Geoarchaeology-An International Journal最新文献

Floods had a massive impact on the development of ancient cities around the world and understanding this phenomenon constitutes an essential part of the history of long-term and dynamic human–environment interactions. There remains, however, an enormous challenge in identifying records of ancient floods in urban environments due to various sedimentation and postdepositional processes that often remove, erase, and alter such environmental records. During archaeological excavations in the famous historic city of Kaifeng, we identified records of two historical floods at the Shuntianmen site. Related stratums were carefully studied, from which dating and sediment samples were collected. These excavated stratums were also scanned to obtain digital data for modeling. Combining these data, we then applied three-dimensional modeling to reconstruct the evolution of the natural and cultural landscape of the site since the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127 AD), which was not possible in previous studies due to the deep burial of archaeological strata. Our results indicate that the two floods occurred during the late Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 AD) and the Qing Dynasty (1636–1912 AD), respectively. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Shuntianmen was an important part of Kaifeng, which was, at that time, the capital of China and one of the largest cities in the world. Later, during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, Shuntianmen became a suburban settlement situated along various traffic routes. During the Qing Dynasty, the area became a small village. Subsequently, the area was completely abandoned and deserted until modern Kaifeng, which was built at the same place. The evolution of the regional landscape is the direct result of the interaction between the natural environment and human activities, among which the precarious alluvial processes of the Yellow River were playing an increasingly vital role. Over the centuries, the Yellow River floods, warfare, and wind-blown sand accumulation reduced the Kaifeng region from a prosperous capital to a comparatively deserted area.

The Liangzhu City site, located in the center of the Liangzhu Culture (3300–2300 cal. BC), is characterized by gigantic earthen mounds containing about 10 million m³ of earth, as well as crisscrossed waterways that flow through the mounds. This study presents a geoarchaeological study of a mound structure adjacent to the South Zhongjiagang channel of Liangzhu City. By applying soil micromorphological and associated bulk sedimentological analyses, this study reconstructed the site formation processes and multiple occupations of the mound structure together with related hydrological changes. The results suggest that this site is in a near-bank activity area formed due to the build-up of sequential settlement buildings and activity deposits. At least six intact activity surfaces have been recognized based on the presence of intact matting materials and the trampling of fine anthropogenic debris. This study thus reports the first detailed micromorphological study of Neolithic floor sequences in East China. In addition, lipid and isotope analyses of the plant material shed light on how Liangzhu people exploited grass materials, especially bamboo, for both long-term and short-term occupation near waterways. This study has demonstrated the potential of micromorphological studies for reconstructing site formation processes and identifying different types of human activities in a landscape that was highly modified by Neolithic people. The findings have far-reaching implications for archaeological research around the Tai Lake region and investigations of other large earthen mound archaeological sites around the world.

The absence of known prehistoric underwater cultural heritage (UCH) sites on the Australian inner shelf stands in stark contrast to the thousands of sites revealed elsewhere in the world. Two recent claims—Dortch et al. (D2019) and Benjamin et al. (B2020)—put forward the first in situ (i.e., primary context) UCH sites in the shallow waters of the Dampier Archipelago, North West Australia, each arguing that the stone artefact scatters are at least 7000 years old and are now submerged because of postglacial sea-level rise. We present new hydrodynamic modelling and data on coastal erosion and bathymetry, and reassess each site's sedimentary setting and archaeological site-formation history. D2019 and B2020 clearly present lithic cultural artefacts, but the arguments for their sites being of primary context and reflecting early Holocene land surfaces are mistaken. Rather, these sites occur in the intertidal zone, and many or all artefacts are likely to have been reworked. Sites of secondary context, if treated appropriately, can inform our understanding of site-formation process and change, and may support more powerful contributions to submerged archaeology than attempts to seek the first or the oldest.

Ridge and furrow cultivation is the most widely used agricultural technique in medieval and postmedieval Europe, but the fertilization of soils during their use is not yet fully understood. Pedological analyses of this cultivation technique provided information, which led to the assumption that some of the investigated sites in Northern and Central Germany were manured with livestock excrements during cultivation. The objective of this study is to determine whether and how the soils have been fertilized and which materials were applied for this purpose. We investigated soils at five sites using phosphate and steroid analyses (stanols and bile acids), black carbon analyses, and a micromorphology study. The results showed that livestock waste was likely used as fertilizer at four of the five studied sites at low intensities, with pigs and herbivores being the probable sources of the excrement. But also the application of human feces to the soil might be possible at least at one site. Often used agricultural methods such as plaggen cultivation and an intentional charcoal input to enhance soil fertility could not be clearly verified for our study sites.