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Climate of doubt: A re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s environmental hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE
In their recent article published in the journal Scientific Reports, Büntgen and Di Cosmo have attempted to solve the historical mystery of the sudden Mongol withdrawal from Hungary after a year-long occupation. We cannot share the authors’ viewpoint that environmental circumstances contributed to t...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Nature Publishing Group UK
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5629221/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28983087 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12128-6 |
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author | Pinke, Zsolt Ferenczi, László Romhányi, Beatrix F. Laszlovszky, József Pow, Stephen |
author_facet | Pinke, Zsolt Ferenczi, László Romhányi, Beatrix F. Laszlovszky, József Pow, Stephen |
author_sort | Pinke, Zsolt |
collection | PubMed |
description | In their recent article published in the journal Scientific Reports, Büntgen and Di Cosmo have attempted to solve the historical mystery of the sudden Mongol withdrawal from Hungary after a year-long occupation. We cannot share the authors’ viewpoint that environmental circumstances contributed to the decision of the Mongols to abandon Hungary since the hypothesis lacks support from environmental, archaeological and historical evidence. Historical source material in particular suggests that the Mongols were able to settle and sustain their herds in Hungary as is clearly stated in a letter by King Bela IV to the pope. The Mongol army arrived in the kingdom at the end of a severe drought, and we present empirical evidence that the abundant rain in the spring of 1242 CE did not worsen but rather improved their prospects for sufficient food supplies and pasturage. The marshy terrain of the Hungarian Plain likely did not precipitate the Mongol withdrawal as the Mongol high command ultimately stationed their main forces around the marshy Volga Delta. In contrast to what Büntgen and Di Cosmo have suggested, we argue that the reasons for the sudden withdrawal cannot be explained largely by environmental factors. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5629221 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-56292212017-10-17 Climate of doubt: A re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s environmental hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE Pinke, Zsolt Ferenczi, László Romhányi, Beatrix F. Laszlovszky, József Pow, Stephen Sci Rep Article In their recent article published in the journal Scientific Reports, Büntgen and Di Cosmo have attempted to solve the historical mystery of the sudden Mongol withdrawal from Hungary after a year-long occupation. We cannot share the authors’ viewpoint that environmental circumstances contributed to the decision of the Mongols to abandon Hungary since the hypothesis lacks support from environmental, archaeological and historical evidence. Historical source material in particular suggests that the Mongols were able to settle and sustain their herds in Hungary as is clearly stated in a letter by King Bela IV to the pope. The Mongol army arrived in the kingdom at the end of a severe drought, and we present empirical evidence that the abundant rain in the spring of 1242 CE did not worsen but rather improved their prospects for sufficient food supplies and pasturage. The marshy terrain of the Hungarian Plain likely did not precipitate the Mongol withdrawal as the Mongol high command ultimately stationed their main forces around the marshy Volga Delta. In contrast to what Büntgen and Di Cosmo have suggested, we argue that the reasons for the sudden withdrawal cannot be explained largely by environmental factors. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC5629221/ /pubmed/28983087 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12128-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Pinke, Zsolt Ferenczi, László Romhányi, Beatrix F. Laszlovszky, József Pow, Stephen Climate of doubt: A re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s environmental hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE |
title | Climate of doubt: A re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s environmental hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE |
title_full | Climate of doubt: A re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s environmental hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE |
title_fullStr | Climate of doubt: A re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s environmental hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE |
title_full_unstemmed | Climate of doubt: A re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s environmental hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE |
title_short | Climate of doubt: A re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s environmental hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE |
title_sort | climate of doubt: a re-evaluation of büntgen and di cosmo’s environmental hypothesis for the mongol withdrawal from hungary, 1242 ce |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5629221/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28983087 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12128-6 |
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