The Central Plains Archaeological Survey: A Preliminary Report

Summary

Over the past five years, the authors have conducted a geoarchaeological survey in Northern Henan Province, China, to test three hypotheses of regional and global significance. First, many Chinese archaeologists consider this area void of archaeological remains. Based on our data, most archaeological material is far below the surface - approximately 5 to 8 meters. Second, the location of the Yellow River during the Bronze Age year is argued to flow to the south, entering the ocean near Shanghai. Thick flood deposits and channel fill dating to the Bronze Age suggest that the Yellow River most likely flowed North. Third, some archaeologists argue that buried soils are a marker bed for the Anthropocene. The stratigraphic sequence contains buried soils from as early as the Pleistocene and as late as the Song dynasty, making this an ideal area to test if buried soils do reflect changes in land use. Our preliminary results suggest that an area over 50km2 was buried by Yellow River flood deposits, preserving a great variety of archaeological and geological features, including roads, towns, fields, lakes, and buried soils, capable of answering many questions concerning the subsurface archaeological record of the region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Student Contributions in Geoarchaeology

Keywords

Spatial Coverage