Prehistoric demographic fluctuations in China inferred from radiocarbon data and their linkage with climate change over the past 50,000 years

Wang, Can; Lü, Houyuan; Zhang, Jianping; Gu, Zhaoyan; He, Keyang

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.05.015

Cited by 107 publications

(99 citation statements)

References 148 publications

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“…Nevertheless, using radiocarbon data as a proxy for reconstructing basin-scale erosion in this paper represents a methodological exploration. Just as Wang et al (2014) equated the intensity of radiocarbon dated sediments from archaeological sites to prehistoric human population levels, this methodological exploration is based on a simplified, idealised model, the further testing of which will require more high-resolution chronological and palaeoenvironmental data, especially results from other dating methods (e.g. luminescence dating) independent of radiocarbon.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiocarbon anomalies suggest late onset of agricultural intensification in the catchment of the southern part of the Yangtze Delta, China

Long

Hunt

Taylor

2016

CATENA

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5Holocene sediments from the southern part of the delta are unevenly distributed through 6 time. Two clusters of dates --in sediments ca. 9,000-7,000 cal. BP and ca. 3,000-1,000 cal. BP 7--most likely indicate two periods of intensive erosion and redeposition of organic materials. 8The older of the two clusters may have been associated with a marked episode of marine 9 transgression, whereas the younger cluster could reflect increasing levels of human 10 disruption of soils and sediments in the catchment. A relatively late increase in 11anthropogenic soil erosion supports recent archaeological evidence that, following its early 12Neolithic origins, agricultural expansion and intensification occurred later on the southern 13Yangtze Delta than previously thought.14 15

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiocarbon anomalies suggest late onset of agricultural intensification in the catchment of the southern part of the Yangtze Delta, China

Long

Hunt

Taylor

2016

CATENA

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“…Summed probability distributions have been used to assess paleodemographic trends in the Americas, Europe, Eurasia, and Australia (e.g., refs. 1, 2, 11, and [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] and methodological issues have been discussed at length (see refs. 17, 21, and 22 and Supporting Information for examples).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal distribution of Holocene populations in North America

Chaput

Kriesche

Betts³

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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As the Cordilleran and Laurentide Ice Sheets retreated, North America was colonized by human populations; however, the spatial patterns of subsequent population growth are unclear. Temporal frequency distributions of aggregated radiocarbon (14C) dates are used as a proxy of population size and can be used to track this expansion. The Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database contains more than 35,000 14C dates and is used in this study to map the spatiotemporal demographic changes of Holocene populations in North America at a continental scale for the past 13,000 y. We use the kernel method, which converts the spatial distribution of 14C dates into estimates of population density at 500-y intervals. The resulting maps reveal temporally distinct, dynamic patterns associated with paleodemographic trends that correspond well to genetic, archaeological, and ethnohistoric evidence of human occupation. These results have implications for hypothesizing and testing migration routes into and across North America as well as the relative influence of North American populations on the evolution of the North American ecosystem.

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“…In archaeology, the creation of large databases of chronological information allows for higher-resolution cross-referencing of key events. A compilation of all previously published radiocarbon dates from China, for example, suggests that warmer and wetter periods were correlated with population growth (assuming population is reflected in radiocarbon-date frequency), whereas populations declined in cooler and more arid periods (15). Similar correlations have been demonstrated for Holocene North Africa (16), where desertification following the end of the African Humid period ∼3000 BC profoundly decreased the density of human settlement outside the Nile valley.…”

Section: Challenges In Linking Climate Variability To Variability In mentioning

confidence: 56%

Twenty-first century approaches to ancient problems: Climate and society

Guedes

Crabtree

Bocinsky

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

106

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By documenting how humans adapted to changes in their environment that are often much greater than those experienced in the instrumental record, archaeology provides our only deep-time laboratory for highlighting the circumstances under which humans managed or failed to find to adaptive solutions to changing climate, not just over a few generations but over the longue durée. Patterning between climatemediated environmental change and change in human societies has, however, been murky because of low spatial and temporal resolution in available datasets, and because of failure to model the effects of climate change on local resources important to human societies. In this paper we review recent advances in computational modeling that, in conjunction with improving data, address these limitations. These advances include network analysis, niche and species distribution modeling, and agent-based modeling. These studies demonstrate the utility of deep-time modeling for calibrating our understanding of how climate is influencing societies today and may in the future.climate change | archaeology | computational modeling | agent-based modeling

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Prehistoric demographic fluctuations in China inferred from radiocarbon data and their linkage with climate change over the past 50,000 years

Cited by 107 publications

References 148 publications

Radiocarbon anomalies suggest late onset of agricultural intensification in the catchment of the southern part of the Yangtze Delta, China

Radiocarbon anomalies suggest late onset of agricultural intensification in the catchment of the southern part of the Yangtze Delta, China

Spatiotemporal distribution of Holocene populations in North America

Twenty-first century approaches to ancient problems: Climate and society

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