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The Chaohu Lake Basin is an important area for ancient human activities in East China. The Lingjiatan site, which is
located at the southeast of Chaohu City, Anhui Province, and 35 km north to the Yangtze River and 5 km south to the
Taihu Mountain, is the most representative Neolithic Age site with advanced jade-carving techniques in this area. The
14C date of Lingjiatan Site is about 5600~5300aBP, the same time as the Hongshan culture and earlier than the Liangzhu
culture, which falls into the Mid-Holocene epoch. Based on mid-high resolution remote sensing images and former
archaeological materials, combined with field investigations and sampling analysis of the archaeological site profile of
Lingjiatan Site as well as core drillings in the Chaohu Lake, the paper reconstructs the climate environment of the
Lingjiatan site and the environmental background of ancient human activities during Mid-Holocene. The research results
show that: (1) The ancients in Lingjiatan lived in the Holocene Optimum, its culture development was during the interim
phase when the climate transformed from warm and wet to cool and dry. (2) The ground surface deposited in the last
phase of late Pleistocene epoch (OSL dating is 11.6 ±1.0 ka BP) was the living ground for Lingjiatan ancient humans.
The sedimentary discontinuous surface may be caused by strong fluvial erosion under the warm and humid climatic
conditions of the Mid-Holocene. (3) Originally, paleo-geomorphic surface was a level shallow mesa foreside southern
part of Taihu Mountain, but was cut by fluvial waters and the geomorphologic configuration formed "finger-like"
features alternately with strip hillocks and rivers. These features can be seen on the Landsat ETM+ remote sensing
image, especially the depression area. This depression is now cropland, and was interpreted as the palaeochannels. (4)
Based on the remote sensing image interpretation, the site was in a "peninsula shape" environment which had rivers
flowing around the east, west and south sides of the Changgang terrain and that was good for rice planting, hunting,
fishing and water transportation. (5) The most particular characteristic of the Lingjiatan site is the advanced jade
production, those maybe have some relationship with the convenient shipping, trade exchanges and optimal
environmental conditions, which was also conducive to rice cultivation.
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