Temporal-spatial variations of human settlements in relation to environment change during the Longshan culture and Xia-Shang periods in Shanxi Province, China

There is much evidence that shows that dramatic global cooling and drying events took place at approximately 4.0 ka BP. This was also the case for Shanxi Province, China. Accordingly, we investigated changes in the distribution of human settlements during the Longshan culture and Xia-Shang periods (from 4.4 ka BP to 4.0 ka BP and from 4.0 ka BP to 3.1 ka BP, respectively) in different regions of Shanxi Province. In this study, we discuss the human response to the dramatic cooling and drying events that took place during this historical period. Our analysis shows that such dramatic cooling and drying events resulted in an overall decrease in the number of human settlement sites in three regions of Shanxi Province under different climatic conditions. These three regions are also comprised of different landform types and elevation ranges. We found that changes in settlement sites mainly resulted from differences in climate sensitivity in accordance to different latitudes and elevations and from differences in the frequency of human conflicts caused by the dramatic climate changes in areas of different settlement densities.