Human-Environment Dynamics at Haimenkou Site in Southwest China

SU Kai1* and Tristram Kidder2

This study investigates the environmental changes at Haimenkou site (ca. 4500-2300 cal BP) in Yunnan, Southwest China, providing a nuanced understanding of human-environment interactions from the late Pleistocene through the Holocene. Utilising geoarchaeological surveys, particle size analysis, loss-on-ignition, and diatom analysis, this research delineates shifts in landscape and settlement patterns in relation to climatic changes and human activities. The results indicate that adaptation to the wetland environment was gradual, with the extent of landscape modification intensifying over time. This modification involved forest clearance, leading to severe soil erosion on mountain slopes, which subsequently destroyed and buried neighbouring settlements to Haimenkou. The study also addresses a critical phase known as the “Missing Millennia” (ca. 7000-4000 cal BP), a period before the occupation of Haimenkou marked by scant archaeological records and significant ecological and geomorphological transformations in the Mid-Holocene throughout Southeast Asia. We argue that this period is not one of cultural absence but of poor archaeological visibility. Evidence points to extensive early human landscape management. Subsequent land-surface instability, driven by both anthropogenic and climatic factors, led to the erosion and burial of ephemeral settlements, creating gaps in the record. As Haimenkou is hydrologically connect with Southeast Asia through the Lancang-Mekong River, these results underscore the complex interplay between climatic forces and early human landscape management in shaping the archaeological preservation and environmental history in Southeast Asia.