@article{20dbd779125f408f9d481418c10853cd,
title = "Oman corals suggest that a stronger winter shamal season caused the akkadian empire (Mesopotamia) collapse",
abstract = "The Akkadian Empire was the first united empire in Mesopotamia and was established at 4.6 kyr B.P. (where present is A.D. 1950). The empire abruptly collapsed in 4.2 ± 0.2 kyr B.P. Seasonal-scale climatic dynamics behind this collapse have not yet been resolved. Here, we present monthly climatic parameters (temperature and hydrology) inferred from fossil Omani corals that lived between 4.5 and 2.9 kyr B.P. Winter temperatures derived from a modern Omani coral correlate with winter shamal (western Asian dust storm) frequency. A fossil coral from 4.1 kyr B.P. shows a prolonged winter shamal season with frequent shamal days. This likely caused agricultural failures in Mesopotamia and contributed to the Akkadian Empire collapse, as this region depends on winter rainfall.",
author = "Watanabe, {Takaaki K.} and Tsuyoshi Watanabe and Atsuko Yamazaki and Miriam Pfeiffer",
note = "Funding Information: We acknowledge M.A. Claereboudt, C.A. Grove, H. Takayanagi, and K. Ohmori for their help with fieldwork in the Sultanate of Oman. Coral Reef Environmental Earth Sciences/Carbonate Research for Earth Evolution Systems (CREES) members at Hokkaido University helped with slicing the modern coral core. H. Nomura and K. Nakamura helped to slice the fossil corals. T. Tajima assisted with scanning electron microscopy observations and X-ray diffraction analysis. We acknowledge T. Irino for managing the MAT-253 and Kiel-IV instruments at Hokkaido University. This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI grant JP25257207. We thank three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 Geological Society of America.",
year = "2019",
doi = "10.1130/G46604.1",
language = "English",
volume = "47",
pages = "1141--1145",
journal = "Geology",
issn = "0091-7613",
publisher = "Geological Society of America",
number = "12",
}