Possible relatedness between the outburst of the Diexi ancient dammed lake and ancient Chengdu’s cultural change

The Diexi ancient dammed lake is in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River. Six terraces with lacustrine sediments occur at the base. These terraces are the products of the graded outburst of the Diexi ancient dammed lake. The outburst of the ancient dammed lake would certainly have had an impact on the Chengdu Plain in the lower reaches of the Minjiang River. In this paper, on-site sampling and laboratory analysis were used to analyze the sediments of the Diexi ancient dammed lake and the Jinsha site in Chengdu Plain, and the environmental indicators of each sediment layer were tested. Through a comparative analysis of the environmental indicators in the sediments at the two locations, the following results were obtained: the palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental characteristics at the two locations generally show consistent changes. The most important finding is that the types and content of the major pollen taxa at the two locations are similar. The Pinus content strongly proves that the soil layers at the Jinsha site was sourced from the upper reaches of the Minjiang River. Considering that the demise of the ancient culture at the Jinsha site occurred close in time to the outburst of the ancient dammed lake, this similarity suggests that the cultural change at the Jinsha site may have been related to the outburst of the Diexi ancient dammed lake.