Climate change drove the route shift of the ancient Silk Road in two distinct ways

Haipeng Wang; Jianhui Chen; Menghan Qiu; Zhilin Shi; Shengda Zhang; Guanghui Dong; Shuai Ma; Tao Ai; Guan Ren; Fahu Chen

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2024.02.025

Climate change drove the route shift of the ancient Silk Road in two distinct ways

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2024 Apr 30;69(8):1153-1160. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.02.025. Epub 2024 Feb 23.

Authors

Haipeng Wang¹, Jianhui Chen², Menghan Qiu³, Zhilin Shi⁴, Shengda Zhang⁵, Guanghui Dong³, Shuai Ma³, Tao Ai⁶, Guan Ren⁷, Fahu Chen⁸

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.
² MOE Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China. Electronic address: jhchen@lzu.edu.cn.
³ MOE Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
⁴ Institute of Dunhuang Studies, School of History & Culture, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
⁵ School of Geography and Remote Sensing, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510000, China.
⁶ Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Ürümqi 830011, China.
⁷ Archaeology of Northern Ethnicity Institute, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China.
⁸ ALPHA, State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; MOE Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.

PMID: 38433030
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.02.025

Abstract

Although climate change has convincingly been linked to the evolution of human civilization on different temporal scales, its role in influencing the spatial patterns of ancient civilizations has rarely been investigated. The northward shift of the ancient Silk Road (SR) route from the Tarim Basin (TB) to the Junggar Basin during ∼420-850 CE provides the opportunity to investigate the relationship between climate change and the spatial evolution of human societies. Here, we use a new high-resolution chironomid-based temperature reconstruction from arid China, combined with hydroclimatic and historical datasets, to assess the possible effects of climate fluctuations on the shift of the ancient SR route. We found that a cooling/drying climate in the TB triggered the SR route shift during ∼420-600 CE. However, a warming/wetting climate during ∼600-850 CE did not inhibit this shift, but instead promoted it, because of the favorable climate-induced geopolitical conflicts between the Tubo Kingdom and the Tang Dynasty in the TB. Our findings reveal two distinct ways in which climate change drove the spatial evolution of human civilization, and they demonstrate the flexibility of societal responses to climate change.

Keywords: Chironomids; Geopolitical conflicts; Temperature reconstruction; Water resources.

MeSH terms

China
Climate Change*
Cold Temperature
Humans
Temperature