The coming of the Barbarians: Can climate explain the Saljūqs’ advance?

Abstract

The present study reviews recent interpretations of Central Asia’s and Northern Iran’s environmental and political history during the first half of the eleventh century. Namely, to cast light on the deficiencies in recent interpretations of Turkic Volkswanderung, and to advocate searching for political-social agents that would explain the Eurasian Steppe’s history. In opposite to climatological reading of those years regional history, it aims at advancing a call for a more nuanced paradigm of the coming of the Saljūqs.