In a paper published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, a team of researchers led by Professor Jia Xin from the Institute of Environmental Archaeology at Nanjing Normal University reconstructed the environmental evolution and human settlement adaptation processes at the Xuecheng archaeological site in the Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River during the Mid to Late Holocene. By integrating multiple environmental proxies and high precision topographic data, the study revealed how hydrological and landscape changes shaped prehistoric settlement migration and spatial organization, providing new evidence for understanding human environment interactions during the formation of early Chinese civilization.

Pliny the Younger witnessed the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago and recorded the day’s events with enough detail that scientists are now able to benchmark the argon-argon dating method, one of the most versatile, spanning the present to the beginning of the solar system. After resolving ambiguities about the date — Aug. 24, 79 CE — UC Berkeley scientists significantly improved the method’s accuracy and precision. They also increased the precision of potassium-40’s half-life.