Middle Holocene marine flooding and human response in the south Yangtze coastal plain, East China

QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS

卷:187

Article

Wang, Zhanghua¹  Ryves, David B.²  Lei, Shao³  Nian, Xiaomei¹  Lv, Ye¹  Tang, Liang¹  Wang, Long¹  Wang, Jiehua³  Chen, Jie⁴ 

[1] East China Normal Univ, State Key Lab Estuarine & Coastal Res, Shanghai 200062, Peoples R China

[2] Loughborough Univ, Dept Geog, Ctr Hydrol & Ecosyst Sci CHES, Loughborough LE11 3TU, Leics, England

[3] Ningbo Municipal Inst Cultural Rel & Archaeol, Ningbo 315000, Zhejiang, Peoples R China

[4] Shanghai Museum, Shanghai 200003, Peoples R China

关键词: Palaeo-typhoon event;    Sea-level rise;    Coastal flooding;    Neolithic;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.03.001

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Coastal flooding catastrophes have affected human societies on coastal plains around the world on several occasions in the past, and are threatening 21st century societies under global warming and sea level rise. However, the role of coastal flooding in the interruption of the Neolithic Liangzhu culture in the lower Yangtze valley, East China coast has been long contested. In this study, we used a well-dated Neolithic site (the Yushan site) close to the present coastline to demonstrate a marine drowning event at the terminal stage of the Liangzhu culture and discuss its linkage to relative sea-level rise. We analysed sedimentology, chronology, organic elemental composition, diatoms and dinoflagellate cysts for several typical profiles at the Yushan site. The field and sedimentary data provided clear evidence of a palaeo-typhoon event that overwhelmed the Yushan site at similar to 2560 BCE, which heralded a period of marine inundation and ecological deterioration at the site. We also infer an acceleration in sea-level rise at 2560-2440 BCE from the sedimentary records at Yushan, which explains the widespread signatures of coastal flooding across the south Yangtze coastal plain at that time. The timing of this mid-Holocene coastal flooding coincided with the sudden disappearance of the advanced and widespread Liangzhu culture along the lower Yangtze valley. We infer that extreme events and flooding accompanying accelerated sea-level rise were major causes of vulnerability for prehistoric coastal societies. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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