Environmental Change since Mid- Pleistocene Recorded in Shangshan Achaeological Site in Zhejiang
浙江上山遗址剖面记录中更新世以来的环境演变

According to field investigations and sampling as well as laboratory analysis of magnetic susceptibility, grain size, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and AMS 14C dating of archaeological site profile of Shangshan in Pujiang area, Zhejiang, this paper revealed the process of environmental change since Mid-Pleistocene and discussed the background of Shangshan cultural development. The results show there were fluvial gravel sediments in Shangshan area in the earlier period of Mid-Pleistocene. But at about 173 ka BP of the late period of Mid-Pleistocene, uplift happened in Shangshan area because of the impact of the climate, sea level change and neotectonic action, movement, thus forming the second terrace of the river. Between 173-75 ka BP, the terrace received aeolian sediment, a layer of reticulate laterite about 80-100 cm thick deposited, and developed under a relatively high temperature. A layer of Xiashu Loess about 1.0-1.5 m thick deposited on Shangshan terrace in late glacial, containing 80% of the loessal dust. At the beginning of the Holocene (11500 a BP-), temperature went higher gradually with more precipitation, the pre-historic human moved on the Shangshan terrace (11400-8600 a BP), which may connect the paleolithic culture and Neolithic culture. The lower place to the west of the Shangshan Site has been the two cycles process of the fluvial facies, lake and moor facies, indicating that the water source of the Shangshan pre-history is the river water or lake water. Moreover, two AMS 14C ages indicated the water resource disappeared more than 1000 years at most.