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Henan area is climatologically situated in the transition between northern and southern China and the transition is reported to be highly sensitive to climate changes during the Holocene. To better understand the Holocene climatic and environmental changes in Henan area where high-quality data are lacking, this paper first reviewed those published palaeoenvironmental records in attempt to provide a low-resolution framework of the Holocene environmental changes in Henan area, and then synthesized the moisture proxy records from the surrounding areas in attempt to define a high-resolution trend of the Holocene moisture variation for our target site (i.e., Zhengzhou within Henan area). Two major conclusions can be drawn. First, the high-resolution Holocene moisture curve for our target site well follows the general moisture trend of China and the curve is well corroborated by two recently-reported data sets: one from Mangshan loess-palaeosol sequence and another from Laomu-Dongshiya Cave. Second, our synthesis supports an earlier notion stating that the "Holocene Moisture Optimum" in China was a delayed response to the oceanic "Holocene Thermal Optimum". The latter might in turn be a delayed response to the summer insolation peak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between climate changes and human responses has been hotly debated. This paper expands this topic by reviewing and presenting case studies in the middle and lower Yellow River, Henan and Shandong provinces. We first review the paleoenvironmental data of both regions and then use the Sanyangzhuang site, Henan, and the Chengziya and Jiaojia sites, Shandong, as examples of human activities and sedimentary histories. Comparisons between the paleoenvironmental and archaeological data reveal that the changes in human occupation at these sites did not occur synchronously with climatic and paleoenvironmental changes. On the one hand, human activities were influenced by extreme climate-related events such as floods. However, humans also show great resilience by returning to the same sites or continuing cultivation at the same sites. Changes in temperature and precipitation did not result in settlement abandonments. On the other hand, human activities ceased to exist in periods of land and climate stabilities. With their increasing capacity to modify landscapes through time, human decisions and activities become equally important as climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]