The Tibetan Plateau is the highest and one of the most demanding environments ever inhabited by humans. We investigated the timing and mechanisms of its initial colonization at the Nwya Devu site, located nearly 4600 meters above sea level. This site, dating from 40,000 to 30,000 years ago, is the highest Paleolithic archaeological site yet identified globally. Nwya Devu has yielded an abundant blade tool assemblage, indicating hitherto-unknown capacities for the survival of modern humans who camped in this environment. This site deepens the history of the peopling of the “roof of the world” and the antiquity of human high-altitude occupations more generally.
Two early Late Pleistocene (~105,000- to 125,000-year-old) crania from Lingjing, Xuchang, China, exhibit a morphological mosaic with differences from and similarities to their western contemporaries. They share pan-Old World trends in encephalization and in supraorbital, neurocranial vault, and nuchal gracilization. They reflect eastern Eurasian ancestry in having low, sagittally flat, and inferiorly broad neurocrania. They share occipital (suprainiac and nuchal torus) and temporal labyrinthine (semicircular canal) morphology with the Neandertals. This morphological combination reflects Pleistocene human evolutionary patterns in general biology, as well as both regional continuity and interregional population dynamics.
Coastal flooding catastrophes have affected human societies on coastal 15 plains around the world on several occasions in the past, and are threatening 21 th 16 century societies under global warming and sea-level rise. However, the role of 17 coastal flooding in the interruption of the Neolithic Liangzhu culture in the lower 18 Yangtze valley, East China coast has been long contested. In this study, we used a 19 well-dated Neolithic site (the Yushan site) close to the present coastline to 20 demonstrate a marine drowning event at the terminal stage of the Liangzhu culture 21 and discuss its linkage to relative sea-level rise. We analysed sedimentology, 22 chronology, organic elemental composition, diatoms and dinoflagellate cysts for 2 23 several typical profiles at the Yushan site. The field and sedimentary data provided 24 clear evidence of a palaeo-typhoon event that overwhelmed the Yushan site at ~2560 25 BCE, which heralded a period of marine inundation and ecological deterioration at 26 the site. We also infer an acceleration in sea-level rise at 2560-2440 BCE from the 27 sedimentary records at Yushan, which explains the widespread signatures of coastal 28 flooding across the south Yangtze coastal plain at that time. The timing of this mid-29 Holocene coastal flooding coincided with the sudden disappearance of the advanced 30 and widespread Liangzhu culture along the lower Yangtze valley. We infer that 31 extreme events and flooding accompanying accelerated sea-level rise were major 32 causes of vulnerability for prehistoric coastal societies.33 34 35 39 (Woodruff et al., 2013). The vulnerability of low-lying coastal plains and deltas 40 across the world is further exacerbated due to human-induced sediment starvation and 41 land sinking (Syvitski et al., 2009; Giosan et al., 2014). The west Pacific Ocean coast 42 is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world because it is characterized by active 43 tropical cyclones (Woodruff et al., 2013) and, in recent decades, its rate of relative 44sea-level rise is three times higher than the global mean (Nicholls and Cazenave, 3 45 2010). In the densely-populated Yangtze delta, East China (Fig. 1), models under 46 future climate scenarios predict an increase in flood risk from extreme events and 47 relative sea-level rise by 150% to 400% in the next 50 years (Tessler et al., 2015). In 48 fact, Typhoon Fitow (the strongest October typhoon making landfall in China for over 49 60 years) in 2013 caused flooding to a depth >0.5 m across most of the Yaojiang 50Plain, south east of the Hangzhou Bay (Fig. 1C). There is thus clearly an urgent need 51 for integrated research on sea-level rise, extreme events, coastal flooding and human 52 response. 53Coastal flooding is not a new threat. The fact that the south Yangtze coastal 54 plains (Fig. 1B) hold relative thick and rich archaeological records, preserved in 55 marine and deltaic flood basin sediments (Zong et al., 2007;Zheng et al., 2012), is 56 direct witness of past flooding of these areas during human occupation. N...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.