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Rethinking the History of the Uyghur Empire (744–840)

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Rethinking the History of the Uyghur Empire (744–840) Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XLVIII:4 (Spring, 2018), 439–463. Nicola Di Cosmo, Amy Hessl, Caroline Leland, Oyunsanaa Byambasuren, Hanqin Tian, Baatarbileg Nachin, Neil Pederson, Laia Andreu-Hayles, and Edward R. Cook Environmental Stress and Steppe Nomads: Rethinking the History of the Uyghur Empire (744–840) with Paleoclimate Data Severe, prolonged droughts have been identified as a contributing factor in the de- cline of complex agricultural polities and civilizations, such as those of the Khmer city of Ankhor, the ancestral Puebloans, and the Nicola Di Cosmo is Henry Luce Foundation Professor of East Asian History, Institute for Advanced Study. He is the author of Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (New York, 2002); “The Extension of Ch’ing Rule over Mongolia, Sinkiang, and Tibet, 1630–1800,” in Willard J. Peterson (ed.), The Cambridge History of China. IX. The Ch’ing Dynasty to 1800 (Part II) (New York, 2016), 111–145. Amy Hessl is Professor of Geography, West Virginia University. She is the author of, with Peter Brown et al., “Fire and Climate in Mongolia (1532–2010 CE),” Geophysical Research Letters, XLIII (2016), 6519–6527; with Robert K. Booth, Alex W. Ireland, and Katherine LeBoeuf, “Late Holocene Climate-Induced Forest Transformation and Peatland Establish- ment in Northern West Virginia,” Quaternary Research, LXXXV (2016), 204–210. Caroline Leland is a Ph.D. candidate, Dept.ofEarthandEnvironmentalSciences, Columbia University. She is the author of, with Amy Hessl et al., “Fire and Climate in Mongolia (1532–2010 Common Era),” Geophysical Research Letters, XLIII (2016), 6519–6527; with Neil Pederson et al., “Three Centuries of Shifting Hydroclimate Regimes across the Mongolian Breadbasket,” Agricultural and Forest Meterology, CLXXVIII (2013), 10–20. Oyunsanaa Byambasuren is a director of the Regional Central Asia Fire Management Resource Center, National University of Mongolia. He is the author of, with Andrea Seim et al., “Synoptic-Scale Circulation Patterns during Summer Derived from Tree Rings in Mid- Latitude Asia,” Climate Dynamics (2016), doi: 10.1007/s00382-016-3426-7; with Mukund Palat Rao et al., “Dzuds, Droughts, and Livestock Mortality in Mongolia,” Environmental Research Letters, X (2015), doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/7/074012. Hanqin Tian is Director of the International Center for Climate and Global Change Research, Solon and Martha Dixon Professor, and University Alumni Professor of Ecology in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University. He is the author of, with Guangsheng Chen et al., “Century-Scale Response of Ecosystem Carbon Storage to Multifactorial Global Change in the Southern United States,” Ecosystems (2012), doi: 10.1007/s10021-012-9539-x; with Xiaofeng Xu, “Methane Exchange between Marshland and the Atmosphere over China during 1949–2008,” Global Biogeochemical Cycles (2012), doi:10.1029/2010GB003946. Baatarbileg Nachin is Professor of Forest Sciences, National University of Mongolia, and Adjunct Associate Researcher, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University. He is the author of, with Nicole K. Davi et al., of “A Long-Term Context (931–2005 C.E.) for Rapid Warming over Central Asia,” Quaternary Science Reviews (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev. 2015.05.020; “Pluvials, Droughts, the Mongol Empire, and Modern Mongolia,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2014), doi: 10.1073/pnas.1318677111. © 2018 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc., doi:10.1162/JINH_a_01194 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JINH_a_01194 by guest on 26 September 2021 440 | NICOLA DI COSMO ET AL. ancient Maya. In the case of pastoral societies, however, droughts have been understood as drivers of migrations, invasions, conquests, internal warfare, and other forms of political instability, although such inferences typically garnered limited support because of the dearth of both high-resolution paleoclimate data proximal to the steppe, and significant historical records emanating from the socie- ties themselves. Historical analysis is inherently at odds with simplistic cause–effect models based on decontextualized correlations, and theories based on “push” and “pull” forces to explain the movements and conquests of nomadic peoples are necessarily reductionist. A different and more productive approach consists of integrating sev- eral types of evidence within the confines of case studies that can embrace the complexity of a historical analysis. This approach pro- vides new insights into the relationship between climatic and envi- ronmental variability, on the one hand, and political and social change in steppe empires, on the other. Recently developed paleo- climatic data present an excellent opportunity not just to increase our knowledge of a still relatively obscure period in Asian history but especially to explore new questions and new hypotheses concerning the relationship between nomads and environmental factors, some Neil Pederson is Senior Ecologist, Harvard Forest, Harvard University. He is the author of, with Francesc Montane et al., “Evaluating the Effect of Alternative Carbon Allocation Schemes in a Land Surface Model on Carbon Fluxes, Pools and Turnover in Temperate Forests,” Geoscientific Model Development (2017), doi: 10.5194/gmd-10-3499-2017; with Mathieu Levesque, et al. “Water Availability Matters More Than CO2 andAcidDepositionfor Growth in Temperate Mesic Forests,” ScientificReports(2017), doi: 10.1038/srep46158. Laia Andreu-Hayles is Lamont Assistant Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University. She is the author of, with Rosanne D’Arrigo, of “Varying Boreal Forest Response to Arctic Environmental Change at the Firth River, Alaska,” Envi- ronmental Research Letters, VI (2011), 045503, doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/045503; with Oc- tavi Planells et al., “Long Tree-Ring Chronologies Reveal 20th Century Increases in Water-Use Efficiency but No Enhancement of Tree Growth at Five Iberian Pine Forests,” Global Change Biology, XVII (2011), 2095–2112. Edward R. Cook is Ewing Lamont Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Earth Obser- vatory, Columbia University. He is the author of, “Megadroughts, ENSO, and the Invasion of the Late-Roman Europe by the Huns and Avars,” in William V. Harris (ed.), The Ancient Mediterranean Environment between Science and History (Boston, 2013), 89–102; with Michael McCormick et al., “Climate Change during and after the Roman Empire: Reconstructing the Past from Scientific and Historical Evidence,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XLIII (2012), 169–220. The authors are grateful for the support of field and laboratory technicians: Kathy Allen, Dario Martin Benito, John Burkhart, Shawn Cockrell, Kristin de Graauw, Dario Fernandez, Joseph James, Javier Martin, Galbadrakh Munkhbat, Scott Nichols, Enkhmandal Orsoo, Bayarbaatar Soronzonbold, Baljinnyam Ulziibyar, and Jennie Zhu. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JINH_a_01194 by guest on 26 September 2021 THE UYGHUR EMPIRE | 441 of which have been already examined in recent studies, albeit in dif- ferent historical contexts.1 Since the late first millennium B.C.E. and until the early mod- ern period, several nomadic empires emerged on the Inner Asian steppes, exerting control over surrounding regions and transform- ing the Eurasian economic and political order from China to Cen- tral Asia and even to Europe. The imperial form of nomadic polities—militarily powerful, politically centralized, territorially extended, and inclusive of multiple ethnic and social groups— was relatively rare but historically far more relevant than other po- litical formations. Notwithstanding similarities in their productive basis, culture, government, and social structures, steppe empires differed considerably in their overall economic development, du- ration, expansion, and interaction with other polities. We cannot account for these differences by constructing a general model of nomadic empire. We have to take a closer look at the historical circumstances in which each of them arose and the particular chal- lenges that each of them confronted. On the historical palette of these empires, the Uyghur Empire (or qaghanate) presents special characteristics that, coupled with high-resolution paleoclimatic data, provide an ideal case for exploring the relationship between severe climatic downturn and its possible role in the evolution of a nomadic polity.2 1 Brendan M. Buckley et al., “Climate as a Contributing Factor in the Demise of Angkor, Cambodia,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, CVII (2010), 6748–6752; Cook et al., “Megadroughts in North America: Placing IPCC Projections of Hydroclimatic Change in a Long-Term Palaeoclimate Context,” Journal of Quaternary Science, XXV (2010), 48–61; Peter M. J. Douglas et al., “Drought, Agricultural Adaptation, and Sociopolitical Collapse in the Maya Lowlands,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, CXII (2015), 5607–5612; Gareth Jenkins, “A Note on Climatic Cycles and the Rise of Chinggis Khan,” Central Asiatic Journal, XVIII (1974), 217–226; Qiang Chen, “Climate Shocks, Dynastic Cycles and Nomadic Conquests: Evidence from Historical China,” Oxford Economic Papers, LXVII (2015),185–204; Cook, “Megadroughts, ENSO, and the Invasion of Late-Roman Europe by the Huns and Avars,” in William V. Harris (ed.), The Ancient Mediterranean Environment between Science and History (Leiden,
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