An Interactive Scenario of Agricultural Intensification and Environmental Evolution: A Case Study at Sanyangzhuang Site

Summary

Over the last 10,000 years, agriculture has gradually been intensified, and become the globally dominant way of subsistence. However, the relationships between agricultural intensification and environmental evolution are not fully clarified. Deeper understanding of the issue may be gained through research at Sanyangzhuang, a rural settlement site in present Henan Province in central China. Many agriculture features, such as ridge-and-furrow fields, have been recovered in three strata. Additionally, a complete history of the Yellow River floods has been recorded in the stratum around Sanyangzhuang site. All these features enable our further exploration of interactions between agricultural intensification and environmental evolution.

By use of data from Sanyangzhuang site, this paper first examines two dynamic environmental factors as the potential driving force of agricultural intensification: the East Asia Monsoon determined paleoclimate and the alluvial process of the Yellow River. Then it explores the impact of agricultural intensification on the environment and landscape from a geoarchaeological perspective. By integrating these two lines of evidence, the interactive process of the agricultural intensification and the environment in the Central Plain, China from the late Neolithic to the early Iron Age is revealed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• LandCover6K: Using Archaeology to Improve Climate Models

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16869