The Role of Environment in the Socio-Cultural Changes of the Ancient Silk Road Area

Yang, Liang Emlyn; Wiesehöfer, Josef; Bork, H. R.; Hoo, Milinda

doi:10.22498/pages.25.3.165

Cited by 6 publications

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“…There is increasing discussion that climate and environmental factors might have also played a significant role in fostering economic and socio-cultural changes along the Silk Road as well as in a broader area (Zhang et al 2011;Clarke et al 2016). For instance, favorable environmental conditions may have boosted agriculture and animal husbandry, thus increasing the availability of resources necessary to support a powerful empire, while adverse conditions may have undermined the level of production and the living conditions of human society or exacerbated social stresses which eventually may have led to severe crises or collapse of socio-culture systems (Yang et al 2017). In fact, coherent patterns and synchronous events in history suggest certain links between the social upheaval and climate forcing (Issar and Zohar 2004;Clarke et al 2016), and environmental factors have been claimed as multipliers that accelerated socio-culture changes in some cases (Zhang et al 2005;Rosen 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Paleo-climatic/Environmental Impacts and Socio-Cultural System Resilience along the Historical Silk Road

Yang

Bork

Fang

et al. 2019

Socio-Environmental Dynamics Along the Historical Silk Road

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This chapter introduces, by literature reviews, the issue of the links and processes behind climate change, environmental change, and socio-culture change in the past at the ancient Silk Road region. Analyses of the changes of the socioenvironment system in this area enhance our understanding on the regular patterns of coupled natural and social evolution, and is thus of important theoretical and practical significance. We argue that the cross-cutting theme has been to reach beyond simple explanations of environmental or human determinism, but social resilience under environmental impacts. Studies indicate both that climate conditions significantly influence human socio-cultural systems and that the socio-culture systems are certainly resilient to climate impacts. This chapter also summarizes the scope of all chapters in this book by illustrating the specific topics, research areas, focused periods and their inner relationships. The conclusion further summarizes the recent research states on past socio-environmental dynamics and the findings achieved in this book, as well as some outlooks.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Paleo-climatic/Environmental Impacts and Socio-Cultural System Resilience along the Historical Silk Road

Yang

Bork

Fang

et al. 2019

Socio-Environmental Dynamics Along the Historical Silk Road

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“…The Silk Road is a modern concept for an ancient network of trade routes that for centuries facilitated and intensified processes of cultural interaction and goods exchange between West China and its neighbors (Yang et al 2017). It generally includes the Northern Silk Road (also called oasis Silk Road and desert Silk Road), Maritime Silk Road and the Southern Silk Road.…”

Section: Introduction Of the Southern Silk Road (The Tea-horse Road)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience of the Human-Water System at the Southern Silk Road: A Case Study of the Northern Catchment of Erhai Lake, China (1382–1912)

Yang

et al. 2019

Socio-Environmental Dynamics Along the Historical Silk Road

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This study focuses on the northern catchment of Erhai Lake that lies in the heart of the ancient Southern Silk Road (the Tea-Horse Roads) in southwest China. The hydrologic environment of this region is complex and evolved under significant human impacts, especially after large populations migrated after 1382 under the policy of military tillage. This led to increased pressures on the human-water relationship of this region but also stimulated social resilience to water stresses. This paper investigates the manner in which local people addressed the conflicts of utilizing limited water for people, livestock and irrigation until 1912. The approaches of statistical analysis, spatial analysis and correlation analysis were adopted, and historical data on floods, water conservation projects, plants, and disease were collected to support a detailed examination of the evolution of the human-water relationship in the study area. The results indicate that: (1) the evolution of the hydrologic environment, including the river system and the hydro-chemical environment, had a close correspondence with human activities; (2) local people constructed various water conservation and engineering facilities and changed their farming structures to cope with water stresses, which partly contributed to the break out and spread of Schistosomiasis japonica; (3) the resilience of the human-water relationship became weaker as the management of water projects diminished; (4) the sustainable development of the human-water relationship could be maintained through regular water management and environmental governance. These findings emphasize the influences of social policy and human activities on the resilience of the catchment and improve our understanding of resilience theory.

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“…There is increasing discussion that climate and environmental factors might have also played a significant role in fostering economic and socio-cultural changes along the Silk Road as well as in a broader area Clarke et al 2016). For instance, favorable environmental conditions may have boosted agriculture and animal husbandry, thus increasing the availability of resources necessary to support a powerful empire, while adverse conditions may have undermined the level of production and the living conditions of human society or exacerbated social stresses which eventually may have led to severe crises or collapse of socio-culture systems (Yang et al 2017). In fact, coherent patterns and synchronous events in history suggest certain links between the social upheaval and climate forcing (Issar and Zohar 2004;Clarke et al 2016), and environmental factors have been claimed as multipliers that accelerated socio-culture changes in some cases (Zhang et al 2005;Rosen 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road

Yang¹,

Bork²,

Fang³

et al. 2019

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The Role of Environment in the Socio-Cultural Changes of the Ancient Silk Road Area

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

On the Paleo-climatic/Environmental Impacts and Socio-Cultural System Resilience along the Historical Silk Road

On the Paleo-climatic/Environmental Impacts and Socio-Cultural System Resilience along the Historical Silk Road

Resilience of the Human-Water System at the Southern Silk Road: A Case Study of the Northern Catchment of Erhai Lake, China (1382–1912)

Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road

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