“…Frequent and severe flooding will have hindered both the establishment and persistence of settled communities and of productive agriculture from early in the Holocene. Rapidly rising RSL during the earlyto-mid Holocene, possibly surpassing current height according to simulations of a geophysical model, together with a dense network of channels and tidal creeks (Yan and Huang, 1987;Li et al, 2002), higher monsoonal rainfall, the occasional typhoon and tidal surge and relatively low levels of sediment accretion because of a largely forested catchment would have led to the frequent inundation of low-lying parts of the delta plain (Hori et al, 2002). In addition to a temporal trend of improved technologies, increased agricultural production and pronounced social stratification (Chang, 1986;Shao, 2005;Cao et al, 2006), Neolithic settlements on the delta are characterised by alterations in their pattern of distribution (Stanley and Chen, 1996;Stanley et al, 1999;Yu et al, 2000), and presumably this dynamism in settlement pattern was in part because of rising water tables and an increased risk of flooding Zong, 2004).…”