More than five thousand years ago, southwest of Shanghai, there was a beautiful and thriving city crisscrossed by navigable canals, Little Venice of the Stone Age. something made him disappear forever
Known as ‘Stone Age Chinese Venice’, the Liangzhu excavation site in eastern China is considered to be one of the most important testimonies of advanced Chinese civilization. More than 5,000 years ago, the city already had an elaborate water management system. Until now, its collapse was yet another enigma to be added to the demise of ancient civilizations.
In the Yangtze Delta, about 160 kilometers southwest of Shanghai, lie the archaeological ruins of the city of Liangzhu. There, a very advanced culture flourished around 5,300 years ago and is considered to be one of the first monumental aquatic cultures.
The earliest evidence of large hydraulic engineering structures in China originates from this occupied site until the late Neolithic. The walled city had a complex system of navigable canals, dams and water reservoirs. This system enabled the cultivation of large agricultural areas throughout the year.
In the history of human civilization, this is one of the earliest examples of highly developed communities based on water infrastructure. However, metals were still unknown in this culture. During the excavations, thousands of highly elaborate jade burial objects were found.
Long unknown and underestimated in its historical significance, the archaeological site is now considered a well-preserved record of Chinese civilization dating back more than 5,000 years.
Liangzhu was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019. However, the advanced civilization of this city, which has been inhabited for nearly 1,000 years, came to an abrupt end. Until today, there was no scientifically accepted explanation for its end.
The secret hidden in the stones
Shennong cave interior, Venice, China.
The caves and their deposits, their stalactites and stalagmites, are the most important climate archives that exist. They allow for the reconstruction of climatic conditions in caves up to 100,000 years in the past. Seeking an explanation for the collapse of the Liangzhu culture, a team of geologists from Xiàn Jiaotong University researched a possible climate-related cause.
Geologist Haiwei Zhang of Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xi’an collected stalagmite samples from the two Shennong and Jiulong caves, located southwest of the excavation site. .
“These caves have been well explored for years. They are located in the same area affected by the Southeast Asian monsoons as the Yangtze Delta and its stalagmites provide an accurate idea of the time of the collapse of the Liangzhu culture, which, according to archaeological finds, occurred about 4,300 years ago. “He explains. Spotl
Stalagmite data show that between 4,345 and 4,324 years ago there was a period of very high rainfall. Evidence for this was provided by carbon isotope records, which were measured at the University of Innsbruck. Precise dating was done by uranium-thorium analysis at Xi’an Jiaotong University, whose measurement accuracy is ± 30 years.
Huge floods brought on by unusually heavy monsoon rains caused the collapse, as an international team with the geologist and climate researcher from University of Innsbruck Christoph Spötl in the journal Science Advances.
“A thin layer of clay was found in the preserved ruins, pointing to a possible connection between the disappearance of advanced civilization and the floods of the Yangtze River or the East China Sea. No evidence of human causes such as war has been found”, explains Christoph Spötl, head of the Quaternary Research Group at the Department of Geology. “The heavy monsoon rains likely led to such severe flooding of the Yangtze and its tributaries that even the sophisticated dams and canals could not sustain these bodies of water that destroyed the city of Liangzhu and forced people to flee.” The very wet weather conditions continued intermittently for another 300 years, as geologists show from cave data.
Reference: “Collapse of Liangzhu and other Neolithic cultures in the Lower Yangtze region in response to climate change” 24 November 2021, Advances in Science .
DOI: 10.1126 / sciadv.abi9275