Jianghan Plain, the locale of China’s Great Flood four thousand years ago

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-2071030/v1

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Jianghan Plain, the locale of China’s Great Flood four thousand years ago

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2071030/v1

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The Yellow River Plain (YRP), being regarded as the cradle of Chinese civilization, is traditionally thought to be the locale of the Great Flood, a hazardous flood (or floods) tamed by Yu who started China’s first “dynasty”, Xia, at ~ 2000 BC. However, by integrating published archaeological data, we propose that the Great Flood in fact impacted the Jianghan Plain (JHP) along the middle course of the Yangtze River. The arguments include: (1) around the era of the Great Flood, the most civilized and populated society in East Asia, named the Jianghan society, was located around the JHP (then the habitation on the YRP remained limited); (2) the Jianghan society lived on river resources (e.g., shipping and rice growing) and was thus subject to flood risks; (3) the people in the Jianghan society were experienced in dredging moats/ditches for shipping and irrigation; (4) unlike the floods on the YRP that were characterized by dynamic sedimentation and channel avulsion, those on the margin of the JHP typically occurred with slow-moving water predictable in space. Here, the recorded method to contain the Great Flood, dredging channels to divert flood water, was feasible. By examining published speleothem paleo-rainfall data from multiple sites, we confirm that the JHP was dominated by a wet condition with frequent rainfall events since middle Holocene, which significantly turned dry after ~ 1850 BC. Given this, the uniqueness of the Great Flood and its impact are likely to have reflected an increase in land use on the JHP associated with the expansion of the Jianghan society, and the success in taming this flood was mainly due to the efforts of the society, not by luck.

China’s Great Flood

Yellow River

Yangtze River

Archaeology

Speleothem paleo-rainfall record

Floods on the Jianghan Plain were predictable and manageable in ancient times.
The most populated society in East Asia was located around the Jianghan Plain.
The people in the Jianghan society were experienced in dredging moats/ditches.

According to historical legends, there were lengthy floods (collectively called the “Great Flood”) that caused significant hazards in ancient China. The taming of this flood by Yu earned himself a culture hero to establish the Xia, an influential kingdom (~ 2000–1700 BC) traditionally regarded as the first “dynasty” in Chinese history (Fig. 1). Unlike many myths of “catastrophic floods” in other ancient civilizations, the accounts of the Great Flood did not mention any divine power or “creator” to mandate the flood but emphasized the method and the effort of the society in containing it. For example, Yu was depicted as a person (the successful one, though) among those in charge of the flood-control works. He was said to lead people to dredge new channels to guide flood water to “sea” (an immense area of water). Also, during his 13-year flood-control career, Yu passed by home three times but never went in (Sima 2014 [~ 90BC]). All these humanistic descriptions suggest the historicity of the floods, although the image of Yu, like other sages in ancient China, has been somewhat deified by descendants.

Accepting the truth of the Great Flood, many researchers have assigned its age. According to historical texts, the establishment of the Xia Kingdom was signified by a naked-eye observed astronomical event of clustering of five planets, which is computed as occurring at 1953 BC (Pankenier 1995; Zhang 2002). This age is close to the 2000–1968 BC age inferred from Bamboo Annals (Liu 2001; Zhang 2013), a historical document unearthed from a noble tomb of ~ 300 BC, and is not far from the 2070 BC age proposed by the government-sponsored Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project (Expert Group of the Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project 2000).

Great debates, however, exist concerning the locale of the Great Flood and the Xia Kingdom. This locale has three potential candidates: the Yellow River in the north, the Yangtze River in the south, the largest two rivers in China, and the relatively minor Huai River in the middle (Fig. 2). All these three river catchments have places named after Yu and claimed to be his hometown (Du 1992). Putting aside these toponymic views which cannot be used as direct evidence for historicity (Yang 1984), most scholars believe the Great Flood originated from the Yellow River (e.g., An 1979; Zou 1980a; Ma 1982; Qian 1982; Jing 1984; Shen 1994; Zhou 1994; Pei 1996; Liang and Lei 2000; Xu 2003; Gu and Tong 2005; Ma 2008; Yang 2010; Chen et al. 2012; Sun 2015, 2018). This thought is so deeply rooted that even a remote outburst flood from the Jishixia (for location see Fig. 2) along the upstream course of the Yellow was thought to be the origin of the Great Flood (Wu et al. 2016; Han 2017; Wu et al. 2017b).

We recognize that the belief of the Yellow River the locale of the Great Flood is based mainly on the ideology regarding the river as the cradle of China’s civilization (e.g., Ho 1969; Rapp and Jing 2011; Chen et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2019). The Yellow River catchment, especially the Yellow River Plain (YRP) in its lower part (Fig. 2), has been the political center of China since the Yinshang period (~ 1380–1046 BC) (Fig. 1). After the Qin dynasty (~ 221–207 BC), the first united empire in China, the perception of Great China has been established. Glad to be the successors of Yu (and other sages before Yu), people would unconsciously think of their living places inherited from the Xia’s territory. This orthodoxy inevitably led to prejudice in translating historical legends, which happened even in Shiji, the most popular ancient Chinese historiography compiled in ~ 90 BC (Liang 1981; Gorodetskaya 2016b).

An additional issue about the Great Flood is whether or not ancient people four thousand years ago were really capable of containing this natural disaster. It has been known that the climate in the monsoonal East Asian turned dry after the middle Holocene Climate Optimum (e.g., Wang et al. 2005). This global drying suitably explains the lack of flood threats in the Xia period (e.g., Dalfes et al. 1997; Peiser 1998), which led Wu and Ge (2005) to suggest that the success of Yu in taming the Great Flood was achieved mainly by luck.

In this article, we review and integrate known physiographical, historical, and particularly, archaeological data around the Yellow, Huai, and Yangtze rivers to clarify the locale of the Great Flood and the Xia Kingdom. We believe that the archaeological data, which provide first-hand evidence for the development and living styles of ancient people, are more objective than subsequently composed historical texts that may have been biased by social/political ambiances. We consider that the locale of the Great Flood should meet the following four criteria: (1) it was subject to flooding; (2) it was occupied by people living on river resources; (3) the people suffering from the flood were relatively civilized and populated so that they could be mobilized, with sufficient skills, for flood management; (4) the culture of the people remained influential after the flood (even though their descendants were conquered by other people), so that the accounts of the flood could hand down to generations. Additionally, in order to understand the potential influence of climate on the Great Flood, we review the published high-resolution speleothem δ¹⁸O records around the middle courses of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. In fact, through this study, we not only locate the Great Flood, providing perspectives to support its historicity, but also examine its significance in the context of the social development and paleoclimate conditions.

Both the Yellow River (7.5*10⁵ km²) and the Yangtze River (1.8*10⁶ km²) originate from the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in western China. After draining this > 4000 m-high terrain, the Yellow turns north and then east, flowing through multiple wide floodplains in sediment-filled basins in the Inner Mongolia Plateau (Fig. 2). Downstream, the Yellow heads to the south and cuts deeply to the Loess Plateau. Two major tributaries join the Yellow here, the Fen from the east and the Wei from the west (Fig. 2). After leaving the confluence with the Wei, the Yellow turns east, flows through the mountains bordering the Loess Plateau, and enters the YRP, an alluvial plain constructed by the Yellow. The YRP covers areas west and north of the Shandong Hill (Fig. 2). It has an apex of ~ 100 m in elevation. From here, the Yellow, with a mean gradient of 1.2*10^− 4 and mainly of braided types, strikes to the northeast, flowing along the northern border of the Shandong Hill before emptying into the sea (Fig. 2).

The Yangtze River, after draining the longitudinal mountain ranges forming the Tibetan Plateau, enters the Sichuan Basin (Fig. 2). This basin is floored mainly by hills, and only its western margin includes an alluvial plain, the Chengdu Plain, constructed by the Ming River, a tributary of the Yangtze (Fig. 2). Passing through the Three Gorge, the outlet of the Sichuan Basin, the Yangtze reaches the Jianghan Plain (JHP) where the Han River, the Yangtze’s longest tributary, joins the system from the north (Fig. 2). From here to the sea, the Yangtze flows amid multiple hills and plains, including the Taihu Plain near the river mouth (Fig. 2). This middle-lower course of the Yangtze, with meandrous channels, has a mean gradient of 2.1*10^− 5, significantly gentler than the lower Yellow flowing through the YRP. Also, unlike the alluvial YRP, the plains along the middle-lower Yangtze contain plentiful lakes and wetlands, such as the Dongting Lake south of the JHP (Fig. 2).

The Huai River originates from the hills between the Yellow and the Yangtze rivers (Fig. 2). Its associated Huai River Plain (HRP) covers areas south of the YRP and the Shandong Hill, and is separated from the Yangtze system to the south by hills generally < 200 m in elevation.

The lower halves of the Yellow and the Yangtze catchments (and the entire Huai catchment), including the southeastern part of the Loess Plateau and the entire Sichuan Basin, are influenced by Monsoon. The rainfall, brought mainly by the East Asia Summer Monsoon, generally decreases to the north/northwest, with the annual 750 mm isohyet located between the Yellow and the Huai rivers (Fig. 2) and semi-arid climate prevailing over the Inner Mongolia Plateau. As a result of this precipitation pattern, rice has been the staple crop over the Yangtze catchment, and dry crops (currently wheat) dominate the Yellow, with the transition around the Huai. Also, with generally low flow discharge (but fluctuated) and high sediment load, the Yellow river channels are typically shallow, highly mobile, and thus not boatable. In contrast, the Yangtze River and its tributaries have long been important transport routes in the history of China.

Both the Yellow and the Yangtze rivers are well known for their hazardous floods, which however show different characteristics. In the upper Yellow River, due to high evaporation rates and the existence of multiple wide floodplains for buffering, the floods occurring here have never exceeded the course crossing the Inner Mongolia Plateau (Shi et al. 1990). Only summer storms over the Loess Plateau and, less often, early-spring ice melting, could generate floods impacting the YRP. The floods thus created carried enormous amounts of silty sediments onto the YRP, causing deposition and repeated river avulsion (e.g., Chien 1961; Liu and Jiyang 1989; Kidder et al. 2012; Dang et al. 2018).

According to historical accounts, people built embankments along the downstream course of the Yellow River no earlier than ~ 340 BC (in the East Zhou period) (Zou 1980b; Tan 1987). Since then, the suffering of floods in the societies has constantly been reported (Chen et al. 2012; Kidder et al. 2012). For example, Shiji documented that Emperor Wu (156–87 BC), one of the most powerful emperors in China’s history, sent several ten thousands of troops to contain the Yellow River, which however ended up in failure. In that time and afterward, building/repairing embankments has been a routine work to prevent the YRP from flooding (Chen et al. 2012). Sediment deposition in the artificially confined channels, however, increased the potential for avulsion by elevating the riverbeds to levels even higher than the surrounding floodplains. To the 11th century AD (in the North Song dynasty), the Yellow River burst its banks almost every year (Chen et al. 2012). This avulsion-prone nature was also used for military purposes. For example, in 1128 AD, in order to stop the advancing Jurchen army, Song troops broke the levees, which eventually led to the diversion of the Yellow River to occupy the Huai River in the southeast (Lamouroux 1998; Zhang 2009). It was not until another avulsion event occurring in 1855 AD that the Yellow shifted its course back to the current position.

Unlike the Yellow, storms or sustained rains brought by summer monsoon over any parts of the Yangtze’s catchment could generate floods downstream (e.g., E and Huo 2016). As a result, flood frequency was higher along the Yangtze than along the Yellow, at least in the last 100 years (Chen and Wang 2002). Different from the floods on the YRP, those generated on the gentle, low-lying plains along the middle and lower courses of the Yangtze carried relatively small amounts of sediment and were characterized by lengthy and widespread coverages of overflow water (e.g., Gong et al. 2001; Yin and Li 2001; Cheng et al. 2018). The JHP, the first plain the Yangtze meets after flowing for 4000 km in mountains, is considered the region most vulnerable to such flooding (Zhao 2000; Chen et al. 2001; Chen and Wang 2002; Ministry of Water Resources et al. 2005).

According to historical texts, the JHP and its surrounding areas were inhabited by the people of Chu as early as ~ 1100 BC. The Chu, which had a broad territory, a large population, and an influential culture, was a powerful state in both the West Zhou and East Zhou periods before being conquered by the Qin Empire in 224 BC (Fig. 1). Notably, the Chu people owned the China’s most complete mythological histories for their origins, from the creation of the world with the birth of humanity to the divine power to rescue people from wild lands. The plots of these myths commonly contain endless rainfall and overflow (due to the breaking of the “sky”), implying the frequent occurrence of catastrophic floods in ancient China.

In the period of the Chu state, much of the present JHP area was occupied by the Yunmeng Lake (Tan 1980). This ancient lake progressively shrank and since ~ 400 AD or earlier, only numerous small lakes/ponds and their associated wetlands were reported on the JHP. The written records of the Yangtze floods can be traced back to 185 BC (Ministry of Water Resources et al. 2005). From ~ 1000 to 1840 AD, floods were reported averaged every 3–5 years (Ministry of Water Resources et al. 2005; Yu et al. 2009). Like the measures for managing the YRP floods, embankments were built to alleviate the Yangtze flood threat. The known earliest artificial levee was constructed around 350 AD, and by the 12th century AD, a levee system took shape along the course of the Yangtze running through the JHP (Yang 1999; Chen 1990). The levee building continued and today a > 250 km-long embankment system, including the Great Jingjiang Levee, has been completed to protect the JHP (Li et al. 2007). This embanking, however, does not appear to have succeeded, as the flood frequency remained high or even increased in the last 50 years (Yin and Li 2001; Li et al. 2007; Yu et al. 2009).

Archaeological excavations, supplemented by radiocarbon dates back to 8000 BC in age, have revealed the development of Neolithic cultures in the Yellow, Huai and Yangtze river catchments. The review of this study focuses on cities and major settlements (Appendix Table A1 and references therein), as their emergence as worship, economic, and political centers reflected an advanced assemblage and labor division of societies. The “city” defined here is an assemblage of settlements surrounded by distinct walls and/or moats (for the large assemblage of settlements with neither walls nor moats is referred to “major settlement”). The city walls are all made up of earth, generally 3–5 m high, 10–40 m wide, and the moats, 10–60 m wide (Figs. 3–5). The grouping of closely spaced cities/major settlements and their surrounding minor settlements with the same cultural characteristics defines a society, whose area is believed positively correlated to its population (Guo and Gorodetskaya 2021).

4.1. Yellow and Huai river catchments

The earliest city known in the Yellow and Huai river catchments is the Xishan, found near the apex of the YRP (Fig. 6b). Constrained by as many as 33 radiocarbon dates in and off the culture layer, this city was most likely built around 3000 BC and lasted for only one or two hundred years (Yang 1997). It was not until ~ 2700 BC or later, some large settlements arose in the upper part of the HRP (two cities), the lower part of the HRP (one city and two major settlements), and the coastal area fringing the southeastern part of the Shandong Hill (4 cities) (Fig. 6c). After ~ 2350 BC, cities/major settlements bloomed in 4 places (Fig. 6d): (1) the valleys in the upper Huai River catchment (one major settlement and 4 cities); (2) the hills in the lower Fen River catchment (two major settlements); (3) the western margin of the YRP (4 cities); (4) the YRP bordering the northern part of the Shandong Hill (two groups, each having 8 and 4 cities respectively). In these places, three of the 4 cities in the upper Huai River catchment and the four cities in the northernmost bounding the Shandong Hill have been shown as lasting for only few hundred years at most (Yuan et al. 2000; The Institute of Archaeology Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 2010; Wang and Wang 2010) (Appendix Table A1).

The clustering of the above-mentioned cities/major settlements (excluding the earliest and short-lived Xishan city) defines a total of 7 societies (Figs. 6d and 7). The spatially largest society, with the maximum area of ~ 12,000 km², is located in the upper Huai River catchment (Fig. 7). This society owns the regionally largest city, the Xinzhai, which has a moat-defined area of 70 ha (1 ha = 10,000 m²) and a duration of ~ 400 years (2100–1750 BC) (Liu et al. 2005). It is noted that although having a shortest distance of only 60 km, the society in the upper Huai River catchment (the Xinzhai society) and the society on the western margin of the YRP show different cultural characteristics, suggesting that the Yellow River had served as a topographic barrier against the communication of ancient people.

According to Zhao (2011) and Wang et al. (2019), millet became the staple food of the people in the Yellow River catchment since ~ 4000 BC. Later, influenced by the culture from the Yangtze (see below), rice was added to the diet of the people, such as those occupying the Xishan city (Wang et al. 2019) (Fig. 6b). After ~ 3100 BC, while millet remained dominated in the Yellow River catchment, a mixture of rice and millet farming prevailed in the upper Huai River catchment and along the coast bounding the southeastern Shandong Hill (Jing and Wang 2006; Gorodetskaya 2013) (Figs. 6c, d). Millet is a kind of dry crop. Thus, very few irrigation ditches or other water conservancy facilities including embankments have been found in the > 1100 BC archaeological sites around the Yellow River and its tributaries (Li 2014). This limited reliance on river resources is also reflected by the style of moats/ditches surrounding the cities, which are generally narrow (< 30 m wide) and do not connect to boatable rivers (Figs. 3 and 7). Yet some of the societies must have faced flood risks, as the Mengzhuang city (for location see Fig. 6d) on the western margin of the YRP was thus perished (Yuan 2000; Yuan et al. 2000).

The Taosi settlement in the Fen River catchment (Fig. 6d), with palaces, noble tombs, and other valuable artifacts unearthed, has been considered an important social/political center in ancient China (Yan and He 2005; Xie 2007). This settlement (dated 2350–1850 BC), however, was ruined by war and the society rapidly declined afterward (He 2015).

There are two sites in the Huai River catchment that were related to Yu (Fig. 6d): the Wangchengang city (dated 2170–2100 BC) in the Xinzhai society (An and Li 1992; Fang 2006; Liu 2019), and the Yuhuicun settlement (dated 2300–2200 BC) adjacent to the lower HRP (Wang et al. 2013). The Wangchengang is located near a place with a name the same as the capital of Yu (and thus regarded as Yu’s capital) (An 1979; Jing 1984; Pei 1996; Ma 2008). Also, as recorded in historical literature, Yu assembled feudal leaders for his successful control of the Great Flood. The Yuhuicun was thought to be the place where this ceremony was held, as it is named synonymously with the ceremony and contains some relics of ritual structures (Wang 2012; He 2014; Shang and Wang 2016).

4.2. Yangtze River catchment

The region’s earliest Neolithic settlements, dated 8000–5800 BC (Jiang 2007; Guo 2010; Gorodetskaya and Guo 2014; Gorodetskaya et al. 2018), are found in the Liyang Plain drained by the Li, a tributary of the Yangtze entering the Dongting Lake (Fig. 6a). The progressive growth of the society then led to the rise of the first city in East Asian, the Chengtoushan (Fig. 6a) (Hunan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology 2007; Guo 2010; Guo and Gorodetskaya 2021). The culture continuously developed and spread out across the trunk Yangtze. By 3000 BC, a total of 19 cities has existed in/around the Liyang Plain and the JHP (Fig. 6b). Near the Yangtze river mouth, multiple settlements, collectively named the Songtze-Liangzhu, were built on the Taihu Plain since 3600 BC. These settlements were however small. They were abandoned and the culture rapidly declined by 2300 BC (Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology 2005; Qin 2019). Around and after this time, as many as 8 cities emerged in the Chengdu Plain of the Sichuan Basin (Appendix Table A1).

The cities in/around the Liyang Plain and the JHP are closely spaced and have similar cultural characteristics. Grouping these cities and their surrounding minor settlements with similar cultural characteristics defines a society covering an area of 65,000–100,000 km², the largest in East China (Fig. 7). This society (the Jianghan society hereafter) contains the three spatially largest cities in the region: the Shijiahe (180 ha in its heyday) (Fig. 5), the Taojiahu (72 ha) (Fig. 4a), and the Chenghe (70 ha), all located near the northern margin of the JHP (Fig. 7). The cities in the Jianghan society are generally larger than those in the Yellow/Huai river catchments (Fig. 8) and have longer durations of occupation (Appendix Table A1). They continuously developed, with repeated repair or rebuilding, before being succeeded by the people of the Panlongcheng culture of the Shang Kingdom, which was subsequently conquered by the Yinshang Empire from the Yellow River catchment (Fig. 1) (Gorodetskaya 2013, 2016a; Gorodetskaya et al. 2018).

The civilization in the Yangtze River catchment was closely aligned with rice cultivation, which started in the Liyang Plain as early as 7000 BC (Pei 1998, 2004; Gorodetskaya and Guo 2014), spread to the Taihu Plain around 5000 BC, and influenced the societies of the YRP by 3300 BC (Gorodetskaya 2013). In the following one thousand years, this rice culture entered the Sichuan Basin (Jiang 2015; Huang et al. 2017), extended to the HRP, and reached the periphery of the Shandong Hill (Jing and Wang 2006; Jing et al. 2017) (Figs. 6c, d). Not surprisingly, water conservancy facilities such as irrigation ditches and water storage pits are widely found in the < 3000 BC archaeological sites around the Yangtze River from the Taihu Plain to the Chengdu Plain (e.g., Zhuang et al. 2014; Wang and Liu 2015; Guo and Gorodetskaya 2016; Huang et al. 2017). In addition to these facilities, fish bones and net pendants are also commonly unearthed, suggesting the prevalence of fishing along the Yangtze River and its tributaries (Gorodetskaya and Guo 2019).

It is noted that moat/channel systems unearthed in/around the cities/settlements in the Yangtze River catchment are generally larger and more complicated than their counterparts in the Yellow/Huai river catchments (Pei 2004; Guo 2010; Guo and Gorodetskaya 2021). For example, as shown, there commonly were channels entering or crossing cities of the Yangtze (Figs. 4 and 5), with gates built by city walls probably used to control water levels. Some cities even consisted of double or multiple moats connected by channels (Figs. 4b and 5), which were further extended to ditch systems over the surrounding settlements, or to river/lake systems that appear to have been boatable (Fig. 7). These channels are inferred as dredged for the purpose of shipping (Guo and Gorodetskaya 2021).

We review high-resolution speleothem δ¹⁸O records from 5 limestone caves (for cave locations see Fig. 2): the Wuya (Tan et al. 2018a) on the southwestern margin of the Loess Plateau; the Xianglong (Tan et al. 2018b) and Jiuxian (Cai et al. 2010) in the upper Han River catchment; the Sanbao (Dong et al. 2010) and Heshang (Hu et al. 2008) near the Three Gorge (Figs. 9a – e). All these data reveal an overall decrease in precipitation (i.e. increase in δ¹⁸O value) since middle Holocene (due to the weakening of the Eastern Asian Summer Monsoon), consistent with other speleothem records elsewhere in the monsoonal China (e.g., Wang et al. 2005). The observed long-term drying trend is however superimposed by centennial-to-decadal-scale fluctuations of rainfall, which differ from caves to caves (Figs. 9a – e), suggesting the local variations in precipitation and/or the sensitivity of the records to rainfall events (i.e. not all rainfall events could be recorded by the growth of speleothem).

The records from the Sanbao cave are least fluctuated (Fig. 9d). In contrast, the data from the the Xianglong and Jiuxian caves show the highest amplitudes of oscillation (Figs. 9b, c). By picking up the peaks of these oscillations (minimum δ¹⁸O values), many potential rainfall events (or their clusters) before and around the era of the Great Flood may be identified. For example, a rainfall event at 2046 BC is suggested by the Wuya record (Fig. 9a), which was used by Tan et al. (2018a) to support the historicity of the Great Flood. Rainfall events close to this 2046 BC age, ~ 2050 BP and ~ 2020 BP, are also shown in the Xianglong and Heshang caves respectively (Figs. 9b, e). Notably, the rainfall events revealed in the Xianglong, Jiuxian, and Heshang caves consistently show a decrease in magnitude/frequency after ~ 1850 BC, which corresponds to an acceleration of climate drying recorded in the Sanbao cave (Figs. 9b – e).

There are more studies on the ancient rainfall/flood events around the JHP. The magnetic signals from a stalagmite in the Heshang cave, which record the influx of soils from groundwater, suggest an increase in rainfall events during 2550–1950 BC (Fig. 9f) (Zhu et al. 2017). At the Zhongqiao archaeological site in the JHP (for location see Fig. 2), muddy overbank slack-water deposits are identified and dated 2850–2650, 2530–2420, and 2220–1900 BC by the radiocarbon methods (Wu et al., 2017a). Similar deposits, resulting from floods larger than any modern ones, are found along the upper Han River valley (Zhang et al. 2013). One of them is dated 2250–2050 BC by the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) methods (Fig. 9f). All these lines of evidence suggest a relatively wet period before and around the era of the Great Flood, consistent with the speleothem records.

It is worth noting that the above-documented wet condition in central China contradicts the coeval global dryness centered around 2250 BC (~ 4.2 ka) (e.g., Mayewski et al. 2004; Walker et al. 2019). This dryness, however, coincides with the coeval prevalence of droughts in northern China, as supported by the Wuya data which show a rapid decline of mean precipitation since ~ 3000 BC or later (Fig. 9a). More evidence of this dryness is revealed from lacustrine deposits in the Loess Plateau (Zhao et al. 2010; Chen et al. 2015) and the Inner Mongolia Plateau (Goldsmith et al. 2017). Tan et al. (2018b) has attributed this “abnormal” wet climate condition in central and southern China to the atypical movement of the Westerly jet which remained relatively strong during the climate cooling around 2250 BC. As a result, although rain belts barely advanced to northern China due to the weakening of the Eastern Asian Summer Monsoon, they were able to stay in central/southern China, causing heavy rains there.

6.1. Yellow River the locale of the Great Flood: problems

Although deeply rooted in the society, the belief that the Great Flood originating from the Yellow River is not supported by archaeological data. The Taosi settlement, as an important social/political center in northern China, might be a candidate of Yu’s hometown. However, the Taosi society was relatively small in area and declined rapidly, different from the image of the Xia Kingdom. Also, the Taosi settlement was built on a hill and the residents, with millet as staple food, did not live on river resources (and thus could have limited requirement for flood control). Moreover, the region where the settlement was located appear to have undergone droughts around the era of Yu, a climate condition not favoring the occurrence of the Great Flood.

As the social/political center and known by its notorious flood hazards in the recorded history, the YRP may be intuitively regarded as the locale of the Great Flood. However, archaeological data show that by 1700 BC, most parts of the YRP remained rarely inhabited (not even occupied by small settlements). Although as many as 16 cities arose after 2350 BC, they were relatively small, short-lived, and located only on the margins of the plain (Fig. 6d). We believe this limited human occupation reflected the active flooding/alluviation of the plain, which was unsuitable for habitation. Once ancient people settled down on the plain that were inactive for some generations, they put themselves at risk. The unpredictable nature of the floods caused by powerful channel avulsion could result in fatal hazards, as shown by the ruin of the Mengzhuang city. From this point of view, even if there are some undiscovered ancient settlements now buried in the YRP, as suggested by Kidder et al. (2012), they are unlikely to have been large.

It is noted that even nowadays, engineering measures to prevent or alleviate nature hazards are designed for relatively frequent but small-magnitude events, not for rare, unpredictable catastrophes. An implication here is that the flood (or floods) faced by Yu and its people was in fact significant in its (or their) frequency, duration, or position (i.e. near the habitation area), and thus may not be necessarily correlated to any specific high-magnitude rainfall/flood events recorded by stratigraphic or geomorphic evidence. For example, we argue that the Great Flood is unlikely to have been the catastrophic Jishixia outburst flood occurring along the upstream course of the Yellow River, even if this remote flood could have transmitted through multiple wide floodplains in the semi-arid Inner Mongolia Plateau to the YRP.

After the YRP became the social/political center (since ~ 1400 BC), the progressive growth of population must have led to an increase in occupation onto the plain, which inevitably increased the flood risk. Before dam construction in the modern times, building embankment has been the only solution for the floods on the YRP. This method, however, differs from that (dredging) depicted by historical texts to contain the Great Flood. The flood control on the YRP by embanking has barely succeeded. Given that even the troops of powerful Emperor Wu were defeated, it is unlikely that the people in the era of Yu, ~ 1800 years earlier than Emperor Wu, could have been capable of taming the Yellow River.

6.2. Jianghan plain the locale of the Great Flood

Archaeological data have shown that the rise of the Neolithic culture in East Asia, including the earliest settlement, rice cultivation, and subsequent city building, started in the Liyang Plain (Fig. 6). This culture spread out and eventually evolved into the Jianghan society, which was spatially the largest and had the greatest number of cities (and thus likely the most populated) in East Asia in the era of Yu (Figs. 6d and 7). Also, although having undergone rise and fall (Wu et al. 2017b), the culture of the Jianghan society continuously evolved into (and succeeded by) the cultures of the Panlongcheng (Shang), Yinshang Empire, and the Chu state in order (Fig. 1). All these regimes were influential, helping spread the account of the Great Flood and the deeds of Yu to descendants. In sum, we propose that the Great Flood occurred on the JHP and the Jianghan society was the social/political center of the Xia Kingdom. This in turn suggests that one of the largest cities in the Jianghan society was the hometown of Yu which he bypassed three times during his 13-year flood-control career.

Archaeological data also show that the people in the Jianghan society, like others residing around the Yangtze River and its tributaries, lived strongly on river resources such as rice growing, fishing, and shipping. As for the shipping, we propose that by the era of the Great Flood, the Yunmeng Lake remained large and its surrounding JHP had plenty of boatable distributary channels, similar to the area around the modern Dongting Lake. As the most efficient transport medium in ancient times, shipping helped unite people, which explains the reason why the Yangtze River, unlike the Yellow, has never formed a barrier against the spread and communication of people. Also, through digging large-scale moat/ditch systems (and maintaining them), the people in the Jianghan society already showed their capability in dredging channels, which was just the method used to regulate the Great Flood.

Modern and historical accounts have shown that unlike the YRP floods that are typically associated with dynamic sedimentation and channel avulsion, the floods on the JHP have the following two characteristics. First, parts of the floods, especially where they inundated the margins of the floodplain with stagnant or slow-moving water, are not powerful and thus could be controlled (or adaptable) by ancient people. An example of such mild flooding is shown at the Zhongqiao archaeological site. Unlike the Mengzhuang city on the YRP that was ruined by flooding, the Zhongqiao site only underwent minor deposition of muddy sediment during the three dated flood events and was reoccupied by people afterward (Wu et al. 2017a). Second, the floods on the JHP could be spatially predictable (Yu et al. 2009) (i.e. lower-lying areas were more likely to be inundated). This characteristic could rouse the awareness of flood risk and thus, flood management, in advance. Given these, we propose that the Great Flood was a series of relatively mild floods taking place along some small rivers crossing the northern part of the JHP. Here, the flood-control method depicted in historical texts, dredging channels to divert flood water, was feasible. Historical texts mention a “sea” as the ultimate sink of the flood water. We believe this “sea” was exactly the Yunmeng Lake.

6.3. The significance of the Great Flood

Why is the Great Flood so significant that its accounts deserve to go down in history? Our proposition that the flood impacted the Jianghan society, the then largest and most populated/civilized society, has provided an answer. The occurrence of the Great Flood also required a suitable climate condition, which is supported by the paleo-rainfall data showing that around the era of the Great Flood, the areas surrounding the JHP were characterized by relatively wet climate. However, notice that given the long-term climatic drying since the middle Holocene (Fig. 9), the Great Flood did not occur when the climate was the wettest, and there were certain periods before it (e.g., around 2350, 2850, and 3250 BC) that appear to have been wetter or characterized by greater or more frequent rainfall events (Fig. 9). Apparently, climate was not the major factor rendering the uniqueness of the Great Flood.

We propose that the timing and the impact of the Great Flood was strongly related to the expansion of the Jianghan society, a situation similar to the flooding on the YRP which has been known only after the significant occupation on the plain. Imagine that after developing for more than one thousand years, the Jianghan society encountered the population pressure and gradually expanded its territory toward the lower parts of the JHP, which was likely promoted by the shrinkage of the Yunmeng Lake (Guo 2005). People were attracted by the lands newly exposed, but after moving in, they unavoidably faced flood threats. A key perspective here is that the impact brought by the Great Flood, to a great extent, reflected the contemporary increase in human activities on the JHP. In other words, the account of the Great Flood was not simply an episode of a powerful flood (or floods) but a history documenting the struggle of an influential agriculture society in ancient China with fluctuating physiographical environments. This society survived and continuously developed afterward, with its epic flood-control achievement living on.

The establishment of the Xia Kingdom after the Great Flood has demonstrated the political significance of this natural disaster. Since then, devastating floods in the history of China have never been treated as crucially as the Great Flood. We believe this reflects the continuous increase in the social and economic diversity, and thus the resilience to natural hazards, of the Xia Kingdom and its successors. Also, notice the progressive increase in occupation on the JHP after the Great Flood. By ~ 400 AD, associated with the empty of the Yunmeng Lake, human habitation has approached major river channels such as the Han and the trunk Yangtze. This increase in land use must have significantly decreased the capacity of the JHP to contain flood water, which explains the reason why channel diversion has no longer been a primary method to regulate floods.

Finally, was the control of the Great Flood achieved by luck, as suggested by Wu and Ge (2005)? In fact, by virtue of the high-resolution speleothem records and their detailed chronologies (by the U-Th dating methods), we do find a significant decrease in precipitation (along with a decrease in the magnitude/frequency of rainfall events) after the Great Flood (Fig. 9). This climate drying, however, started at ~ 1850 BC, at least one hundred years after Yu. In other words, the flood-control works managed by Yu were effective for at least some generations, during which rainfall conditions (or flood magnitudes/frequencies) did not significantly change. We thus argue that even though the general lack of flood threats throughout the Xia Kingdom can be attributed to climate drying (e.g., Dalfes et al. 1997; Peiser 1998), it was the wisdom of Yu, and the efforts of the entire society, that tamed the Great Flood.

We conclude that the Great Flood occurred on the Jianghan Plain (JHP) along the middle course of the Yangtze River, on the bases of the following perspectives:

(1) Around the era of the Great Flood, the largest, most civilized and populated society (the Jianghan society) developed in East Asia was located in/around the JHP.

(2) The culture of the Jianghan society continuously evolved and was succeeded by influential regimes, so that the accounts of the Great Flood could be handed down to generations.

(3) The Jianghan society lived strongly on river resources (e.g., shipping, fishing, and rice cultivation) and thus was subject to flood risks.

(4) As shown by the digging of large-scale moat/channel systems over cities and settlements, the people in the Jianghan society were experienced in dredging channels.

(5) Floods on the margin of the JHP could occur with stagnant or slow-moving water predictable in space. Here, the flood-control method depicted in historical texts, dredging new channels to divert flood water, was feasible.

Paleo-rainfall records show that the JHP underwent relatively wet climate with frequent rainfall events since middle Holocene, which significantly turned dry after ~ 1850 BC, at least one hundred years later than the Great Flood. Given this, we propose (1) the uniqueness of the Great Flood, to a great extent, reflected the contemporary increase in land use on the JHP, and (2) the success in controlling the Great Flood was really due to the efforts of the society, not by luck.

Acknowledgments

This research was sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (ROC) (MOST 107-2116-M-194-003) and Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangdong (PRC) (17wkjz07). We deeply thank Mr. Wei-Min Guo, Mr. Jian-Shun Yin, Mr. Ya-Feng Zhao, Mr. Liang-Zhi Wang, Mr. Jiang Shen (Hunan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology), Mr. Yun-Bing Luo, Mr. Shu-Xiang Chen, Mr. Hui Liu, Mr. Yang Tao (Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology), Mr. Wei Zhou (Jingmen City Museum), Mr. Jian-Ping Feng, Mr. Chuan-Song Cao, Mr. Yi Cao (Li County Administration of Cultural Heritage), Mr. An-Pin Pei (Nanjing Normal University), Mr. Xi-Yun Yu (Wuhan University), and Mr. Xing-Yi Zhou for their kind guide to the field sites of this study.

Conflict of interest

This research was sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan) and there are no competing interests with other people or organizations.

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Fig.A1.tif
Figure A1 Locations of the cities and major settlements reviewed in this study (around the Yellow River and the middle-lower course of the Yangtze River).
Fig.A2.tif
Figure A2 Locations of the cities and major settlements reviewed in this study (around the Chengdu Plain, Sichuan Basin).
TableA1original.docx
Table A1 Cities and major settlements (4200 – 1700 BC) reviewed in this study

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Jianghan Plain, the locale of China’s Great Flood four thousand years ago

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Abstract

Figures

Key Points

1. Introduction

2. Physiographic Setting

3. Historical Floods

4. Archaeological Data

4.1. Yellow and Huai river catchments

4.2. Yangtze River catchment

5. Paleo-rainfall Records

6. Discussion

6.1. Yellow River the locale of the Great Flood: problems

6.2. Jianghan plain the locale of the Great Flood

6.3. The significance of the Great Flood

7. Conclusion

Declarations

Acknowledgments

References

Supplementary Files

Status:

Version 1