Studying tree rings has revealed a record of wet and dry times that helps make sense of the mysterious and gradual demise of Angkor, the capitol of the Khmer Empire in Cambodia from the 9th to 14th centuries. A very wet period with rich monsoons and plentiful crops from 1258 to 1300 was followed by many years of drought from 1350 to 1370. (Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation)Source: National Science Foundation
Tree ring record reveals abrupt end to empire
March 29, 2010
Throughout written history there have been many abrupt ends to empires and civilizations that have little explanation. Political climates deteriorate, passions rise, revolts happen and the next thing you know--the culture is a thing of the past relegated to a short chapter in a textbook.
The natural world leaves a record in the form of tree rings, which can be read like a very detailed book, covering a long period of human history. Now a team of researchers has correlated the demise of Angkor, the capitol of the Khmer Empire in Cambodia, with a decades-long drought interspersed with intense monsoons in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Brendan Buckley of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and his colleagues have put together a high-resolution record of periods of drought and moisture in Southeast Asia that is over three quarters of a millennium long from 1250 to 2008 AD.
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