12/21/2023 0 Comments Slik road facts![]() ![]() The name of the most intimidating of all these deserts, the Taklamakan, is revealing - the place where he who goes in does not come out. To drive or fly today across Inner Asia and the Middle East provides a stark reminder of how so much of these vast territories is desert, some marked by dramatic sand dunes or wind-sculpted rock formations, but much of it the gravel noted by Carpini. He is describing the Gobi - that vast gravel desert of northern Central Asia, which is one of the many deserts occuping huge swatches of the continent. ![]() Not one hundredth part of the land is fertile, nor can it bear fruit unless it be irrigated by running water. In some parts the country is extremely mountainous, in others it is flat, but practically the whole of it is composed of very sandy gravel. The Franciscan, John of Plano Carpini's observations from the 13th century are relevant here: In fact though, were it not for those snow-covered mountains, there would be no life in Inner Asia, for they store in their snow and glaciers the moisture which feeds the rivers that make agriculture in the lowlands possible. Not one in ten thousand of those who encounter these dangers escapes with his life. There are also among them venomous dragons, which, when provoked, spit forth poisonous winds, and cause showers of show and storms of sand and gravel. The snow rests on them both winter and summer. Around the year 400, a Chinese monk named Faxian traveled to India through the Karakorum Range and noted the dangers of the route: The mountains include some of the highest in the world. To a considerable degree, the farther one is from open water (seas, oceans), the drier the climate this consideration is clearly evident in the geography of the heart of Eurasia through which the Silk Roads passed.Ī glance at a map and satellite imagery shows vast stretches of the inner parts of Asia dominated by mountains and desert. The key to understanding locations of human activity along the Silk Roads is water (or its absence), for neither man nor his animals can live without it. This means not only that climate may range from tropical (very hot) to arctic (very cold) but, perhaps more importantly, much of the land mass is distant from large bodies of water which may exercise a moderating influence on climate and be a source of moisture. from the Mediterranean to the China Sea and some 5000 km. Perhaps the most important feature of Eurasia's geography is the sheer size of the land mass, stretching as it does some 7500 km. The second section will explore what we are learning from recent studies concerning climate change. The first section of this essay will treat geographical and climate factors more or less as constants. While in many areas of Inner Asia an approximation of the climate patterns familiar today became established some 3000 years ago, there nonetheless have been short term and regional variations which affected movements of peoples, their economic livelihood and ability to live in particular locations, changes in trade routes and the like. Climate change certainly occurred historically, often, it seems, with major consequences for patterns of life on earth. Today we hear a great deal about climate change. We might start by asking whether to generalize in part on the basis of the geography as we know it today is valid for earlier millennia. Boundaries such as we know them, delineated by modern states, did not exist, but boundaries there were, either natural or manmade, and in both cases they turn out to have been quite permeable. Before the advent of modern technology, geography and ecological zones were critical determinants of where and how people lived, moved and interacted. There are always regional variations which deserve more detailed treatment. This sketch of Silk Road geography has the modest aim of introducing a few of the important features of Eurasian physical geography which help us to understand patterns of human habitation and interaction across that vast expanse. Traversing as they do all of Eurasia, the Silk Roads encompassed almost every climate and vegetation zone and crossed every kind of terrain. ![]()
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