Climatic Aridity and the Relocations of the Zhou Culture in the Southern Loess Plateau of China

摘要

Several Holocene loess-soil profiles at the archaeological sites of the political center, and later, the capital cities of the predynastic Zhou and Western Zhou Dynasty (ca. 1400–771 B.C.) inthe southern Loess Plateau were studied multi-disciplinarily. It provides insights into monsoonal climatic change and the relocations of the Zhou culture in this climatically sensitive semiarid zone. Both the analytical data and written records indicate that increased climatic aridity at 1150 B.C. induced a considerable environmental deterioration and degradation of natural resources, especially water shortages, decreases in precipitation and deficits in soil moisture. These resulted in poor harvest and great famines, plagues, domestic upheavals, population migrations, and even conflicts between Zhou people who subsisted on dry farming and nomadic tribes on the northern steppe during the development of the Zhou culture. It seems that persistent droughts forced Zhou people to move from the upland plateau to the lowland riverbanks step by step through relocations, following a direction of increasing climatic humidity, soil moisture, water availability and biodiversity. The southward migration of the nomads on the steppe of the northern Loess Plateau and the Mongolia Plateau in response to the climatic aridity was another dynamic force that caused the relocations of the Zhou culture.