Could volcanoes have pushed previous Chinese civilisations over the edge into collapse?

A new study found that the collapse of 62 out of 68 Chinese dynasties occurred around spikes in volcanic activity

Volcanoes impact the environment, which may have acted as the final straw for civilisations under stress

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Volcanic eruptions may have contributed to the collapse of civilisations across Chinese history. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 6:30pm, 14 Dec 2021Updated: 7:43pm, 14 Dec 2021

In our imaginations, the collapse of human civilisation is typically attributed to invading forces, economic collapse or governmental rot; but a team of scientists recently suggested that we are missing one more possible reason: volcanic activity.

A study published in Nature, a peer-reviewed academic journal, analysed over 1,900 years of Chinese history (1-1915) and argued that environmental changes created by volcanic activity acted as a knockout blow to societies that were already on the precipice of collapse.

The team also said that larger volcanic outbursts might have been disruptive enough to precipitate the decline of healthier civilisations.

“Most of the well-known eruptions within our study period likely happened in Indonesia and the Philippines, which have great potential to affect temperature and rainfall in China via direct thermal and indirect circulation responses,” said Dr Gao Chaochao, an associate professor at Zhejiang University and a lead author of the study.

A chart shows volcanic spikes (red dots) coinciding with the collapse of empires (dashed blue line). The brown vertical line represents periods of warfare and the thick brown line is the smoothing of that data. Photo: Nature.com

The crucial part of the theory is that the scientists identified a window of about 12 years in which volcanic climate change could have led to social collapse. More specifically, the window occurred 10 years before a dynastic change or two years after, accounting for slower power transitions.