Browsing by Author "Qin, J"

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    Holocene-aged sedimentary records of environmental changes and early agriculture in the lower Yangtze, China
    (Elsevier, 2008-03) Atahan, P; Itzstein-Davey, F; Taylor, D; Dodson, JR; Qin, J; Zheng, HB; Brooks, A
    Sedimentary evidence from a total of 21 AMS C-14 dates and 192 pollen and charcoal and 181 phytolith samples from three study sites in the archaeologically rich lower Yangtze in China provides an indication of interactions between early agriculturalists and generally highly dynamic environmental conditions. Results suggest that environmental changes influenced agricultural development, and attest the localised environmental impacts of incipient agriculture. Evidence of human activity, in the form of indicators of deforestation and possibly food production, is apparent by ca 7000 BP (early Neolithic or Majiabang). Clearer evidence of human activity dates to ca 4700 BP (late Neolithic or Liangzhu). Extensive, profound and apparently widespread human impacts do not appear until the Eastern Zhou (Iron Age, ca 2800-2200 BP), however, which in the lower Yangtze was a period associated with technological advances in agriculture, increased urbanisation and relatively stable hydro-geomorphological conditions. © 2008, Elsevier Ltd.
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    Neolithic agriculture, freshwater resources and rapid environmental changes on the lower Yangtze, China
    (Elsevier, 2011-01) Qin, J; Taylor, D; Atahan, P; Zhang, X; Wu, G; Dodson, JR; Zheng, H; Itzstein-Davey, F
    Analyses of sedimentary evidence in the form of spores, pollen, freshwater algae, dinoflagellate cysts, phytoliths and charcoal from AMS 14C-dated, Holocene-aged sequences provide an excellent opportunity to examine the responses of Neolithic agriculturalists in the lower Yangtze to changing environments. Evidence from two sites close to the southern margin of the Yangtze delta and separated by what is now Hangzhou Bay attests the critical importance to early attempts at food production of access to freshwater resources. More readily, if episodically, available freshwater resources during the early to mid-Holocene on the Hangjiahu plain may have encouraged an early reliance on rice-based agriculture, which in turn facilitated the accumulation of agricultural surpluses and cultural diversification. Cultural change was relatively attenuated and human population pressures possibly lower on the Ningshao plain, seemingly because of much more profound environmental impacts of variations in local hydrological conditions, and because predominantly saline conditions, associated with rising relative sea level, hampered the early development of irrigated agriculture. The evidence, although largely dating to the early and middle parts of the Holocene, provides a timely warning of the complexity of vulnerability to climate change-induced processes of agriculture, and indeed human activities more generally, on megadeltas in Asia. Analyses of sedimentary evidence in the form of spores, pollen, freshwater algae, dinoflagellate cysts, phytoliths and charcoal from AMS 14C-dated, Holocene-aged sequences provide an excellent opportunity to examine the responses of Neolithic agriculturalists in the lower Yangtze to changing environments. Evidence from two sites close to the southern margin of the Yangtze delta and separated by what is now Hangzhou Bay attests the critical importance to early attempts at food production of access to freshwater resources. More readily, if episodically, available freshwater resources during the early to mid-Holocene on the Hangjiahu plain may have encouraged an early reliance on rice-based agriculture, which in turn facilitated the accumulation of agricultural surpluses and cultural diversification. Cultural change was relatively attenuated and human population pressures possibly lower on the Ningshao plain, seemingly because of much more profound environmental impacts of variations in local hydrological conditions, and because predominantly saline conditions, associated with rising relative sea level, hampered the early development of irrigated agriculture. The evidence, although largely dating to the early and middle parts of the Holocene, provides a timely warning of the complexity of vulnerability to climate change-induced processes of agriculture, and indeed human activities more generally, on megadeltas in Asia. © 2011, Elsevier Ltd.