The University of Sydney (Australia)
One of archaelogy's greatest mysteries has been solved. According to soon-to-be published paper by a team headed by Professor Roland Fletcher, the great medieval city of Angkor was destroyed by the combined effects of a mini ice age, and over-development of its complicated water system.
The findings were based on new pollen and tree-ring-dating evidence that uses long-lived species in the region such as the 900-year-old po mu tree. Evidence that extreme weather conditions had occurred from 1362 to 1392 and from 1415 to 1440 was found in the annual growth rings of the tree.
At its height from the 9th to 15th centuries, the elaborate city of Angkor had about 750,000 citizens and was the most comprehensive urban development of the preindustrial world. By the 16th century, the city was in ruin.
The archaelogical team investigating the phenomena of Angkor includes the University of Sydney's Professor Fletcher, and paleoclimatologist Dr Dan Penny; and paleoclimatologist Brendan Buckley of New York's Columbia University. It is part of the Greater Angkor Project, an international, multidisciplinary research programme studying the decline of urbanism at Angkor, in Cambodia.
The Greater Angkor team will hypothesise in its paper that the decline of the city was due to extensive problems with its vast and complicated water system and the compound effect of a series of droughts and monsoonal floods in the mid-14th to late 15th centuries.
In an article in The National Geographic Professor Fletcher said, "Angkor really had no fat to burn. The city was more exposed to the threat of drought than at any other time in its history. Prolonged and severe droughts, punctuated by torrential downpours, would have ruined the water system."
The findings have important lessons for contemporary readings of climate change. As experts debate the effects of human-made climate change, the tree rings of the po mu tree around Angkor reveal that even natural variations in weather can bring about catastrophe.
Contact: Sarah Stock
Phone: 02 9351 4312 or 0419 278 715
Email: sarah.stock@usyd.edu.au
The findings were based on new pollen and tree-ring-dating evidence that uses long-lived species in the region such as the 900-year-old po mu tree. Evidence that extreme weather conditions had occurred from 1362 to 1392 and from 1415 to 1440 was found in the annual growth rings of the tree.
At its height from the 9th to 15th centuries, the elaborate city of Angkor had about 750,000 citizens and was the most comprehensive urban development of the preindustrial world. By the 16th century, the city was in ruin.
The archaelogical team investigating the phenomena of Angkor includes the University of Sydney's Professor Fletcher, and paleoclimatologist Dr Dan Penny; and paleoclimatologist Brendan Buckley of New York's Columbia University. It is part of the Greater Angkor Project, an international, multidisciplinary research programme studying the decline of urbanism at Angkor, in Cambodia.
The Greater Angkor team will hypothesise in its paper that the decline of the city was due to extensive problems with its vast and complicated water system and the compound effect of a series of droughts and monsoonal floods in the mid-14th to late 15th centuries.
In an article in The National Geographic Professor Fletcher said, "Angkor really had no fat to burn. The city was more exposed to the threat of drought than at any other time in its history. Prolonged and severe droughts, punctuated by torrential downpours, would have ruined the water system."
The findings have important lessons for contemporary readings of climate change. As experts debate the effects of human-made climate change, the tree rings of the po mu tree around Angkor reveal that even natural variations in weather can bring about catastrophe.
Contact: Sarah Stock
Phone: 02 9351 4312 or 0419 278 715
Email: sarah.stock@usyd.edu.au
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