Holocene landscape evolution in northern Henan Province and its implications for archaeological surveys

The heartlands of many of the world's civilizations are situated within alluvial plains, where thick alluvial sediments obscure much of the archaeological record. However, the use of alluvial geoarchaeology remains patchy, particularly in the world's largest alluvial basins. We present results from our geoarchaeological survey at Neihuang County, Henan Province, China, as an example for alluvial geoarchaeological research in the North China Plain and to develop a generalized framework for landscape evolution in the area during the Holocene. We reconstruct the alluvial history of the area around Neihuang County by synthesizing stratigraphic data from seven outcrops into distinct depositional units. Our findings suggest that much of the archaeological record in the North China Plain is buried by meters of sediment or eroded away by the ancient channels of the Yellow River and other tributary streams. Therefore, the presence of buried archaeological sites and river scour in recorded outcrops suggests that the nonsystematic archaeological surveys that are commonly used to interpret cultural changes are not accurate reflections of archaeological site distributions. From the results of this case study, we recommend that archaeologists and paleoclimatologists should exercise more caution when using settlement distribution data gathered through nonsystematic pedestrian surveys to make inferences about ancient processes of cultural change or social dynamics in the North China Plain.