Did a wet climate give rise to China’s first empires over 2,000 years ago?

Researchers find rainy, humid climate in ancient north China contributed to agricultural boom and prosperity of Qin and Han dynasties

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Northwest China once had a much wetter climate than today, according to an analysis of pine tree trunks found in an ancient Han dynasty tomb near Baiyin city in Gansu province, shown here. Photo: Qin Chun

Published: 12:00pm, 29 Dec 2024Updated: 4:35pm, 29 Dec 2024

North China had a humid climate more than 2,000 years ago, contributing to an agricultural boom and the success and prosperity of China’s earliest empires, according to an international team of researchers.

They found that rainfall in the region 2,200 years ago, during the start of the Qin dynasty (221-207BC), was around 18 to 34 per cent higher than precipitation levels between 1951 and 2015. This trend continued through the Western Han dynasty (206BC – AD24).

The Qin was China’s first imperial dynasty, with its capital at Xianyang in what is now the northwestern province of Shaanxi.

Its successor, the Han dynasty (206BC-AD220) – split into two periods, the Western and Eastern Han – was so powerful that the word “Han” is used to denote China’s majority ethnic group. The Western Han’s capital was in Xian, then called Changan, also in Shaanxi.

The persistently wet conditions increased food production and contributed to socioeconomic prosperity in these historical periods, according to the researchers, who shared their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America on Monday. .

“We conclude that the stable and consistently warm and humid climate conditions during the Qin–Western Han dynasties favoured large-scale agricultural food production and promoted regional economic and demographic prosperity,” they wrote.