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!