Culture Interruptions of Ar chaeological Sites in the Three Gorges Region of the Yangtze River
长江三峡考古遗址文化断层研究

Archaeological excavations over many years show that there are many culture interruptions among archaeological strata of many sites in the Yangtze River Basin. Therefore, the investigation of culture interruption is one of the important research fields dealing with the relationship between human and environment since Holocene. Based on some chronological data, archaeological cultures before the Qin and Han dynasties in the Three Gorges region can be divided into six cultural periods: Chengbeixi Culture (8200-6300 a BP) →Daxi Culture (6300-5000 a BP)→Qujialing Culture (5000-4600 a BP)→Baimiao and Weijialiangzi Culture (4600-4000 a BP) →Earlier Ba Culture coming from the western part of the Yangtze River Basin (4000-3000 a BP) and Chu Culture (3000 a BP-278 BC). By the comparison between archaeological stratigraphy, sediment characteristics of cultural layers and culture interruptions, the synthetical analysis of the distribution of sites, and references from other scholars, we can see that there are 5 culture interruptions in the Three Gorges region. They are from the last stage of Chengbeixi Culture to the initial stage of Daxi Culture(5800~5500 a BP)-Xia dynasty (4000~3500 a BP)-the last stage of Chunqiu and Zhanguo stage (2500~2200 a BP)-since the Song dynasty (since 960 A.D.) in the Three Gorges. The 5 cultural interruptions relate to catastrophic events during the prehistoric and historic period to a certain extent.