INTERACTION OF SOCIAL HISTORY AND ECOLOGICAL CHANGES IN THE AMU DARYA BASIN: ANTHROPOGENIC LANDSCAPES AND SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL ADAPTATION DURING THE HEPHTHALITE PERIOD (5th–6th CENTURIES)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47390/ydif-y2026v2i10/n08Keywords:
Amu Darya basin, socio-ecological adaptation, Hephthalites, LALIA (climate crisis), anthropogenic landscape, decentralization, fortified manors, archaeological stratigraphy.Abstract
This article analyzes the socio-ecological transformations that occurred in the Amu Darya basin between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (5th–6th centuries) using the example of the Hephthalite state. The establishment of Hephthalite rule in the region and the emergence of the phenomenon of fortified manors and castles (ruralization) in urban planning are explained not by a “barbarian invasion” or “transition to feudalism” as emphasized in traditional historiography, but by the paleoclimatic crisis caused by the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA, 536–660 AD) and dramatic changes in the hydrological regime of the Amu Darya. Based on archaeological, numismatic and climatic data from prominent scholars such as B. Andrianov, E. Rtveladze, B. Litvinsky and U. Büntgen, the Hephthalites created an adaptive governance model based not on destruction but on economic symbiosis with the sedentary agricultural system of the oases in conditions of drought.
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