Home
News
In Focus
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Restaurants get off to a quick start thanks to game-changing policies
High service charges on event ticket refunds call for further regulation
Sunday
- Subscribe
Related News
Drought, not war, led to demise of ancient city
Source: Agencies |
February 18, 2009, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A PROLONGED and intense drought may have contributed to the demise of Cambodia's great ancient city Angkor, an American researcher said yesterday.
Brendan Buckley, who was attending a three-day climate conference in Vietnam, said bands on tree rings that he and his colleagues examined show that Southeast Asia was hit by a severe drought from 1415 until 1439.
That would coincide with the period during which many archeologists believe Angkor collapsed. From the city of famed temples, Angkorian kings ruled over most of Southeast Asia between the 9th and 14th centuries.
During that time, they oversaw construction of architectural stone wonders, including Angkor Wat, regarded as a marvel of religious architecture and designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
"Given all the stress the Khmer civilization was under due to political reasons and so forth, a drought of the magnitude we see in our records should have played a significant role in causing its demise," said Buckley, a research scientist at Columbia University's Tree-Ring Laboratory in New York.
Scientists have a historical record of droughts with the thickness of a tree's rings. Since trees grow more during wet periods, the rings grow thicker at those times. Trees grow less in dry times so those rings are thinner.
While the 1431 invasion from Siam, what is now Thailand, has long been regarded as a major cause of Angkor's fall, archaeologists working at the temple site have long suspected ecological factors played a role.
The Greater Angkor Project is run by the University of Sydney in collaboration with the French archaeological group Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient and APSARA, the body responsible for the management of the Angkor World Heritage Park.
The project concluded in 2007 that Angkor had become unwieldy and that efforts to expand rice production to support a population of 1 million had led to deforestation, top soil degradation and erosion.
Last year, the group went further to show that the deforestation resulted in flooding and huge amounts of sediment clogging the network of canals.
Brendan Buckley, who was attending a three-day climate conference in Vietnam, said bands on tree rings that he and his colleagues examined show that Southeast Asia was hit by a severe drought from 1415 until 1439.
That would coincide with the period during which many archeologists believe Angkor collapsed. From the city of famed temples, Angkorian kings ruled over most of Southeast Asia between the 9th and 14th centuries.
During that time, they oversaw construction of architectural stone wonders, including Angkor Wat, regarded as a marvel of religious architecture and designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
"Given all the stress the Khmer civilization was under due to political reasons and so forth, a drought of the magnitude we see in our records should have played a significant role in causing its demise," said Buckley, a research scientist at Columbia University's Tree-Ring Laboratory in New York.
Scientists have a historical record of droughts with the thickness of a tree's rings. Since trees grow more during wet periods, the rings grow thicker at those times. Trees grow less in dry times so those rings are thinner.
While the 1431 invasion from Siam, what is now Thailand, has long been regarded as a major cause of Angkor's fall, archaeologists working at the temple site have long suspected ecological factors played a role.
The Greater Angkor Project is run by the University of Sydney in collaboration with the French archaeological group Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient and APSARA, the body responsible for the management of the Angkor World Heritage Park.
The project concluded in 2007 that Angkor had become unwieldy and that efforts to expand rice production to support a population of 1 million had led to deforestation, top soil degradation and erosion.
Last year, the group went further to show that the deforestation resulted in flooding and huge amounts of sediment clogging the network of canals.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
