again, which was also the center of the
Uyghur Empire and to North Central Mongolia.

0:25:10.720,0:25:15.920
And here you can see, in this other graph, how the

0:25:18.560,0:25:25.520
situation worsened in the
late eighth and ninth century.

0:25:27.040,0:25:35.200
Green means wet, brown is dry, and,
as you can see, from 783 to... 884, 

0:25:35.760,0:25:40.400
the situation became drier
and and more difficult to...

0:25:42.560,0:25:47.280
more arid. So, there's an
increasing aridity and...

0:25:49.040,0:25:50.640
due to a severe drought.

0:25:54.720,0:26:00.240
So - can we attribute - some of the
special characteristics of this empire, 

0:26:00.240,0:26:01.440
which is quite different,

0:26:01.440,0:26:04.000
as I said before, from other nomadic empires, 

0:26:04.560,0:26:12.080
to an attempt to overcome or offset
the negative, the ill effects,

0:26:13.680,0:26:17.920
of the drought and we identify a number of

0:26:20.880,0:26:22.400
special features 

0:26:22.400,0:26:28.080
of this empire that could possibly be
related to this attempt to move away from,

0:26:28.080,0:26:34.320
perhaps, a critical situation in pastoral
production and diversify the economy.

0:26:35.680,0:26:39.440
So for instance, there was a
very heavy reliance on trade.

0:26:41.280,0:26:45.120
Especially - horse for silk trade.

0:26:46.000,0:26:51.520
They sold horses to China, these horses
were paid in silk and then the silk,

0:26:51.520,0:26:53.280
which was also a form of currency, 

0:26:53.280,0:26:58.560
was traded along the Silk Road in
long distance exchange networks.

0:27:00.080,0:27:03.360
There was also a reduction of conflicts and wars, 

0:27:03.360,0:27:08.640
so probably they did not have actually,
unlike the Mongols that we discussed before,

0:27:08.640,0:27:13.600
they did not have the resources to
maintain an army over a long period of time

0:27:14.560,0:27:20.080
or, in any case, to... finance conflicts and wars.

0:27:21.040,0:27:25.120
There was also agriculture,
probably, agriculture developed, 

0:27:26.320,0:27:33.840
moving away from rain fed agriculture
to irrigated... agriculture, this again,

0:27:34.720,0:27:40.000
is showed by preliminary archaeological
research where we don't have a clear picture 

0:27:40.000,0:27:42.400
of how extensive agricultural production,

0:27:42.400,0:27:47.840
in particular... irrigated agricultural
production, was in the Uyghur Empire.

0:27:48.800,0:27:50.480
And finally, when the Uyghurs

0:27:52.000,0:27:56.960
were attacked by a northern
people, called the Kirghis,

0:27:56.960,0:28:03.200
they collapse, very quickly, so probably,
possibly, the drought is also related to a 

0:28:03.200,0:28:04.560
progressive weakening,

0:28:05.120,0:28:07.920
economic and military weakening, of the empire.

0:28:07.920,0:28:11.680
So this is, this is just another example of how 

0:28:11.680,0:28:18.800
a different type of climate... um, climate
story, let's say, of climate change

0:28:19.440,0:28:24.240
may have affected a different... may
have affected these pastoral nomads.

0:28:26.160,0:28:33.200
Until now, we have looked really at nomads in Mongolia, in their habitat, in their ecology,

0:28:34.000,0:28:36.800
and how they may have suffered, or... or 

0:28:38.160,0:28:44.400
benefited, or may have adapted, to
changing climatic... climatic conditions.

0:28:45.280,0:28:50.880
But - what happened when they leave
their their.... their natural habitat?

0:28:50.880,0:28:55.920
When they leave the steppes of
Mongolia and conquer other regions?

0:28:56.480,0:29:04.560
Regions that are not necessarily
suitable for their... for the... economy,

0:29:04.560,0:29:07.600
but also for their way of
warfare, because, as we know,

0:29:07.600,0:29:13.840
nomads... use large, large numbers of
horses, and therefore, had some particular 

0:29:14.400,0:29:18.240
uhh... requirements in... in their expansions.

0:29:18.960,0:29:25.120
And, this is an article that is being -
that I liked very much, actually - but... 

0:29:26.160,0:29:30.960
it's still being... being discussed quite
a lot in the... in the, in the literature.

0:29:32.640,0:29:36.400
And it is an answer to a very,
very old question, and that is:

0:29:36.400,0:29:43.840
why did the Mongols withdraw suddenly from Eastern Europe after having invaded it in 1241?

0:29:45.040,0:29:46.480
The story is quite simple.

0:29:48.720,0:29:56.480
And... and yet it's not - did not - have an
answer for... for many... for many years.

0:29:56.480,0:30:02.080
We, I think - we have provided a kind of answer, but it's still, it's still certainly hypothetical.

0:30:03.600,0:30:06.080
So the story is that the Mongols invaded 

0:30:06.720,0:30:13.440
Eastern Hungary in the spring of 1241
from, you know, crossing into ...

0:30:13.440,0:30:17.600
into the great Hungarian planes - from Russia, 

0:30:17.600,0:30:21.840
across the Carpathians - some of
them went all the way to Poland.

0:30:23.360,0:30:34.240
And, in... and in this period: over the
months of Spring, Summer and Fall of 1241

0:30:35.120,0:30:41.520
they were very, very successful. All of
these dots here are fortresses of towns or 

0:30:42.480,0:30:43.680
battles that they won.

0:30:45.360,0:30:53.920
And therefore, there seem to be, really
no-one able to resist their advance into...

0:30:53.920,0:31:03.920
into Hungary also beyond. Um... but they did stop in center on the Danube and only in the

0:31:03.920,0:31:07.600
Winter between 41 and 42 they decided to invade

0:31:09.840,0:31:12.160
Western Hungary here.

0:31:13.280,0:31:17.840
Um... and that was possible
because the Danube had frozen.

0:31:19.040,0:31:24.160
A frozen Danube allowed the
Mongols to cross over to just 

0:31:24.160,0:31:31.840
ride over the Danube and invade in January 1242 the east, uh... western part of Hungary.

0:31:33.280,0:31:37.680
However, the situation became very
different from the previous year. 

0:31:38.560,0:31:44.800
They make them with one failure after
another. This blue dots are actually all

0:31:46.480,0:31:53.200
again: cities, towns, or battles that that
the Mongols lost to the Hungarians, the

0:31:55.040,0:32:02.640
success rate, let's say, of the Mongols had
decreased dramatically. Um, whereas the resistance 

0:32:02.640,0:32:09.440
rate of the Hungarian said increased dramatically with respect to only a few months before.

0:32:10.400,0:32:14.400
So, this is... this was quite... quite an unusual...

0:32:16.480,0:32:19.840
unusual fact from an historical
point of view. So we looked at the

0:32:21.920,0:32:26.880
changes in in the climate
condition from one year to the... 

0:32:26.880,0:32:31.040
to the other. So it's really
quite, quite precise - very

0:32:34.400,0:32:42.720
both spatially explicit type of analysis
climate analysis. And if you look, oops, sorry.

0:32:47.120,0:32:50.560
Here is a series of graphs that refer to

0:32:51.680,0:32:58.320
precipitation. The precipitation...
1242 - which is here - seems to be 

0:32:58.320,0:33:05.440
higher was higher than in 1241- again,
green means wetter, brown is drier.

0:33:06.880,0:33:09.840
So 1241 when the Mongols invaded

0:33:10.960,0:33:19.920
Hungary was seemed to be a much drier period than 1242 and also if we look at the temperature chart 

0:33:20.880,0:33:24.400
the - 1242 was colder.

0:33:26.240,0:33:31.920
This pink reddish is warm the bluish is is cold... was 

0:33:31.920,0:33:35.680
colder than... So in other words, we move from a

0:33:36.640,0:33:42.240
dry, warm climate regime to a wet. Wet and cold, which is, 

0:33:42.240,0:33:44.640
you know, which was beneficial
in the, in the beginning

0:33:44.640,0:33:50.320
because the Mongols could cross over
the Danube and invade Western Hungary,

0:33:50.320,0:33:57.040
but what happened was actually something that was not so beneficial to them.

0:33:59.200,0:34:03.520
So we can go through these
different phases of the... of 

0:34:03.520,0:34:08.000
the invasion. Now - what happened with
an extraordinarily cold and wet winter

0:34:08.640,0:34:16.160
Is that a lot of water - ground water
- froze on the ...on the ground and

0:34:16.800,0:34:19.920
when it thawed in the spring,
it caused swampy conditions; 

0:34:19.920,0:34:25.600
it pooled on the ground, frozen.
And then when, when it melted...

0:34:27.520,0:34:34.320
The whole Western Hungary was essentially it - as we, as we believe, was essentially a swamp

0:34:35.360,0:34:39.040
it was marshy conditions the horses had no hope 

0:34:39.040,0:34:43.600
of really moving across this
type of terrain very easily.

0:34:44.160,0:34:48.880
So, it caused an unexpected challenge
from the point of view, not just of the 

0:34:49.680,0:34:52.720
environment, but also of
the, and especially of the,

0:34:53.920,0:34:57.840
type of military operations to
which the Mongols were... were used. 

0:34:58.400,0:35:05.280
And how do we know that? Well, we, we know that because we look at the quality of the

0:35:06.480,0:35:11.840
hydrogeology of Hungary
and then we know that it is.

0:35:11.840,0:35:15.760
This is actually a relatively frequent phenomenon.

0:35:15.760,0:35:19.920
It was only in the 18th century and
the 19th century, with the Hapsburgs.

0:35:20.880,0:35:25.680
That the floodplains of the
Desa and the Danube River were 

0:35:25.680,0:35:29.840
well drained with the building of several canals.

0:35:30.960,0:35:37.520
Also, farmers moved into a higher
areas that time and there was a famine.

0:35:38.480,0:35:46.240
So, lack of food and especially very
difficult terrain, probably in our hypothesis,

0:35:46.880,0:35:50.240
convinced the Mongols that they
had to withdraw from Hungary,

0:35:50.240,0:35:57.840
they will not survive in that particular
situation and they moved back to southern Russia.

0:35:58.960,0:36:06.720
along the southern Carpathians , which is at a higher elevation, than the route they took 

0:36:06.720,0:36:09.600
to come into Hungary in the first place.

0:36:11.200,0:36:15.920
So this was... this was
really a completely different

0:36:17.360,0:36:27.200
theory, with respect to previous notions of why, or ideas as to why, the Mongols return to...

0:36:29.520,0:36:33.360
to Russia and withdrew. So,
this is still a hypothesis.

0:36:33.360,0:36:38.320
We may have to do some more research.
But generally speaking, I think, is 

0:36:39.040,0:36:42.240
something that adds to our knowledge, both of

0:36:42.960,0:36:46.000
the general history of the
Mongol conquest, but also 

0:36:46.000,0:36:48.800
to the history of Hungary
and, in particular, to...

0:36:49.600,0:36:53.440
to the type of short term variations 

0:36:53.440,0:37:01.320
within a - in a very particular type of
situation such as military invasion .

0:37:02.080,0:37:08.240
And finally, my... my last case is really
is something that has not been published yet 

0:37:08.240,0:37:10.480
this is a true work in progress.

0:37:10.480,0:37:17.840
And again, refers to the Mongols
outside their natural habitat.

0:37:17.840,0:37:24.880
Again, another... another example of how
the Mongols had to negotiate different 

0:37:25.600,0:37:30.960
environmental conditions as they moved
into different environmental zones.

0:37:32.720,0:37:41.680
In 1258 as... as you... as you know, the
Mongols under Hülegü conquered Baghdad.

0:37:41.680,0:37:45.920
This was part of a general campaign
of invasion of the Middle East.

0:37:46.960,0:37:56.320
They moved into Iran before and in 1260 they moved into Syria, which was conquered very quickly,

0:37:56.320,0:38:04.640
but - on the third of September of 1260- they were defeated. They were defeated by the Mamluks

0:38:06.160,0:38:12.000
at the Battle of `Ayn Jãlūt. This was the
first serious battle - a field battle -

0:38:12.000,0:38:13.760
that the Mongols lost. 

0:38:14.480,0:38:23.200
And the loss led to also the loss of Syria
that was never recovered by the Mongols and

0:38:24.000,0:38:30.080
to the end of their dreams to the... to
conquer also not just Syria but also Egypt.

0:38:30.640,0:38:33.840
So it was a very serious
turn in the Mongol conquest 

0:38:33.840,0:38:36.960
and in further general history,
the Middle East, actually.

0:38:39.280,0:38:40.960
Why did that happen? Now, 

0:38:40.960,0:38:46.640
we tried to - we are trying actually
- because this is not finished yet -

0:38:46.640,0:38:51.600
to connect the.. that invasion, that
period to something that was happening

0:38:52.160,0:38:59.600
on the other side of the world. A nd that is one - the greatest - eruption in a millennium. The 

0:39:00.480,0:39:07.600
Samalas eruption in - that has
been recently dated to 1257 -

0:39:07.600,0:39:15.040
in Indonesia. Now, that eruption - with
the extraordinary emission of areosols

0:39:15.040,0:39:21.200
into the stratosphere and so on, had certain - a certain impact on the climate of the planet.

0:39:21.920,0:39:26.640
And generally speaking,
this type of climate forcing 

0:39:26.640,0:39:30.080
causes cooling condition, cooler conditions.

0:39:30.080,0:39:35.120
So, lower temperatures, possibly
more abundant precipitation

0:39:36.160,0:39:44.160
We.. if we... assume that something similar to that also occurred in the Iraq-Syria 

0:39:44.160,0:39:47.280
region which is semi arid and has a fairly short

0:39:49.360,0:39:53.360
growing season. A lengthening the growing season 

0:39:54.400,0:40:00.000
and having more, more rain might
lead to reduction in aridity.

0:40:01.600,0:40:08.080
So what we're thinking is that perhaps
the northern Syrian steppes were able to, 

0:40:08.880,0:40:13.200
were able to increase their
productivity therefore allowing more

0:40:14.720,0:40:20.240
Mongols -soldiers, horses.
etc... To get into Syria.

0:40:21.200,0:40:25.280
So, Hülegü, at the head of a massive army, 

0:40:25.280,0:40:28.400
was able to get into Syria
and conquer it very quickly.

0:40:29.040,0:40:32.960
Because more horses could
be brought into this region, 

0:40:32.960,0:40:37.840
thanks to a special type of short term climate.

0:40:38.400,0:40:39.840
Climate change, let's say. 

0:40:40.800,0:40:47.120
However, all of these horses quickly exhausted the resources, you know, overgrazing and so on.

0:40:47.120,0:40:49.040
quickly exhausted their resources 

0:40:49.040,0:40:55.200
and... and therefore the Mongols could
not live in Syria in number of soldiers,

0:40:55.200,0:41:00.480
in number of troops sufficient to
defend it from the Mamluk attack.

0:41:01.040,0:41:05.840
This was actually the only actual
historical document that we have

0:41:06.400,0:41:12.240
Which is a letter written by Hülegü, the Mongol Khan, to the King of France, Louis the Ninth

0:41:12.240,0:41:17.120
specifically refers to the depletion of the pasture land 

0:41:17.120,0:41:19.840
as the reason why they had to leave Syria.

0:41:20.880,0:41:27.440
So we are still working on this, on this
concept but i think i think it's promising

0:41:27.440,0:41:30.960
and it's, in any case, a very interesting way of looking at 

0:41:30.960,0:41:34.080
the limitations of these pastoral nomads in

0:41:35.040,0:41:38.480
different ecological and environmental zones.

0:41:39.200,0:41:45.200
So I think my 30 minutes were up some time ago and not sure

0:41:45.760,0:41:49.280
But I will, I will close my talk with some final 

0:41:49.280,0:41:52.960
thoughts and then we can have
some comments and discussion...

0:41:55.280,0:42:01.200
Very simply, I think what I've tried to do
is really to illustrate a way in which we can 

0:42:01.760,0:42:04.640
join climate and historical...

0:42:07.120,0:42:11.600
thinking and... and come up with
the new and quite interesting 

0:42:12.320,0:42:18.880
answers, but especially questions when it
comes to the history of nomadic empires.

0:42:19.600,0:42:27.600
So - we have looked at climate
shocks, drought, long term challenges 

0:42:28.640,0:42:32.560
and identification of factors
affecting the Mongol Empire.

0:42:32.560,0:42:38.800
These are all new ways to answer some old questions, but also as I just said - also

0:42:40.960,0:42:45.920
They have the power to generate new
questions that we would not have imagined.

0:42:47.040,0:42:54.400
Without the sort of climate analysis that
tree rings and ice cores and other forms of

0:42:56.880,0:42:59.760
climate data allow us to have.

0:43:01.280,0:43:05.520
We also, I also think - and this is
very important to keep in mind - that 

0:43:05.520,0:43:10.400
there is very close connections when we
study climate between past and present.

0:43:12.480,0:43:16.320
The history of nomadic empires
has always been informed by 

0:43:16.320,0:43:20.880
anthropological and ethnographic
research and understanding better

0:43:22.160,0:43:26.960
Our modern, modern relationship between 

0:43:26.960,0:43:36.240
climate change and pastoral societies and nomadic societies can also certainly help us understanding

0:43:38.160,0:43:38.660
better

0:43:39.760,0:43:42.640
the, the past. I mean, the historical

0:43:45.120,0:43:54.080
life of these nomadic peoples and especially in their imperial... imperial configurations.

0:43:56.560,0:44:02.800
What is difficult? What is difficult here is is
sometimes to build collaborations that really 

0:44:02.800,0:44:07.200
involved not just some disciplines
like history and anthropology or

0:44:10.000,0:44:14.320
history and archaeology that - really
different research communities.

0:44:15.520,0:44:17.040
When, when we have to 

0:44:17.920,0:44:25.040
start a new project with the climate
scientists, we, it's not so it's not so easy to

0:44:28.160,0:44:28.320
to

0:44:28.320,0:44:32.960
understand what we want to get
out of our research, respectively.

0:44:33.920,0:44:37.760
So building collaborations is
a very, very important part,

0:44:38.560,0:44:42.240
aspect of this type of work.
And I've been very lucky, 

0:44:42.240,0:44:46.480
I think, to collaborate with very
good, very good climate scientists,

0:44:46.480,0:44:52.800
but also people who were interested - genuinely interested - in knowing more about the

0:44:53.920,0:45:02.240
connections between human societies and... sort of climate changes that they were... 

0:45:02.240,0:45:04.800
that they were, they were studying

0:45:06.160,0:45:13.120
on right now? There are many examples
of collaborations many experiments 

0:45:14.080,0:45:17.840
of collaborations between
historians and climatologists

0:45:18.560,0:45:25.360
They're very different. So we don't know exactly what what is going to happen in the future.

0:45:26.480,0:45:30.720
Some new, if you like, new, new
paradigms are being built, right now.

0:45:30.720,0:45:33.520
And this is very exciting, of course, because 

0:45:33.520,0:45:39.840
we are all bringing different ideas into
how to build this type of collaborations.

0:45:39.840,0:45:42.480
Bridges, let's say. And...

0:45:45.440,0:45:51.920
That is why it is so, it is so exciting, but at
the same time, it can be it can be confusing.

0:45:51.920,0:45:55.520
It can appear to be confusing.
We need to, perhaps,

0:45:56.480,0:45:58.960
increase our theoretical sophistication.

0:45:58.960,0:46:03.760
Sometimes these experiments are based
on very pragmatic empirical basis.

0:46:05.120,0:46:05.620
And

0:46:07.280,0:46:12.280
It is certainly a long way to go,
but it's an exciting way (laughs).

0:46:12.880,0:46:14.560
Exciting work, and

0:46:16.880,0:46:23.240
I hope to continue to do this type of work
because it's really essential, I think, to -

0:46:24.480,0:46:32.560
not just as I said before - answering old.
questions but uncovering new, new meanings and new

0:46:35.920,0:46:42.160
truths, If you like, about the existence
and historical role of nomadic empires, 

0:46:42.160,0:46:44.320
as well as other types of society.

0:46:44.320,0:46:45.440
So - thank you very much.

0:46:53.440,0:46:55.920
I have spoken for a long time, but maybe

0:46:55.920,0:46:59.200
longer than.. I should... let me mute.

0:46:59.200,0:47:01.920
David McGee: Thank you so much, Dr. Di Cosmo.

0:47:02.800,0:47:04.480
It's really a privilege to hear this.

0:47:05.520,0:47:08.880
I'm just going to offer a few thoughts
and then hand it over to Manduhai, 

0:47:08.880,0:47:11.840
and then we'll open it up, as I
understand it, for a response from you.

0:47:11.840,0:47:14.240
And then, and then - open
up to questions and answers.

0:47:15.600,0:47:19.840
As Heather mentioned in the beginning, my name is David McGee and I'm from the Department of Earth, 

0:47:19.840,0:47:24.080
Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
and my field is Paleoclimatology, 

0:47:24.080,0:47:28.000
and again, I'll just offer
a couple of thoughts here.

0:47:29.520,0:47:35.200
This is a really rich area of research that with a lot of interest among Paleoclimatologists.

0:47:37.440,0:47:43.360
About these broad questions of connections between the climate history and human history and

0:47:44.560,0:47:49.280
It extends back to questions about the
role of climate in human evolution, 

0:47:49.280,0:47:53.120
to questions of the role of climate
in human dispersal out of Africa...

0:47:53.120,0:47:56.560
to questions of societal
changes... in the... Common Era.

0:47:58.720,0:48:02.560
From the paleoclimate end of things. For
those of us who are building these records, 

0:48:02.560,0:48:06.000
I think some of the key challenges that we face...

0:48:06.000,0:48:08.560
Are the fact, that often, 

0:48:08.560,0:48:12.960
our climate records are not co-located with the societies that we're thinking about.

0:48:13.520,0:48:15.520
And so it's really trying to understand

0:48:16.480,0:48:20.480
what, what were the climatic conditions,
the weather conditions that... 

0:48:20.480,0:48:24.400
that the system - that these people
were experiencing if the trees, 

0:48:24.400,0:48:29.040
or ice cores, or stalagmites that we're
studying are not exactly right there.

0:48:30.560,0:48:33.840
And then of course, the problem
that the records that we're reading 

0:48:34.400,0:48:39.520
are natural archives that encode information about the climate system as they're formed,

0:48:39.520,0:48:43.680
but also encode a lot of other
information it as they as they form there.

0:48:43.680,0:48:46.240
They're influenced by other
things beyond just the climate.

0:48:46.240,0:48:47.840
And so these are noisy records.

0:48:48.480,0:48:55.360
And so - really digging in to try
to understand what these climate, 

0:48:56.400,0:48:58.720
the climatic conditions,
were, is a real challenge.

0:49:00.320,0:49:06.000
And that - the tree ring records that Dr. Di
Cosmo is working with are really the highest 

0:49:06.000,0:49:13.600
quality in terms of dating and spatially explicit information and calibration with modern data.

0:49:16.320,0:49:18.080
Things get harder as you go 

0:49:18.080,0:49:24.160
back beyond that back into the first
millennium of the Common Era or further back.

0:49:24.160,0:49:26.720
And - because there's just
far fewer trees that you can 

0:49:26.720,0:49:30.080
sample. And so you need to go to
other archives like lake sediments or

0:49:30.640,0:49:33.120
stalagmites to get information that have 

0:49:34.160,0:49:37.840
less - they don't often have
annually resolved information.

0:49:39.600,0:49:44.000
In the paleo climate community. One of the ways that we're starting to move forward with 

0:49:44.000,0:49:47.840
this is to run models one run climate models with 

0:49:47.840,0:49:50.800
known forcings like the volcanic
forcings that were mentioned

0:49:52.080,0:49:55.360
But then assimilating in the paleo
climate data that we have. So that 

0:49:55.360,0:49:59.920
the models are nudge towards the
data and the models can can help 

0:49:59.920,0:50:04.160
to fill in the gaps where we don't
have data and understand things where

0:50:05.200,0:50:09.440
That the data can't tell us about; about wind patterns or about seasonality, for example.

0:50:11.440,0:50:13.920
And I think the other challenge if that was

0:50:15.200,0:50:21.280
You know that Dr. Di Cosmo is addressing so well here is - from the paleoclimate end of things -

0:50:21.280,0:50:26.400
is that we as a field tend to so commonly
underestimate the complexity of societies 

0:50:27.360,0:50:30.640
and you know so easily slip into
kind of a climate determinism.

0:50:32.160,0:50:38.400
And so collaborations like were described
are really - the - way forward, you know, 

0:50:38.400,0:50:41.200
where you have experts who can
really read the complexity of the 

0:50:41.200,0:50:45.040
paleo climate record and experts who can
read the complexity of the human record.

0:50:45.040,0:50:47.680
Working together to piece
together what were the links 

0:50:48.240,0:50:51.040
between what was going on in the environment to what was going on with humans.

0:50:52.640,0:50:55.600
And... and I really liked characterizing

0:50:57.040,0:51:01.200
These collaborations as experiments because I think we're all - there's not a there's not 

0:51:01.200,0:51:05.440
great models out there that that we grew
up with in our, in our, in our fields.

0:51:05.440,0:51:08.480
And so we're kind of feeling our way through them.

0:51:10.560,0:51:14.720
The last two things that I'll mention
is, first of all, I really like the the

0:51:16.400,0:51:18.800
The discussion, not just of societal

0:51:21.360,0:51:25.760
societal problems, but also societal
resilience in asking this question of when 

0:51:25.760,0:51:30.960
when were the climate - Climate changes
or, you know, weather patterns - that

0:51:31.760,0:51:34.640
The human society showed surprising resilience to?

0:51:34.640,0:51:39.680
So not just the, you know, times when
the dispersed, but because of some, 

0:51:39.680,0:51:41.280
you know, potentially because of some droughts, 

0:51:41.280,0:51:45.120
but maybe when they weathered some
droughts and what... what led to that.

0:51:46.240,0:51:48.720
So, just broadening this to
other societies around the world.

0:51:50.400,0:51:55.680
And last thing I'll mention is just some
research at MIT, that that is going on in 

0:51:55.680,0:52:01.360
our group that is kind of at this intersection between Anthropology and Paleo climatology

0:52:03.440,0:52:06.800
That tries to bring in some of these methods.

0:52:07.840,0:52:12.320
One is work that my former graduate
student, Gabriela Serrato Marks has led:

0:52:13.680,0:52:17.600
Using stalagmites in northeastern
Mexico to try to understand 

0:52:17.600,0:52:21.200
the climatic context of past
societal changes Coahuiltecan

0:52:22.480,0:52:25.760
in the basin of Mexico, and
then work that we're doing with

0:52:27.120,0:52:30.960
researchers in the Anthropology Department at University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

0:52:31.520,0:52:35.760
Looking - kind of in the opposite
direction of human - the human role, 

0:52:35.760,0:52:38.960
human impacts on the environment, rather
than environmental impacts on humans.

0:52:39.680,0:52:44.640
Specifically on Madagascar, understanding the human - what, what really was it that led to 

0:52:44.640,0:52:48.640
megafaunal extinctions there? And what what
were the economic changes in human societies.

0:52:49.200,0:52:52.160
that allowed humans to persist
on the island for a long time?

0:52:52.160,0:52:57.680
And then after at least 1000 years of being there - led to widespread megafaunal extinctions. So

0:52:58.640,0:53:01.200
I'll leave it there. But I just really - this is a rich, 

0:53:01.200,0:53:04.240
rich talk and I really appreciate the chance to be a part of it.

0:53:04.240,0:53:05.360
I'll hand it over to Manduhai.

0:53:05.360,0:53:11.680
Manduhai Buyandelger: Hello, Professor
Di Cosmo, thank you so, so much.

0:53:12.640,0:53:15.120
For the amazing talk

0:53:15.120,0:53:17.760
And thank you, David, for the comments.

0:53:19.520,0:53:25.200
So it's hard to... where to begin.
Because of the richness of the talk 

0:53:25.200,0:53:32.320
and the scope of - the geographical scope as well - as the historical details as well as the amazing

0:53:32.320,0:53:36.080
Trans disciplinary, multi disciplinary approach.

0:53:38.160,0:53:44.480
So I guess I will just pull out a few things.
And then we can open up for the discussion.

0:53:47.200,0:53:52.480
Professor Di Cosmo demonstrates how the new paleoclimate data helps to answer 

0:53:52.480,0:53:58.000
old or existing questions that have, you
know, puzzled historians for a long time.

0:53:59.520,0:54:06.560
For instance, my favorite part here was - one of my favorite, I guess, nuances - was that how, 

0:54:06.560,0:54:12.400
for instance, the same climate change, let's say the the

0:54:14.800,0:54:17.600
The increase in precipitation, let...

0:54:19.440,0:54:27.680
you know... strengthen the Mongol army and help to conquer so much and yet at the same time,

0:54:27.680,0:54:34.480
the same level of precipitation
also caused the withdrawal 

0:54:35.040,0:54:39.520
in a different kind of way in...
in a different place. So I'm...

0:54:39.520,0:54:46.000
I would like - I'm wondering if this
nuance this how - same data, same

0:54:47.280,0:54:53.920
event - but in a different sort of periods
for different actions in different sort of

0:54:56.640,0:54:59.840
seasons led to different outcomes.

0:54:59.840,0:55:07.840
Is this the kind of nuance that also helps to understand how to avoid environmental determinism 

0:55:07.840,0:55:14.480
and generalizations? Because that
would be very helpful to... to...

0:55:15.840,0:55:21.520
To grasp... what - what would be helpful is to for us, for me, for instance, to grasp that and 

0:55:21.520,0:55:25.120
in order to not be scared of the data (laughs).

0:55:25.120,0:55:29.920
Right? Not to be scared of slipping into
environmental determinism, because in some ways.

0:55:31.920,0:55:34.960
Historians and many scholars in social sciences.

0:55:36.640,0:55:41.200
Try, try not to, obviously, in order
to avoid that kind of determinism.

0:55:41.200,0:55:45.920
Also, try not to engage too
much, maybe? I'm wondering.

0:55:45.920,0:55:49.840
So what - I guess the first
thing that I would ask, 

0:55:49.840,0:55:55.280
can you elaborate on methodology
and tell us how to avoid the

0:55:57.120,0:56:00.480
determinism but also to enhance our

0:56:01.760,0:56:04.320
elaboration in a way that is helpful?

0:56:04.320,0:56:07.600
So that's been like my first kind of

0:56:09.120,0:56:11.440
I guess question and request.

0:56:11.440,0:56:19.920
Ah.. Relatedly, also a little bit... so
I assume, Professor, Di Cosmo, that you 

0:56:19.920,0:56:23.280
concentrated on the findings in this presentation.

0:56:23.280,0:56:29.840
But the stories of these nomadic empires
were told without the climate data before.

0:56:30.400,0:56:33.440
So it would be good to know a little bit of a... 

0:56:33.440,0:56:36.880
contrast, if it's possible with,
like in one or two sentences, like

0:56:37.920,0:56:41.680
What were they, what were the,
what was, for instance, one story 

0:56:41.680,0:56:45.440
where the climate wasn't
there, figured out? Because

0:56:46.880,0:56:54.480
the conventional history attributes the military activities of the expansion of the Empire,

0:56:54.480,0:56:59.280
or the fall of the Empire, for instance, the
expansions are usually attributed to a to the...

0:57:00.880,0:57:07.680
Talents of the military commanders, the
equestrian skills of the nomadic soldiers.

0:57:07.680,0:57:11.520
The semi military lifestyle and all of that. 

0:57:11.520,0:57:17.520
And then the fall of empires also have
been attributed to internal discord.

0:57:18.960,0:57:24.400
Shrewd women who entered into
kinship and and created all the

0:57:26.080,0:57:30.640
Political turmoil inside and things like
that. So it would be good to kind of

0:57:31.600,0:57:38.160
Bring the bring the - what was before -
to what... what is... what we know now?

0:57:38.160,0:57:42.560
Because the story that you told us
is the most recent story so would be

0:57:42.560,0:57:47.520
Nice to know. I mean, in the interest of time. And these are just, I'm just pointing out, 

0:57:47.520,0:57:51.840
but that would be great to kind of
just to show the tip of the iceberg.

0:57:53.920,0:58:03.920
Relatedly - all of this wonderful data that
you've gathered might be also helpful to think

0:58:05.360,0:58:12.720
Expand like in... into the outcomes of
the empire like the role of the Silk Road.

0:58:12.720,0:58:18.320
The role of these big cities. And I'm
wondering also about the dialectical

0:58:19.120,0:58:24.880
I guess mutual reinforcement and reinforcements - back and forth - climate and military expansion, 

0:58:25.440,0:58:30.080
building of cities or, again, building roads - connecting people -

0:58:30.080,0:58:35.680
And I guess energizing - leading to more
production, and maybe more sort of war 

0:58:35.680,0:58:42.160
and is there a general sort of bigger.
So I asked you to be nuanced and now I'm 

0:58:42.160,0:58:46.352
asking you to be more general because
it's it's probably too much, but that.

0:58:47.680,0:58:54.320
So, but I think it's good because your
talk led me to think in both ways.

0:58:54.880,0:58:59.600
So, and I think that's the the power of your talk.

0:58:59.600,0:59:04.800
So I don't have that much time. I
will. I'd like to end by bringing 

0:59:05.680,0:59:12.160
the talk that - bringing our attention to
the contemporary situation in Mongolia.

0:59:13.760,0:59:19.520
So the climate changes affecting
Mongolia, to the point that it looks like 

0:59:20.640,0:59:25.360
there is already an apocalypse
of some sorts. Right. So not only

0:59:26.560,0:59:30.080
That is the animals are dying.
There are like heavy snowfall 

0:59:30.080,0:59:34.880
that is making impossible to have
the pastoralist nomadic economy,

0:59:34.880,0:59:39.840
but also there is a huge migration going on
that makes people dependent on the government. 

0:59:40.400,0:59:42.640
The government is obviously

0:59:45.600,0:59:49.920
Is getting more powerful because it has
to manage more - manage the population, 

0:59:49.920,0:59:52.720
manage the migration... migration and

0:59:54.080,0:59:59.840
With the climate change in the city,
there has been a huge increase in

1:00:01.280,1:00:01.780
In

1:00:03.920,1:00:08.160
In pollution and so and I will just say that

1:00:09.840,1:00:11.280
In line with the

1:00:13.120,1:00:13.840
Big climate.

1:00:15.680,1:00:17.920
Climate change initiative, my colleague

1:00:19.200,1:00:28.960
Mike Short in Nuclear Engineering and I have... have started a proposal to engage students 

1:00:28.960,1:00:37.440
to go to Mongolia and build heat banks -
molten salt heat banks that is that and

1:00:37.440,1:00:41.280
Also renewable and environmentally friendly.

1:00:41.280,1:00:47.280
So that's - I'm hoping that this will lead to
some something but also we would like to know 

1:00:47.280,1:00:51.440
what because we think what your thoughts about

1:00:53.200,1:01:00.720
Modern Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, perhaps, and especially in regards to your knowledge,

1:01:00.720,1:01:04.240
especially, you know, considering
your knowledge, about the resilience 

1:01:04.800,1:01:07.600
of the people of the nomadic people in the past.

1:01:08.240,1:01:12.960
So I will stop here and thank
you so very much for your talk.

1:01:12.960,1:01:19.760
Nicola Di Cosmo: Would you like me to
respond very quickly to these two comments?

1:01:20.800,1:01:25.280
So I'll respond very quickly so
that we had some time for for public

1:01:27.440,1:01:30.240
questions, so thank you both.

1:01:32.720,1:01:37.200
Professor McGee and Professor
Buyandelger, Manduhai, 

1:01:37.200,1:01:39.760
for these very, very, very important notes,

1:01:40.960,1:01:46.640
comments. So first of all, to what David McGee just said.

1:01:47.840,1:01:48.340
Yes.

1:01:50.160,1:01:53.200
Historians tend to, maybe climatologists tend to,

1:01:54.320,1:02:00.080
underestimate the societal complexity,
but historians also tend to underestimate 

1:02:00.080,1:02:06.000
climatic complexity and especially
the degree of uncertainty in

1:02:06.000,1:02:13.280
When, when we discuss climate variability in... in the past. So this is one of the things that 

1:02:13.280,1:02:18.640
I've learned is that just the same way
that we interpret historical sources.

1:02:19.520,1:02:21.520
People also interpret climate data 

1:02:23.120,1:02:27.840
and .... and we can use different types, as
you, as you mentioned, historical archives.

1:02:27.840,1:02:30.800
When we look at the climate of China, actually.

1:02:31.840,1:02:34.560
tree ring chronologies are
fairly rare. It's mostly 

1:02:35.280,1:02:40.240
spelothems, is mostly cave records, is
mostly sediment records still today.

1:02:40.240,1:02:43.840
Lake records and so on, which as, you of course

1:02:45.120,1:02:53.280
pointed out - give a lower definition and,
but there are - they are limitations also, 

1:02:53.280,1:02:57.360
in tree ring chronologies because -
after all - what we know is - summer.

1:02:58.320,1:03:02.320
Summer conditions, rather than
winter conditions in most cases. So, 

1:03:02.320,1:03:08.640
and the multi proxy, multi proxy analysis is not so easy, but, for instance, in the case of the

1:03:10.560,1:03:16.880
Article that will be published yet on
the Mongols in Syria and Iraq and Iran. 

1:03:16.880,1:03:22.640
We uh also used modeling for a -
climate modeling - to understand the

1:03:25.680,1:03:31.680
Volcanic forcing and what potential
effects. Because also we have very few 

1:03:32.720,1:03:34.720
regional proxy records.

1:03:34.720,1:03:39.520
So this is an increase - on the historical
side, I must say I constantly find 

1:03:40.160,1:03:45.120
quite a lot of skepticism, there
was this type of research and... and

1:03:47.120,1:03:50.320
Resistance to what people call 

1:03:51.440,1:03:57.360
climatic determinism or reductionism which is another way of looking at the at the problem.

1:03:57.360,1:04:03.040
I mean, reducing everything to climate
is also a problem sometimes. So 

1:04:03.840,1:04:07.840
what is the, what is... in
the and, I'm coming now to

1:04:09.920,1:04:14.640
To Professor Manduhai's questions also how do we

1:04:16.320,1:04:24.640
How do we respond to that kind of determinism or reductionism? And usually I - my... my answer to 

1:04:24.640,1:04:30.160
that is, well, we have to understand
the context as well as we can so it's

1:04:31.040,1:04:37.280
If you like the rich description of
the complex but but we really need. 

1:04:37.280,1:04:41.040
We really need to understand what you're
talking about. Because different environments.

1:04:41.920,1:04:48.160
Of course, with climate - it's always about
precipitation and... and temperature - but 

1:04:48.160,1:04:52.800
these are very, very, very different
effects considering, not just the

1:04:54.000,1:04:56.400
environment, but also the particular situation.

1:04:56.400,1:05:02.720
And it, as I mentioned sometimes and without 

1:05:02.720,1:05:07.840
understanding the Russian winter we
would not understand Napoleon's defeat so

1:05:08.400,1:05:15.520
that - that is how weather and history
of climate in history, work together - by 

1:05:15.520,1:05:21.840
looking at the specific context. And that's
why I'm also a little skeptical of the method.

1:05:23.040,1:05:28.720
Going back to this methodology questions
of building long chronologies and building 

1:05:28.720,1:05:32.800
correlations and trying to use a statistical 

1:05:33.440,1:05:38.400
methods to assess strong
or weak correlations. These

1:05:39.120,1:05:43.680
work to a certain... to a. certain degree,
but then when we look at historical 

1:05:44.560,1:05:51.760
actually historical cases, they don't really
help the historians very much in the end.

1:05:51.760,1:05:59.280
So there are actually deep methodological
questions in... that we need to address. 

1:05:59.280,1:06:04.000
And - together, not just historians

1:06:04.000,1:06:09.360
Often thinking that... that their
method is better, necessarily.

1:06:10.000,1:06:16.240
So in terms of what this type of
research can do for the present? I mean, 

1:06:16.240,1:06:19.520
this is a again changes from area to area we

1:06:19.520,1:06:24.560
Understand, of course, as has been just said,

1:06:24.560,1:06:28.560
that that global warming
and global climate changes, 

1:06:28.560,1:06:31.840
having devastating effects
on in Mongolia and many other

1:06:33.440,1:06:35.120
Sort of rangeland economies.

1:06:36.000,1:06:43.920
So how do we intervene? I think - one of the things that history can do is - exactly what we 

1:06:44.720,1:06:46.000
what we said before,

1:06:46.000,1:06:49.120
that is: understand better
how societies in the past

1:06:52.320,1:06:54.720
adapted or showed resilience or...

1:06:56.800,1:06:59.840
that depends, really, on on the complexity of the 

1:06:59.840,1:07:04.160
society of course. Modern societies are
much more complex than past societies

1:07:05.040,1:07:07.600
And so we have to factor in 

1:07:08.640,1:07:15.440
questions of industrialization and pollution
and so forth that didn't, perhaps, exist before.

1:07:15.440,1:07:16.960
But understanding

1:07:18.080,1:07:24.160
Better history means also knowing
what precedents you can use 

1:07:25.120,1:07:28.960
to bring into the present and
what precedents you cannot use.

1:07:29.920,1:07:33.840
Very often in some type of
social science literature. I 

1:07:33.840,1:07:39.920
see today in it when they talk about, for
instance, conflict. Conflict caused by

1:07:41.680,1:07:43.440
Environmental conditions such as

1:07:45.840,1:07:47.520
Water Resources, for instance.

1:07:48.640,1:07:53.760
Sometimes, you find a precedence mentioned in the, 

1:07:54.560,1:07:59.840
in.... this literature that actually, once
you go back and study them historically

1:07:59.840,1:08:07.840
Are not necessarily as clear as that is,
they're presented so it is not necessarily 

1:08:07.840,1:08:16.960
true. As I said before that - that nomads migrate because of - because of a natural disaster.

1:08:16.960,1:08:19.520
There could be other solutions to that. 

1:08:19.520,1:08:24.320
There could be political solutions
that could be diversifying economic

1:08:24.320,1:08:25.760
solutions, and so forth.

1:08:26.320,1:08:29.280
And so knowing how, in the past, 

1:08:29.280,1:08:33.840
nomadic peoples have responded to
these challenges, maybe, maybe helpful.

1:08:33.840,1:08:39.760
But of course we never - we should never
lose sight of the differences between 

1:08:39.760,1:08:41.680
the present and the past.

1:08:41.680,1:08:48.080
What - the last thing I'm going to say in response again to the question of, you know, what is

1:08:49.040,1:08:52.160
What does climate research contribute 

1:08:52.160,1:08:57.920
to a different understanding of the problems? For instance, within the Mongol Empire? Well,

1:08:59.120,1:09:05.760
Manduhai has summarized very well the kind of things that have been always emphasized, you know, 

1:09:05.760,1:09:12.080
the discipline of the soliders, of the Mongol soldiers, is their efficiency. Their ruthlessness.

1:09:12.080,1:09:17.360
The shrewdness of the of the Empresses and the Mongol women and so forth, and so on. 

1:09:17.360,1:09:21.680
But actually - what I think now - after having studied.

1:09:22.960,1:09:29.360
the climate... climate issues, and climate
variability issues, is that actually the 

1:09:29.360,1:09:35.120
secret weapon of the Mongols - if we can call
it that - is logistics - is actually: knowledge.

1:09:35.680,1:09:37.280
They knew exactly

1:09:38.080,1:09:45.680
It seems to me how many animals could move into a certain area for how long they could stay. 

1:09:45.680,1:09:51.360
And so in the deployment in the deployment of an army. These are fundamental questions.

1:09:52.240,1:09:57.280
So how many horses you can bring into
an area - and for how long - in order 

1:09:57.280,1:10:00.880
to achieve certain objective, certain goals.

1:10:00.880,1:10:07.360
This is that - this is the knowledge of
the Herder, actually, the knowledge of the

1:10:09.440,1:10:17.280
person who lives and dies and in the steppes and they know exactly how many horses in 

1:10:17.280,1:10:19.840
an acre of land can support.

1:10:19.840,1:10:27.520
And so, I believe, logistics and...
is actually the most important feature 

1:10:27.520,1:10:33.120
in the success of the Mongol army, rather than all the other things like mobility, speed,

1:10:34.720,1:10:40.160
tactics, strategy, and so on. But -
logistics is is quite quite critical.

1:10:40.160,1:10:46.320
And what is critical within that is: the
path, the knowledge, the knowledge of these 

1:10:46.320,1:10:51.360
commanders who are raised on
the grassland, and could exactly

1:10:53.280,1:10:53.920
Estimate

1:10:55.200,1:11:01.680
The these issues of carrying capacity
and number of horses and so forth.

1:11:01.680,1:11:06.880
So I think this is what is different
that... and I think this is real, 

1:11:07.600,1:11:10.320
real advance to what has been said.

1:11:11.440,1:11:16.960
Respectively, with respect to what has
been said before, I mean we open a new

1:11:17.840,1:11:22.480
a new chapter in a sentence in
understanding nomadic empires.

1:11:22.480,1:11:30.240
If we understand better how they understood their relationship with... with the environment.

1:11:30.960,1:11:35.600
So - I'm going to close this here, because
otherwise we don't have any time for questions.

1:11:38.000,1:11:44.000
Thank you so very much, Professor Di
Cosmo. So we have quite a few questions. 

1:11:44.720,1:11:48.880
The questions are quite long. So I am going to

1:11:50.880,1:11:56.000
Go and read starting from the first very first question.

1:11:57.120,1:12:01.840
Matthew Cole - how much interest is
taken in the written sources we have on 

1:12:01.840,1:12:04.720
environmental conditions like weather/ climate?

1:12:04.720,1:12:10.240
Is there a way to cross check written and climate record? Do any of the written sources we have 

1:12:10.240,1:12:14.960
about Mongol defeat in Hungary describe it to the difficult environmental conditions?

1:12:15.680,1:12:20.160
So while you are answering the
question, I will try to read through 

1:12:21.280,1:12:24.708
try to continue to group the
questions, just because we have

1:12:24.708,1:12:24.840
To remember they

1:12:24.840,1:12:26.800
Nicola Di Cosmo: I'm sorry, Manduhai
- could you repeat the Question?

1:12:26.800,1:12:31.280
Heather Paxson: Or actually, I'm sorry, I"m
sorry Manduhai, If we go to the open questions?

1:12:31.280,1:12:32.080
Manduhai Buyandelger: Well,

1:12:32.080,1:12:38.720
Heather Paxson: I think actually
- David kindly addressed that?

1:12:38.720,1:12:39.200
Manduhai Buyandelger: Okay.

1:12:39.200,1:12:41.120
Manduhai Buyandelger: Okay, that's great.

1:12:41.120,1:12:42.400
Heather Paxson: Okay, we can actually go to Peter's.

1:12:42.400,1:12:44.640
Manduhai Buyandelger: Right, okay: Peter

1:12:44.640,1:12:45.360
From Yale.

1:12:46.480,1:12:53.040
So - you focus on the effect of sudden climatic - climactic events on the pastoral side 

1:12:53.040,1:12:56.800
in causing the outcome of military
conflict but success or failure in 

1:12:56.800,1:13:00.640
the military campaign depends on how the
climate event affected the other side.

1:13:01.840,1:13:06.880
Can you say how the drought and rainfall affected the armies fighting the Mongols the Qing, 

1:13:06.880,1:13:12.160
the Mamluks, the Tang, etc..? After all, we have more resources on the settled societies than on 

1:13:12.160,1:13:18.720
the nomads. Does this mean that agrarian societies are more resilient than pastoral economies?

1:13:18.720,1:13:24.640
Nicola Di Cosmo: So thank you, Peter. This
is a very good question, of course, and

1:13:25.920,1:13:31.440
Well, we need to we need to look actually case by case here, for instance, 

1:13:31.440,1:13:34.800
if we look at the Türk empire fighting the Tang,

1:13:35.680,1:13:41.360
I would say that the climate does not affect just the army, it affects the whole society here. 

1:13:41.360,1:13:51.000
So, it is a it is a crisis that is actually
much more - much more - localized and and hits

1:13:51.000,1:13:57.680
That the Türks much more deeply than...
because it's not just the military side that is 

1:13:58.200,1:13:59.840
is a widespread famine there.

1:14:00.720,1:14:06.240
And... and actually, it's the economic foundations of the empire that seemed to be affected. 

1:14:06.240,1:14:14.160
In terms of the Chinese army? Well, we can identify a number of other cases in which the 

1:14:14.160,1:14:21.920
Chinese army, in the steppes, actually, also
suffered from from similar, similar problems.

1:14:23.360,1:14:27.840
But I would say that when we have similar conditions.

1:14:30.240,1:14:34.000
They have a different impact on different societies. Yes, 

1:14:34.000,1:14:38.800
some societies are more resilient
than others that I would say is also 

1:14:38.800,1:14:45.280
a question of complexity of society. And
so when we talk about the Mamluks and, and

1:14:47.280,1:14:48.880
And Mongols in Syria.

1:14:50.720,1:14:54.880
I was trying to. I was trying to summarize very quickly. 

1:14:54.880,1:15:01.680
But the real question is, well, we can look at the outcome of one of one battle.

1:15:01.680,1:15:05.600
And that is not so important for me, the real question was, 

1:15:05.600,1:15:10.400
why is it that the Mongols could not leave more people in Syria? So 

1:15:10.400,1:15:15.360
the outcome of that particular battle?
Well, this has been studied before.

1:15:17.120,1:15:19.600
As you know, by John Masson Smith.

1:15:21.040,1:15:26.160
It could be different reasons why that
outcome of that battle was what it was.

1:15:26.720,1:15:31.760
But the real reason why the Mongols
lost Syria was they did not have 

1:15:31.760,1:15:35.040
any more soldiers there. Why did
they not have any more soldiers?

1:15:35.040,1:15:39.040
So - this is just hypothetical, of course, but I think...

1:15:39.040,1:15:45.120
I think focusing on the climate
really try - it shifts, somehow the

1:15:45.680,1:15:53.040
very center of our... of our analysis
towards a broader range of causes, 

1:15:53.600,1:15:57.120
so that we are not just stuck with the particular, 

1:15:57.120,1:16:01.920
particular outcome of that one battle,
but we look at the context in a broader

1:16:04.400,1:16:07.600
perspective, where, where we reconstruct or, 

1:16:07.600,1:16:13.120
not just the event, but also what's around
the event, the background of the event.

1:16:13.120,1:16:16.400
And then you ask also: we have more written sources on the 

1:16:16.400,1:16:23.520
settled society than on nomads, that's for sure. Indeed, indeed, we do, and that is why I think

1:16:26.400,1:16:33.360
nomadic - nomadic vulnerability or...
resilience also - needs to be examined 

1:16:33.360,1:16:39.840
through an ... from an anthropological and
ethnographic side. I mean, we need to know

1:16:39.840,1:16:44.880
And I found this just one article on this. What, what is the 

1:16:44.880,1:16:51.360
impact on a pastoral economy of one event? I think they are more vulnerable. In other words,

1:16:52.000,1:16:57.680
A single event can, it can inflict the more damage on a pastoral

1:16:57.680,1:17:00.000
economy that it does on an agricultural 

1:17:00.720,1:17:08.320
society. Um, and, and, and that's not that's not always the case, but

1:17:08.320,1:17:14.080
It's often the case, it would say this Dzud event happens every 10 years. 

1:17:14.080,1:17:21.200
That means the life of a of a herder is
threatened every, several times during a lifetime.

1:17:21.200,1:17:27.680
And... and and that to me shows a greater
vulnerability. But these are all questions that 

1:17:27.680,1:17:35.040
we need... that we are just opening up and I think we need the kind of, the kind of... robust debate.

1:17:35.680,1:17:40.240
In which we confront a lot of these issues and and and and... 

1:17:41.680,1:17:48.080
Peter himself has been writing a lot about
the Qing in Inner Asia and so on. I mean, 

1:17:48.080,1:17:53.680
I think it would be very, very interesting to
have a look at what was happening in 17th century.

1:17:56.240,1:18:00.880
Mongolia and and and Dzungar wars and so forth 

1:18:00.880,1:18:06.000
in a climatic perspective as well.
This is during the Little Ice Age and

1:18:07.440,1:18:12.000
which has been studied the quite... quite a lot. But anyway, I won't, I won't go beyond that.

1:18:13.120,1:18:14.720
I think it's an excellent question.

1:18:16.080,1:18:23.120
Thank you, Professor Di Cosmo. So, a question from Stefan Helmreich: I have a question about how to 

1:18:23.120,1:18:29.360
think of the ratio between the scale of human enterprise and the scale of climate effects.

1:18:29.920,1:18:32.720
I know that answering that question maybe case specific. 

1:18:32.720,1:18:37.600
The relation between the 13th century
Mongolian nomadic military endeavor 

1:18:37.600,1:18:42.880
and climate effects will be different
than the relation between effects of say,

1:18:43.680,1:18:46.560
fossil fuel usage, among 20th century world 

1:18:46.560,1:18:51.440
seafaring militaries and contemporary climate change. So, the question is about comparison: 

1:18:52.000,1:18:56.560
how portable are lessons about scale from your Mongolian case.

1:18:56.560,1:18:58.960
To other cases, especially across history?

1:18:58.960,1:19:03.360
Nicola Di Cosmo: 

1:19:03.360,1:19:09.200
Again, very good question. How portable, they are; I think they're portable in the sense of the 

1:19:10.320,1:19:15.520
method, methods, that we use to integrate
climate data and historical data.

1:19:16.800,1:19:20.560
I don't believe in simple analogies, of course.

1:19:22.400,1:19:26.800
Of course, there are questions of scale, but there are questions of scale in the past and 

1:19:26.800,1:19:32.160
questions of scales in the present. I mean that the question is really related to what kind of 

1:19:32.960,1:19:39.680
knowledge we want to get from what kind of... what kind of questions we're asking, really, so

1:19:39.680,1:19:46.160
The 13th century Mongol nomadic military
endeavor. I mean, we're just scratching 

1:19:46.160,1:19:51.280
the surface of these problems right now.
We - I mean, this is not an establish...

1:19:52.560,1:19:57.840
established methodology. What I have
illustrated today as, also David McGee 

1:19:57.840,1:20:04.800
said before, I mean, we are experimenting
with this... we will be bringing climate.

1:20:06.880,1:20:09.280
science data. I mean, there is also another 

1:20:09.920,1:20:16.560
completely different area which is the use of ancient DNA in the study of migrations and so 

1:20:16.560,1:20:20.960
and so on. So, this is not the only type of
science that we're bringing into history.

1:20:22.800,1:20:29.040
And and I... I don't know which one is going to be the new paradigm 

1:20:29.040,1:20:38.320
or the new theoretical advancement in effectively integrating climate data and historical records.

1:20:39.120,1:20:45.840
We are just trying to do it now. Scale is one
of the issues that we are going to to address, 

1:20:46.400,1:20:52.400
but I think it is as important to ask that methodological questions 

1:20:52.400,1:20:59.840
for 18th century Mongols as it is for today's present day analysis of military

1:21:03.360,1:21:08.880
seafaring armies and contemporary climate change, so

1:21:10.640,1:21:15.200
The lessons about scale? I don't know that we have 

1:21:15.200,1:21:20.800
learned the society lessons, I think
we are experimenting with scale. We 

1:21:20.800,1:21:28.080
are experimenting with a lot of different
things now and I myself do not look into.

1:21:30.240,1:21:35.120
Large scale problems like other people do
like reconstructing the climate issue of the 

1:21:35.120,1:21:42.000
Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. This is not a kind of research that I think is, is necessarily

1:21:44.240,1:21:45.120
most productive.

1:21:45.680,1:21:48.560
I'm looking at specific historical cases.

1:21:49.440,1:21:55.840
And in how climate can help us build
a better analysis, a better case.

1:21:57.280,1:22:08.160
So, um, my answer. It's not, it's not very
satisfactory perhaps about up I think scale, 

1:22:08.160,1:22:12.720
together with the with the questions of

1:22:12.720,1:22:14.400
What type - for instance - of

1:22:16.000,1:22:20.000
data, we bring into the question
because, as you said, I mean, 

1:22:20.000,1:22:22.400
there are different types of data that help us.

1:22:23.520,1:22:29.040
answer different questions. In fact, some
something year to year. Sometimes we have 

1:22:29.040,1:22:34.240
Decadal records, sometimes Centennial records. So, there is also temporal scale to consider.

1:22:35.400,1:22:41.200
Um, I think the real difference is
that today we - with instruments we 

1:22:41.200,1:22:46.000
have.... we don't have the sort of interpretive problems that we have for the past. I mean, 

1:22:46.000,1:22:50.160
we know exactly what kind of climate, we are dealing with.

1:22:51.360,1:23:00.000
Rather than having to reconstruct it so it's a different kettle of fish, if, if you, if you like, 

1:23:00.960,1:23:10.800
but, but, again, what... what history can do is to bring in what our work can do is really

1:23:12.240,1:23:21.040
Reflect on the method of joining together
scientific data and historical data and 

1:23:21.040,1:23:27.520
and and and trying to integrate them in a
better way. And I'm going to not going to 

1:23:27.520,1:23:36.720
say anything more because of course, it's something that is a really big problem. But thank you very much.

1:23:37.680,1:23:42.560
Manduhai Buyandelger: Thank you, Professor Di Cosmo. So we have one question about Dzud

1:23:43.920,1:23:49.040
It seems to be more subjective,
right? And how to combine the 

1:23:49.040,1:23:54.240
subjective understanding of Dzud - which is a heavy snowfall that leads to massive death

1:23:54.800,1:24:00.480
of the animals, which threatens the life
of of the herders - with climate, climatic 

1:24:00.480,1:24:05.840
data - basically how to convince
best? So that's one question, and I

1:24:07.040,1:24:11.840
You already, I think, partially answer that question. But so, 

1:24:12.480,1:24:14.400
and then- we have two more questions about 

1:24:15.520,1:24:22.480
the methods, I guess, but not... but slightly
differently than before, like, one is how to avoid 

1:24:23.120,1:24:27.600
the issue of determinism environmental
determinism? And the other one is about

1:24:29.840,1:24:35.440
how to combine... Sorry, how to navigate the issue 

1:24:35.440,1:24:40.560
when one discipline tries to exclude the findings or the... the

1:24:40.560,1:24:45.120
importance of the others? For instance, the archaeological perspectives are often left out 

1:24:45.120,1:24:52.720
or cut out of the articles in science nature, etc... So do you have for instance any advice on that? So

1:24:54.000,1:24:57.840
I would say please quickly answer that Dzud question and then

1:24:59.040,1:25:03.600
please give suggestions about how to write so that

1:25:05.360,1:25:09.280
different disciplines can publish
in science, nature, etc... journals.

1:25:09.280,1:25:10.880
Nicola Di Cosmo: So the Dzud

1:25:11.680,1:25:16.640
question, is it... I mean, Dzud is still
with us so we can... we can estimate 

1:25:17.680,1:25:23.120
the kind of the kind of mortality that... that then is caused by

1:25:24.720,1:25:28.560
by this event. I mean this event is basically a heavy snow falls 

1:25:28.560,1:25:32.880
or low temperature so that the animals cannot reach the nutrients.

1:25:34.320,1:25:37.840
And actually, they don't die of starvation. They died of hypothermia. 

1:25:38.720,1:25:46.240
But, but, but, so they can't they can't heat their bodies enough through eating and so they die.

1:25:47.440,1:25:55.120
But the real question in historical times we
whenever we have of course historical records 

1:25:55.120,1:26:01.040
is is a plus, because then we can identify immediately when

1:26:01.920,1:26:07.120
The Chinese in particular were very good
observers of what was happening on the 

1:26:07.120,1:26:11.840
other side in Mongolia. So whenever there is a famine or something else.

1:26:12.640,1:26:19.040
In winter we can possibly attribute that
to a Dzud. And then we can go and look, 

1:26:19.040,1:26:22.400
if possible, at the climatic conditions of that particular year.

1:26:23.360,1:26:27.280
And see whether this can be confirmed by climatic data, 

1:26:27.280,1:26:35.840
lacking other direct information from the records. So in that. Is it just a simple explanation of how

1:26:38.000,1:26:44.320
knowing about this particular climatic
phenomena can help us explain some human

1:26:46.400,1:26:51.760
events that are recorded in the
sources. Is that enough as an answer?

1:26:51.760,1:26:53.440
Manduhai Buyandelger: I think so, yeah.

1:26:53.440,1:26:56.720
Nicola Di Cosmo: I know for the other... for the other 

1:26:56.720,1:27:01.200
question that is a but... publishing is a really big problem.

1:27:02.560,1:27:09.040
For also for, for, for me because, of
course, it's very hard to adjust to 

1:27:09.040,1:27:14.880
the type of a scientific publishing, the
norms and and the conventions that are

1:27:15.760,1:27:20.480
accepted in scientific journals when
when you are coming from a completely 

1:27:20.480,1:27:26.720
different disciplines and so I don't know how to answer that question, we are still struggling.

1:27:28.720,1:27:32.720
You have seen some of these articles
that were published when very different, 

1:27:32.720,1:27:41.680
very different type of journals, but typically
the historians like me have to adjust their

1:27:44.160,1:27:51.840
form of expression, if you like -
narrative form - to a scientific mode of

1:27:51.840,1:27:59.840
discussion because it's otherwise very
difficult to publish this this research at all.

1:28:00.480,1:28:06.640
The - I find the Scientific Publishing quite
rigid, but I guess there is a reason for that. 

1:28:06.640,1:28:12.080
And they want to keep it rigorous, but it's also rigid and this type of

1:28:14.240,1:28:21.600
Hybrid, if you like, hybrid research half humanistic and a half scientific is not easy to 

1:28:21.600,1:28:30.240
publish that. That's for sure. I think we are
still trapped in hyperspecialistic, specialized

1:28:34.480,1:28:37.600
research silos, if you like, and 

1:28:37.600,1:28:43.120
it's difficult, in my view, it's very difficult to overcome that, to have

1:28:43.120,1:28:49.120
more interdisciplinary... but MIT publishes
the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 

1:28:49.120,1:28:50.800
which has been very, very good to us.

1:28:51.440,1:28:56.080
And so - a shout out to Journal of
Interdisciplinary History which has been 

1:28:56.880,1:29:00.320
one of the few avenues that has been really active in this field.

1:29:02.000,1:29:05.520
Manduhai Buyandelger: Shall we take one last question, or shall we...

1:29:06.400,1:29:14.080
Heather Paxson: I think, I think we we've done the questions um... justice. Thank you so much.

1:29:15.440,1:29:18.880
So I think we'll just thank you very much. Nicola, 

1:29:18.880,1:29:21.749
and thank you to David and Tristan as well. And of course, Manduhai. (clapping) I can make noise!

1:29:21.749,1:29:28.320
(clapping, laughing)

1:29:28.320,1:29:33.200
Nicola Di Cosmo: Thank you. I really appreciate everyone's participation in the questions as well. I hope 

1:29:33.200,1:29:34.400
I was able to answer that... some

1:29:34.400,1:29:37.440
Heather Paxson: Yeah, they were great
questions and really nice discussion 

1:29:37.440,1:29:40.560
and I do hope that this will be continued. I mean, 

1:29:40.560,1:29:44.000
we've been hearing about other projects
that are in the works at MIT and beyond.

1:29:45.920,1:29:46.420
So,

1:29:47.200,1:29:51.946
Much more to come (overlapping)

1:29:51.946,1:29:52.080
Nicola Di Cosmo: I hope so too...

1:29:52.080,1:29:52.953
Heather Paxson: Thanks so much, everybody.

1:29:52.953,1:29:55.736
Nicola Di Cosmo: Bye, bye.

1:29:55.736,1:30:02.800
Manduhai Buyandelger: Thank you.
 
All: Bye! Thank you... Thank you!