title: Outburst flood at 1920 BCE supports historicity of China's Great Flood and the Xia dynasty.
abstract: China's historiographical traditions tell of the successful control of a Great Flood leading to the establishment of the Xia dynasty and the beginning of civilization. However, the historicity of the flood and Xia remain controversial. Here, we reconstruct an earthquake-induced landslide dam outburst flood on the Yellow River about 1920 BCE that ranks as one of the largest freshwater floods of the Holocene and could account for the Great Flood. This would place the beginning of Xia at ~1900 BCE, several centuries later than traditionally thought. This date coincides with the major transition from the Neolithic to Bronze Age in the Yellow River valley and supports hypotheses that the primary state-level society of the Erlitou culture is an archaeological manifestation of the Xia dynasty.
authors: School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. School of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China. State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing 100029, China. wuqinglong@pku.edu.cn.
authors: Qinglong
authors: Q
authors: Wu
authors: School of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China. Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023, China.
authors: Zhijun
authors: Z
authors: Zhao
authors: Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors: Li
authors: L
authors: Liu
authors: Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
authors: Darryl E
authors: DE
authors: Granger
authors: Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100710, China.
authors: Hui
authors: H
authors: Wang
authors: Department of Anthropology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan (R.O.C).
authors: David J
authors: DJ
authors: Cohen
authors: School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors: Xiaohong
authors: X
authors: Wu
authors: Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100710, China.
authors: Maolin
authors: M
authors: Ye
authors: Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors: Ofer
authors: O
authors: Bar-Yosef
authors: CCTEG Xi'an Research Institute, Xi'an 710077, China.
authors: Bin
authors: B
authors: Lu
authors: Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China.
authors: Jin
authors: J
authors: Zhang
authors: State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing 100029, China. School of Earth Science and Geological Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
authors: Peizhen
authors: P
authors: Zhang
authors: Lanzhou Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake Administration, Lanzhou 730000, China.
authors: Daoyang
authors: D
authors: Yuan
authors: Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100710, China.
authors: Wuyun
authors: W
authors: Qi
authors: Qinghai Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Xining 810007, China.
authors: Linhai
authors: L
authors: Cai
authors: School of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China. Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023, China.
authors: Shibiao
authors: S
authors: Bai