Water and Land: A Case Study of Panlongcheng in the Middle of Yangtze River

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Resources and Society in Ancient China" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the past few decades, research on the Panlongcheng site has achieved important results and progress in many aspects, but few scholars have discussed the site's geomorphological environment, especially the water environment. Researchers have long believed that the environment and landscape of Panlongcheng we see today are no different from the early Shang period. However, recent archaeological discoveries indicate that there may still be some cultural remains underwater. Therefore, we used a combination of underwater surveys, drilling, and digital mapping to expand our knowledge of the landscape of Panlongcheng during the early Shang period. This included mapping the lake basin through single-beam echo sounders and drilling to preliminary observe the stratum and collect samples underwater. We also conducted radiocarbon dating on the samples collected at the bottom of the lake. The result indicates that the lake was formed not earlier than 1100 BC, which means that there was no lake during the early Shang period. Therefore, the landscape and environment of Panlongcheng and other related issues should be re-examined. In addition, we hope that the methods we used in this research may also provide some help and inspiration for related archaeological work in shallow water areas in inland China.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Resources and Society in Ancient China   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39825.0