Abstract
The paleo-climatic proxy-data (Fig. 3a) show that after the spell of cold and humid climate around 1000 B.C.E. came a warm and dry period with a low peak of humidity around 850 B.C.E. Then it steadily improved reaching favorable conditions from ca. 300B.C.E. until the 3rd century C.E. After a short interval of worsening from ca. 350 to 450, the climate improved again reaching a positive peak around 550 C.E. It was followed by a time of crisis reaching a climax around 900 C.E. The humidity curve from lake Van shows a generally drier period in this phase, but still the differences between the peaks of humidity and aridity are less extreme than those characterizing the previous millennia. The evolution of the technologies of water extraction, transport and utilization helped in mitigating the impact of average negative climate changes. However once the change was extreme as in the case of the last centuries of the first millennium C.E. a major socio-economic crisis followed and in its wake a major change in the political and religious pattern of the Near East.
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(2007). The Age of Iron and Empires. In: Climate Change —. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69852-4_8
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