The Spatiotemporal Patterns of Human Settlement during the Longshan and Erlitou Periods in Relation to Extreme Floods and Subsistence Strategy in the Upper and Middle Qin River Reaches, Central China

Abstract

Human settlement numbers have significantly changed before and after ~4000 cal. y BP in the upper and middle Qin River reaches, but the external and internal factors driving this change remain unclear. In this study, we examine changing spatial and temporal patterns of the Longshan and Erlitou settlements in relation to extreme flooding at ~4000 cal. y BP and a variety of subsistence strategies during the Longshan and Erlitou periods. The results indicate that settlement number, settlement distribution, and subsistence strategies exhibited obvious shifts between the Longshan and Erlitou periods, and the episode at ~4000 cal. y BP was an extreme-flood-rich interval within and around the Qin River Basin. During the Longshan and Erlitou periods, millet-based agriculture dominated local subsistence strategy, and ancient people would prefer to reside in the areas suitable for farming, causing the valley plains in the upper and middle Qin River reaches to contain most Longshan and Erlitou settlements. However, the frequent occurrence of extreme floods at ~4000 cal. y BP, in conjunction with intergroup conflicts due to a large amount of population immigration during the late Longshan period, is likely to have jointly decreased the settlement number and shrunk the spatial range of human settlement distribution. Subsequently, with the end of the extreme-flood-rich episode and the increasing proportion of higher-water-requirement foxtail millet in cropping structures of human subsistence strategy, more Erlitou settlements were distributed in the wetter valley plains of the middle Qin River reaches.

Flood Perception from Local Perspective of Rural Community vs. Geomorphological Control of Fluvial Processes in Large Alluvial Valley (the Middle Vistula River, Poland)

“…The most significant urban civilizations of the ancient period of history developed their splendid cultures on alluvial plains, e.g., Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (from Greek: "between rivers") covering the Tigris and Euphrates floodplains [1,2], Ancient Egypt upon the Nile River [3,4], the Harappan in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, with the valleys of the Indus and Upper Ganges Rivers [5,6]. The highly developed cultures in more distant (from a European perspective) locations on the Earth were associated with alluvial plains as well, e.g., the Longshan and the Erlitou in China, in the valley bottoms of Yellow River and its tributaries, the Fen and the Qin Rivers [7,8]; the Mayan Lowlands on the Yucatán Peninsula in present-day Mexico (Usumacinta River floodplain [9]) and Belize [10] and the Olmec heartland of San Lorenzo on the interfluve plains of the Tatagapa and Chiquito Rivers in Veracruz state, Mexico [11,12].…”