Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 112, Issue 3, Pages 702-706Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1418090112
Keywords
climate change; geomorphology; human activity; Holocene; geology
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41430532, 41172325, 40930105]
- Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDA05120502]
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In the middle-to-late Holocene, Earth's monsoonal regions experienced catastrophic precipitation decreases that produced green to desert state shifts. Resulting hydrologic regime change negatively impacted water availability and Neolithic cultures. Whereas mid-Holocene drying is commonly attributed to slow insolation reduction and subsequent nonlinear vegetation-atmosphere feedbacks that produce threshold conditions, evidence of trigger events initiating state switching has remained elusive. Here we document a threshold event ca. 4,200 years ago in the Hunshandake Sandy Lands of Inner Mongolia, northern China, associated with ground-water capture by the Xilamulun River. This process initiated a sudden and irreversible region-wide hydrologic event that exacerbated the desertification of the Hunshandake, resulting in post-Humid Period mass migration of northern China's Neolithic cultures. The Hunshandake remains arid and is unlikely, even with massive rehabilitation efforts, to revert back to green conditions.
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