BEIJING, CHINA—Geologists have found evidence of a natural disaster that might be linked to the legendary founding of Chinese civilization. According to Wu Qinglong of Nanjing Normal University, tradition holds that Emperor Yu tamed the Yellow River after a great flood, thus earning a divine mandate to establish the first dynasty. BBC News reports that Wu and his colleagues discovered sediments from a landslide that dammed the Yellow River across the Jishi Gorge. That dam burst a few months later and unleashed a catastrophic flood, so the scientists looked for evidence of it in the lowlands downstream. “I suddenly realized that the so-called black sand previously revealed by archaeologists at the Lajia site could be, in fact, the deposits from our outburst flood,” Wu said. The researchers also realized that the earthquake that destroyed the village at Lajia may have caused the landslide that dammed the river. Carbon dating of the 65-foot thick flood deposits and the bones of Lajia’s earthquake victims suggests that the flood occurred around 1920 B.C. To read about another point when an earthquake may have affected Chinese history, go to "Seismic Shift."
