Relation

The study of history used to be primarily the study of kings, wars, and great men. But that is the old stuff. A whole new group of historians has emerged in the past couple of centuries who are looking at history differently. Rather than just concentrating on the actions of great men, (a few) great women, and wars, they are going for the big picture. They are looking at the role of disease and plagues in affecting history, the effects of oceanic currents and desert winds on long-term climate change, and the effects of catastrophic events--objects from space or massive volcanic eruptions--on the rise and fall of empires and peoples. This is fascinating new material in which history and a variety of sciences intersect.

"Nuclear Winter?" Scientists today are looking with interest and concern at the growing activity of volcanos around the world. Apparently this has happened before during human history, and of course, much more before we were around. What we have not until now understood is these events have had an enormous affect on governments and religions. One work that is a must-read is David Keys' Catastrophe: A Quest for the Origins of the Modern World (1999). Keys has written the ultimate historic detective story and takes us through his investigation, and concludes with a cautionary look into the future.

The story is that in 535 AD, something happened that was the natural equivalent of what scientists fear would befall the world's climate in the event of nuclear war: the so-called "nuclear winter." According to David Keys: "In that appalling potential future disaster, hydrogen bomb explosions would force vast quantities of pulverized debris, dust, and temporarily vaporized earth up into the atmosphere. There, this nuclear pollution would form a barrier which would prevent much of the sun's light and heat from reaching the ground. Temperatures would fall, the world's climate system would be thrown into chaos, and famine followed by epidemics would begin to rage."

"The mid-sixth-century climatic catastrophe displayed all the hallmarks of nuclear winter. But obviously there were no H--bombs in the first millennium A.D. So what was the culprit?"

With this opening, Keys lays out a historic mystery story that uses the tools of good modern historians: government records, journals, epidemiology, climatology, tree-ring and ice core samples, and makes this all relevant to the global changes that we are undergoing today. Taking the mysterious global event that affected climate, animal and insect life, and human behavior as the trigger for a catastrophe, Keys shows how the ancient world died and the modern world began. It lost its old form of governance (Roman), its old religion (Paganism), and whole peoples were replaced by newcomers from Asia. Keys tells us: "...climatic catastrophe was translated into massive political and religious change through four key interrelated factors: climate, migration, disease, and religion." Just as in Europe, the Middle East and the Orient had experienced massive geopolitical change in the century following the climatic disasters of the 530s; so, too, did the Americas. In Mesoamerica and the Andes, there was a total geopolitical realignment, driven ultimately by the engine of climatic change, which is the most reasonable explanation I have heard for the desertion of the huge Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan. When a city of perhaps one million people empties practically overnight, something draconian must have happened. A prolongued drought lasting decades would certainly do the trick. In addition, people could lose faith in the gods they had trusted to protect them. Archaeologists have found mounds of violently broken images of the gods and goddesses. They have also found wall paintings that had grown increasingly warlike and savage. Could such a thing happen today? Does this also explain the disappearance of the mysterious cliff dwellers in our own Four Courners region (where Arizona and New Mexico meet)?

Keys takes us through the records of the late Roman Empire, the barbarian invasions that brought it down, and transformed Rome from the greatest metropolis in the world of its time to a miserable Medieval town trying to survive in a malerial swamp. The barbarians (in one instance, Slavs) replaced entire ancient populations, and before they were brought into the Christian fold, they terrorized Europe. This is a frightening story. (Plague plays a role here too, which I will address in another section of this article.)

Keys has us visit Yemen, a wretched backwater today that is in the news only because it is a nexus of terrorist activity and the homeland of Osama bin Laden. In the 6th century, it was a country of substance and considerable wealth. But after 535 AD, something changed. The first major outbreak of bubonic plague broke out there and traveled through all the sea lanes and trade routes, killing off sometimes half the population. What was it that changed the climate, caused a population explosion of a certain kind of rodent carrying a certain kind of fleas? And did this mechanism work in Central Asia also, providing more grassland for the horsemen living there, which in turn, caused them to have a population explosion? Historians know more about the later attack of bubonic plague in the 13th century than they do about this earlier bout, but the mechanisms are the same. What happens to a society that loses up to half its adult population? What is happening to Africa today? We have been there before.

The last section of the book explores what Keys thinks (with good evidence) what happened. Was it a collision with a comet? Siberia had such an event (apparently a piece of a comet) in 1908, that set off hundreds of miles of forest fires. Also, there is evidence that one enormous collision off Yucatan may have triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs. But this 6th century event does not seem to have been from outer space.

There is evidence for a huge volcanic eruption of Mr. Tuba in Java, one so huge that it split the island in two. The sound of it was heard a thousand miles away in China (and duly noted in court journals), and there was a rain of ash that traveled even further. This was followed by months of little sunlight globally, untoward climatic events, such as snow in August in southern China, and droughts and floods in areas not expecting them -- a perfect environment for gestating plagues and barbarian invasions, as well as loss of confidence in government and religion. Keys ends his book with a speculation on potential global catastrophes tomorrow and what we may need to know to protect ourselves. There is evidence that we are entering a new era of geothermal activity, even one of which could create massive dislocations