https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210226121247.htm > One such study, from researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, shows that aridification in the central plains of China during the early Bronze Age did not cause population collapse, a result that highlights the importance of social resilience to climate change. > Instead of a collapse amid dry conditions, development of agriculture and increasingly complex human social structures set the stage for a dramatic increase in human population around 3,900 to 3,500 years ago.