Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of the Oxus Civilization in Southern Central Asia

 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-00728-7_14

Abstract

During the Final Bronze Age (around 3750/3700 BP), the proto-urban sedentary cultural entity in southern Central Asia—known as the Oxus civilization or Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex—underwent major social transformations in different field aspects leading to a deep cultural change in the middle of the 4th millennium BP. Among the different reasons suggested to explain these sociocultural changes, the hypothesis of global climate change in Central Asia at the beginning of the 4th millennium BP has been emphasized by different scholars. In this paper, I will examine current paleo-environmental data in relation with the climate evolution during the Mid- and Late Holocene. A critical assessment of the hypothesis of climatic change in Central Asia at the beginning of the 4th millennium BP allows to stimulate the discussion anew. I argue that the present data do not support a drastic climate change during the first half of the 4th millennium BP as a responsible factor for the fall of the Oxus civilization, although local environmental modifications should also not be underestimated and further investigated in a more integrated perspective of co-evolution of the ecological environment and the human societies.