Flooding in the Yellow River of China over 20 centuries is being blamed on anti-flooding campaigns carried out there by ancient people.
The Yellow River is known as the cradle of Chinese civilization, and has been vital to the inhabitants for thousands of years. At times, the same waterway earns its other nickname - China's Sorrow. Flooding from the river can have disastrous consequences.
Washington University researchers believe an ancient levee system could be responsible for damaging events since that time. People of the Yellow River have been changing the flow of the waterway for nearly 3,000 years. At least one of these events may have even toppled political leaders, including a once-important dynasty.
"Human intervention in the Chinese environment is relatively massive, remarkably early and nowhere more keenly witnessed than in attempts to harness the Yellow River," T.R. Kidder, archaeologist at Washington University and lead author of the study, said.
Kidder and his team revealed that work started on flood control systems in the area sometime between 29 and 27 centuries in the past.
"The emphasis on flood plain flood control infrastructure was a result of long-term increases in sedimentation caused by large populations farming with increasingly efficient technologies in the fragile environments of the Loess [fine silt] Plateau," Kidder and his team wrote in an article detailing their study.
Around 2,000 years ago, the waters of the Yellow River overcame all natural and man-made barriers, flooding areas with vast quantities of water. Historians today believe millions of people were killed in the flooding followed. This disaster was likely one of the primary events leading to the downfall of the Western Han Dynasty. Once was one of the most powerful and organized dynasties in Chinese history, suddenly fell from power in the year C.E. 24, just 10 years after the tragedy.
Liu Haiwang, senior researcher at China's Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology, partnered with Kidder on the study. The team carefully analyzed sediment from around the Yellow River to investigate the history of the region. They looked at geological layers exposed for 10,000 years. Roughly one-third of the material was deposited in the last 20 centuries. This mirrors the time of human influence in the area, researchers stated.
The Yellow River has flooded nearly 1,600 times during the last 4,000 years by some estimates. The last major event was in 1958.
The Anthropocene is a newly-proposed term among anthropologists and paleontologists, signifying the period during which humans became the dominant force on the environment. Researchers believe flood control efforts on the Yellow River could mark the start of the era. Other scientists date the beginning of the period anywhere from 10,000 years ago to the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Investigation of the role of ancient flood control efforts on later events was published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Science.
