Differences in soil physicochemical properties between unirrigated paleo-cropping layers and natural sediment layers in Dongling Mountain, Beijing

LYU Xuanze; LI Yumei; WANG Luo

doi:10.7523/j.ucas.2024.014

Journal of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences >

2025 , Vol. 42 >Issue 5: 632 - 644

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7523/j.ucas.2024.014

Research Articles

Differences in soil physicochemical properties between unirrigated paleo-cropping layers and natural sediment layers in Dongling Mountain, Beijing

LYU Xuanze ,
LI Yumei ,
WANG Luo

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1. CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Geodynamics, College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
2. Laboratory of Molecular Fossils of Testing Centers, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
3. Division of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China

Received date: 2023-12-25

Revised date: 2024-03-28

Online published: 2024-04-24

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Abstract

The identification of paleo-cropping layers is an essential part of the study of the origins of agriculture and the exploration of ancient human land use. It is a challenge that archaeologists and palaeoenvironmentalists are facing together. The existing methods of identifying ancient cultivation layers are costly and limited, and there is an urgent need to develop new, simple, convenient, and reliable methods to identify ancient cultivation layers. Farming without irrigation, using plows to turn the land, once occurred in Beijing’s Dongling Mountain and continued for at least 300 years before retiring. There are also natural meadows and broadleaf forests in the area with no tillage history. In this study, four types of soil profiles, namely natural meadow, natural broadleaf forest, abandoned farming meadow, and abandoned farming broadleaf forest, were compared in terms of their soluble salt content, pH, magnetic susceptibility, and color characteristics in order to establish a method for identifying ancient cultivation layers. It was found that the soluble salt content in the abandoned farming soil profile was significantly lower than that in the natural profile, and the coefficient of variation was also significantly lower than that in the natural profile. The soluble salt content and its coefficient of variation can be used to identify ancient tillage layers without irrigation. Soil magnetic susceptibility and pH also have potential value in identifying ancient cultivation layers, and further in-depth studies are needed.

Key words： paleo-cropping layers; soil soluble salt content; Dongling Mountain; land use; paleoenvironment; agricultural archaeology

Cite this article

LYU Xuanze , LI Yumei , WANG Luo . Differences in soil physicochemical properties between unirrigated paleo-cropping layers and natural sediment layers in Dongling Mountain, Beijing[J]. Journal of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2025 , 42(5) : 632 -644 . DOI: 10.7523/j.ucas.2024.014

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