Scientists probe ancient barley to understand the impact of climate on early farming societies
Civilisations thrived only when there was proper rain and water was available for irrigation. As rainfall became sporadic, agriculture collapsed and cities were abandoned and, thus, resulted in the demise of some of the great civilizations, suggest recent studies.
Barely six months after archaeologists found that a series of droughts, lasting over 200 years, led to the collapse of Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, a new study offers evidence that the ancient civilisation of Mesopotamia, too, had collapsed due to years of drought resulting from climate change.
The study by German researchers observed that “influence of climate on agriculture is believed to be a key factor in the rise and fall of societies in the Ancient Near East.”
The research team, led by Simone Riehl of the Institute for Archaeological Sciences and the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at Tübingen University, analysed samples of grains of barley up to 12,000 years old.
The team analysed 1,037 samples of ancient grains of barley, between 12,000 and 2,500 years old, from 33 locations across the Fertile Crescent to ascertain if they had had enough water while growing and ripening. By comparing the ancient grain samples with modern samples from 13 locations in the former Fertile Crescent, Riehl and her team measured the grains’ content of two stable carbon isotopes –12C and 13C–to collect information on the availability of water while the plants were growing.
The two isotopes 12C und 13C remain stable for thousands of years and can be measured precisely. When barley gets insufficient water while growing, the proportion of heavier carbon isotopes deposited in its cells will be higher than normal. The finding thus established the correlation between extreme drought, the growth of barley and the fall of civilisations.
“Geographic factors and technologies introduced by humans played a big role and influenced societies' options for development as well as their particular ways of dealing with drought,” says Riehl in the recent issue of PNAS.
The findings give archaeologists clues as to how early agricultural societies dealt with climate fluctuations and differing local environments. “They can also help evaluate current conditions in regions with a high risk of crop failures,” Riehl adds. The study is part of a German Research Foundation-backed project looking into the conditions under which Ancient Near Eastern societies rose and fell.
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