42 In Cahoots: Interdisciplinary Studies of Climate Change Impacts to Archaeological Resources

Tuesday, 22 March 2022
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Commonwealth Salon 4

DESICCATED ORGANIC MATERIALS FROM THE ANCIENT GREAT WALL OF CHINA AS CLIMATE ARCHIVES: ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSERVATION IN NORTHWESTERN CHINA

Paper number: 42-10
Program: Theme Sessions
Time: 10:45 AM – 11:05 AM

Authors

Abstract

The Great Wall of China is one of the most recognizable world heritage sites. What is perhaps less well known, is that the iconic brick walls built during the Ming Dynasty in the 15th Century AD are only part of an extensive system of fascine and rammed-earth walls, beacon towers, and fortifications that expanded the western frontier of the Han Empire in the 2ndCentury BC. Plant materials used in the construction of these segments and beacon towers of the Han era Great Wall contain untapped potential for revealing paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental changes of northwestern China over the last two millennia. For the first time, we characterize the molecular preservation and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope compositions of common reeds (Phragmites) collected from ancient Great Wall fascines in today’s Gansu and Xinjiang provinces using a combination of chromatographic techniques and isotope analyses.

Using area-defining technologies applied to novel archaeological sample types, we quantitatively demonstrate that these ancient reeds retain excellent molecular preservation and illustrate the potential of using this common construction material as an archive for paleoclimatic and archaeological proxies. Both the molecular distribution of plant waxes and bulk stable isotope compositions indicate that the ancient reeds were harvested from local sources and from habitats that were more diverse than those in northwestern China today. Moreover, due to a combination of early agriculture and natural climate forcing, the eastern edge of the Tarim Basin has experienced differential rates of environmental changes since the Han Dynasty. Our study demonstrates that given the excellent molecular preservation and common occurrence of reeds in archaeological sites, these desiccated organic material from ancient Great Walls hold outstanding potential to unlock environmental and climatic conditions on the western frontier of important periods in Chinese history.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 54, No. 3

doi: 10.1130/abs/2022NE-373719

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