Neolithic human-landscape interactions in eastern China: Preliminary results from Liangchengzhen

Summary

Cultural trajectory of the Yellow River catchment is characterized as complex and integrated feedback process of environment-landscape-human interactions. Landscape history of the Neolithic site, Liangchengzhen, provides a good example of prehistoric agricultural land-use and its impact on local landscape, as well as how the human-landscape process possibly affected rapidly increasing social complexity during the Longshan period and subsequent hiatus in eastern China. Through a combination of geomorphological and microbotanical studies of on- and off- site landscapes of Liangchengzhen, evidence has been identified for local landscape history, including erosion of hill slope soils and re-deposited soil layers containing rice phytoliths dating to the middle~late Longshan period. This finding provides evidence for late Neolithic rice farming strategies utilizing natural wetlands and re-deposited soils. Sediments from subsequent periods, however, revealed evidence for a massive alluvial build-up, probably indicating a sudden change of regional environmental and alluvial regime. The landscape history of Liangchengzhen can shed light on (1) the agricultural production of late Neolithic China and (2) the impact of landscape dynamics on prehistoric societies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16037