Is there evidence for historic droughts affecting the Mesopotamian area/Euphrates-Tigris Rivers?

Submitted by RapturousGuitar92 t3_10pq23w in askscience

Hello all!

I read a paper in Nature about the 4.2 kya event in the Mesopotamian region and how scientists think a possible mega-drought contributed to the crises among several empires^(1). I was wondering if there is other scientific evidence for droughts in the Euphrates-Tigris Rivers over the last 3000 years. I know there is a drought currently in the area, but have drought events occurred before? Any peer-review articles or evidence you all know of?

Thank you!

  1. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00157-9
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Comments

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_Fermat t1_j6m57ov wrote

This factsheet cites some geological papers that support a drought in that period. Also, some theories point to a drought contributing to the late bronze age collapse (around 1200 BC), which also hit in that region. Here's a paper addressing it, and I am sure there will be more on that period.

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CrustalTrudger t1_j6mmjmb wrote

There is a pretty extensive literature (which is not exactly hard to find) of climatic variability, drought, and influences of these on various societies in the Middle East / SW Asia at both long (e.g., Kaniewski et al., 2012, Xoplaki et al., 2016, Flohr et al., 2017, Jones et al., 2019, Fleitman et al., 2022) and short (e.g., Donat et al., 2013, Barlow et al., 2016) time scales. The general point is summed up nicely by the title of the Kaniewski et al., 2012 paper, i.e., Drought is a recurring challenge in the Middle East.

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