In his presidential address to the American Historical Association, delivered on January 4, 2020, John R. McNeill wondered whether the possibility was looming that the profession of history was nearing a state called “peak document.” Drawing on M. King Hubbert’s concept of “peak oil,” McNeil coined the term “peak document” to describe a point in historical research when “the utility of research as we have long done it, with written texts, will begin to decline relative to research that uses other sorts of sources.” (AHR 2020 February, 2) Beginning with dendroclimatology (the science of using tree-rings to reconstruct past climates) in the 1910s and 20s, and then mushrooming in the past three decades, these “other sorts of sources” now boast a plethora of new historical evidence from numerous different fields of the natural sciences. This new evidence includes paleogenomics, paleoclimatology, paleohydrology, a full bar of isotopic cocktails, as well as a deeply mathematical and science-heavy archaeology. Historians still have yet to grapple with the possibility that we may be moving towards (or have already passed) peak document.

Our panel explores the implications of this revolution with case studies spanning one millennium of pre-modern Central Eurasian history. It begins in the early medieval period, with Guido Gnecchi-Ruscone's presentation on trans-Eurasian connections during the Hun and Avar periods as well as kinship structures based on new ancient DNA research. As the panel transitions into the high medieval period, Mirae Jo will use high-resolution drone lidar, satellite imagery, and computational hydrological modeling to reconstruct the water system of Tugunbulak (a medieval mountain metropolis in Uzbekistan). Continuing the theme of climate and water, Henry Misa will then present on how climate science and lead-isotope studies are changing the field of medieval Central Asian history focusing on the river valleys of tenth century Transoxiana. Finally, moving into the late-medieval period, Aaron Molnar will explore how paleoclimatology (including records from lakebeds, seabeds, speleothems, and tree-rings) is changing the history of the Yuan-Ming transition. Taken together, each one of the cases shows the revolutionary nature of non-textual evidence in historical research. At the same time, each engages with a diverse and multi-language textual archive which provides a rich basis for reflecting on the scientific revolution in historical methodology from the perspective of multiple timescales and culturally diverse regions.