The Local Environmental Context for Settlement and Abandonment of the Wetland Site Haimenkou, Yunnan, China

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Haimenkou is a wetland site with exceptional preservation and represents one of the earliest Neolithic occupations in Southwest China at ca. 3600 cal BP. The site is located on the margin of the alpine Jianhu Lake (ca. 2,200 m asl). A coring survey along the lakeshore reveals nearly 10 m fluctuation of the water level and complex intercalations of occupational layers, lacustrine deposits, and alluvial fans developed from the surrounding mountains. During the prolonged settlement (over 1,000 years) at Haimenkou, people changed the land- and waterscape significantly through deforestation and cultivation. Using the sediments and buried soils around the site, we reconstruct the environmental context and diachronic changes during the occupational period (ca. 3600–2300 cal BP) at Haimenkou. Field survey has identified exposed profiles that preserve evidence of lake level changes, drainage shifts, and alluvial fan developments. Multiproxy methods allow us to detect the major environmental changes during the flourish of the settlement and to explore the reason behind site abandonment, and to investigate the complex relationships between climate-driven and anthropogenic changes in this fragile environment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35566.0