Abstract
Abstract. Although the collapses of several Neolithic cultures in China are considered to have been associated with abrupt climate change during the 4.2 ka BP event (4.2–3.9 ka BP), the timing and nature of this event and the spatial distribution of precipitation between northern and southern China are still controversial. The hydroclimate of this event in southeastern China is still poorly known, except for a few published records from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. In this study, a high-resolution record of monsoon precipitation between 5.3 and 3.57 ka BP based on a stalagmite from Shennong Cave, Jiangxi Province, southeast China, is presented. Coherent variations in δ18O and δ13C reveal that the climate in this part of China was dominantly wet between 5.3 and 4.5 ka BP and mostly dry between 4.5 and 3.57 ka BP, interrupted by a wet interval (4.2–3.9 ka BP). A comparison with other records from monsoonal China suggests that summer monsoon precipitation decreased in northern China but increased in southern China during the 4.2 ka BP event. We propose that the weakened East Asian summer monsoon controlled by the reduced Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation resulted in this contrasting distribution of monsoon precipitation between northern and southern China. During the 4.2 ka BP event the rain belt remained longer at its southern position, giving rise to a pronounced humidity gradient between northern and southern China.
Highlights
The 4.2 ka BP event was a pronounced climate event in the Holocene that has been widely studied in the past 20 years
The δ13C values fluctuate around −9.18 ‰ during the period 5.3 to 4.5 ka BP and increase to −8.69 ‰ between 4.5 and 3.57 ka BP (Fig. 4a). δ18O fluctuates around −6.75 ‰ during the period 5.3 to 3.57 ka BP on decadal to centennial timescales (Fig. 4c)
The periods of higher growth rate correspond to the periods of lower δ18O and δ13C values, which we infer to be the time of more summer monsoon precipitation
Summary
The 4.2 ka BP event was a pronounced climate event in the Holocene that has been widely studied in the past 20 years It was identified as an abrupt (mega)drought and/or cooling event in a variety of natural archives including ice cores, speleothems, lake sediments, marine sediments and loess. The abrupt climate change associated with the 4.2 ka BP event has been proposed to have contributed to the collapses of Neolithic cultures in China (Jin and Liu, 2002; Huang et al, 2010, 2011; Zhang et al, 2010; Liu and Feng, 2012; Wu et al, 2017) Most of these studies imply a temperature drop
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