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1
Dong, Guanghui, Ruo Li, Minxia Lu, Dongju Zhang, and Nathaniel James. "Evolution of human–environmental interactions in China from the Late Paleolithic to the Bronze Age." Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment 44, no. 2 (September 26, 2019): 233–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309133319876802.
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Exploring prehistoric variation in human–environmental interaction is critical for understanding the historical patterns and mechanisms of long-term human–land evolution. In this paper we review the published radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) data from Late Paleolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in China, analyze the spatial–temporal distribution of these sites, and compare it with the results of recent paleoclimatic and archaeological studies. We seek to study the trajectory and influencing factors of human–environmental interactions in late prehistoric China. We detect changing patterns in the relationship between humans and the environment during different phases of the prehistoric era in China. Climate change clearly affected the environment of hunter-gatherer groups between 50,000–10,000 BP (before present, defined as 1950AD), and variation in human population in Neolithic China (∼10,000–4000 BP) was likely influenced primarily by the development of agriculture, in addition to substantial climate events. The spatial scale of human settlements expanded in the Bronze Age (∼4000–2200 BP) in a period of cooling climate. During this time the impact of human activities on the environment increased significantly, primarily caused by technological innovations related to the onset of prehistoric transcontinental cultural exchange in Eurasia.
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JUE, RAO, LONGDI CHENG, and YUNYING LIU. "The development of the spinning wheel in ancient China." Industria Textila 70, no. 02 (2019): 120–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.35530/it.070.02.1524.
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As textile demand increased in ancient China, the spinning wheel became more widely used in the Neolithic era and was responsible for the main spinning tasks over the last few thousand years. This work explores the changes over time in the shape, diameter, and thickness of the spinning wheel in the Cross-lake Bridge, Hemudu, Yangshao, Qujialing, and Shijiahe cultures. The disc-like shape, mound-like shape, bead shape, and truncated cone shape are deemed to have been the best spinning wheel forms in the later stages – especially the disc-like spinning wheel. The spinning wheel with a diameter of 2–9 cm and a thickness of 0.1 to 9.0 cm was used throughout prehistoric times. In the late Neolithic period, a disc-like spinning wheel with a diameter of 3–4 cm and a thickness of less than a cm was the most frequently used design. This study shows that the change in the shape, diameter, and thickness of the spinning wheel is the inevitable result of the change in the tool’s design points, thereby revealing improvements in spinning efficiency
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Rapp, George. "Johan Gunnar Andersson: Archaeological Geologist and Pioneer." Earth Sciences History 33, no. 1 (January 1, 2014): 59–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.17704/eshi.33.1.h480243822118q62.
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Johan Gunnar Andersson was a Swedish economic geologist who went to China in 1914 as a mining consultant to the Chinese Government but soon, without prior experience or education in archaeology, became an archaeological geologist who discovered the famous ‘Peking Man’ site at Zhoukoudian and uncovered and defined the prehistoric Chinese Neolithic Period with his excavations and analysis of the site of Yangshao, Henan Province, China. These two discoveries were only the highlights of his pioneering expeditions in China. In his eleven years there he helped open up the country to modern methods in archaeology. As an outgrowth of his excavations in China he founded the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm. This museum became the recipient of a sizeable portion of his many excavated artifacts, some unique in China and in the West.
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Dong, Guang-Hui, Zong-Li Wang, Le-Le Ren, Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute, Hui Wang, Xiaoyan Ren, and Fahu Chen. "A Comparative Study of 14C Dating on Charcoal and Charred Seeds from Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Sites in Gansu and Qinghai Provinces, NW China." Radiocarbon 56, no. 1 (2014): 157–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.2458/56.16507.
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The chronology of the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures in Gansu and Qinghai provinces, northwest China, is mainly based on conventional radiocarbon dates from unidentified charcoal, which may be inaccurate in view of the possible “old wood” problem of 14C dating. To discuss the reliability of the chronology of those prehistoric cultures, accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates of short-lived charred seeds were compared to conventional 14C dates of unidentified charcoal from the same flotation samples in 15 Late Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in the area. The results show that 14C dates of unidentified charcoal are obviously older than those of charred seeds in 5 of the 15 flotation samples. This work suggests that the old-wood problem of 14C dating might be related to human subsistence strategies and local vegetation variation during different prehistoric cultural periods in Gansu and Qinghai provinces, which should be discussed before establishing the chronology of Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures in the area.
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Yang, Yishi, Guanghui Dong, Shanjia Zhang, Yifu Cui, Haiming Li, Guoke Chen, John Dodson, and Fahu Chen. "Copper content in anthropogenic sediments as a tracer for detecting smelting activities and its impact on environment during prehistoric period in Hexi Corridor, Northwest China." Holocene 27, no. 2 (July 28, 2016): 282–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683616658531.
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The Hexi Corridor of northwestern China was a principal axis of cultural interchange between eastern and western Eurasia during the prehistoric and historic epochs. Neolithic groups began dense settlements in Hexi Corridor after 4300 BP with millet crops and polychrome pottery from north China and bronze from Central Asia around 4000 BP accompanied by wheat, barley, and sheep. The impact of these activities on the environment during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age is not clearly understood. Therefore, we analyzed the Cu concentrations of samples collected within cultural layers of anthropogenic sediments from 17 Late Neolithic and Bronze Age sites located within the Hexi Corridor. The Cu content is reported in view of the archaeological and paleoclimatic research undertaken in the area. Our results enabled us to explore the variety of human impact on the environment before and after the introduction of bronze technology into Hexi Corridor. During 4300–4000 BP, Cu concentrations of the anthropogenic sediments were constrained within natural background values. However, from 4000 to 3400 BP, they increased substantially and far exceeded the natural background. The Cu concentrations then declined and remained above the natural background from 3000 to 2400 BP. Our work suggests that the introduction of copper melting technology led to human alteration of sediments’ chemical properties in their surrounding environments in Hexi Corridor since 4000 BP; its intensity was closely related to human settlement density, which was further affected by climate change and livelihood transition in the area during Bronze period.
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Dong, Guanghui, Xin Jia, Chengbang An, Fahu Chen, Yan Zhao, Shichen Tao, and Minmin Ma. "Mid-Holocene climate change and its effect on prehistoric cultural evolution in eastern Qinghai Province, China." Quaternary Research 77, no. 1 (January 2012): 23–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2011.10.004.
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We studied the mid-Holocene climate change in eastern Qinghai Province, China and its impact on the evolution of Majiayao (3980–2050 BC) and Qijia (2183–1635 BC) cultures, near the important Neolithic site of Changning. The investigation focused on analyses of grain size, magnetic susceptibility, ratios of elemental contents, and pollen assemblage from a loess-paleosol sequence. The results indicate that the climate was wet during 5830–4900 cal yr BP, which promoted the development of early-mid Majiayao culture in eastern Qinghai Province. However, 4900–4700 cal yr BP were drought years in the region, responsible for the decline and eastward movement of prehistoric culture during the period of transition from early-mid to late Majiayao culture. The climate turned wet again during 4700–3940 cal yr BP, which accelerated the spread of Qijia culture to the middle reaches of the Huangshui River, including the Changning site.
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Qu, Feng. "Rice Ecology and Ecological Relations: An Ontological Analysis of the Jiangjunya Masks and Crop Images from China's East Coast." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 29, no. 4 (June 10, 2019): 571–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959774319000210.
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Depictions of human faces and rice-crop images found at the Jiangjunya rock-art site in Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province, China, reveal entangling relationships between spiritual and economic aspects. Drawing on the relational ecology model and animist ontology theory, the author provides an analysis of the Jiangjunya rock art in its economic, social, spiritual and historical contexts, proposing that prehistoric farmers along China's east coast perceived rice plants as relating to persons. Rice was conceptualized not in utilitarian terms as a means of subsistence (used and consumed by humans) but rather as subjects capable of action. The human masks of Jiangjunya hence suggest a personhood for rice, rather than representing humans or anthropomorphic gods. Furthermore, the history of the Jiangjunya rock-art site corresponds with the history of local economics. The relational ontologies might have transformed gradually from human–animal interactions in the Late Palaeolithic and Early Neolithic periods to human–plant interactions in Late Neolithic societies. The author concludes that the art site was possibly treated as a mnemonic maintaining interpersonal and intersubjective relationships across thousands of years.
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Huang, Jing, Shao Lei, Liang Tang, Aihua Wang, and Zhanghua Wang. "Mid-Holocene environmental change and human response at the Neolithic Wuguishan site in the Ningbo coastal lowland of East China." Holocene 30, no. 11 (July 15, 2020): 1591–605. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683620941070.
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Coastal wetlands provided a favorable settling site for Neolithic people because of their highly exploitable biomass, but were vulnerable to marine hazards such as coastal flooding. The Chinese Hemudu culture persisted for ~2000 years (7200–5300 cal. year BP) in the Ningbo coastal lowland of East China. This study explores the Hemudu people’s survival strategy using sedimentological and chronological records, and organic and acetic-acid-leachable alkaline-earth (Ca, Sr, and Ba) chemistry on a well-dated profile from the coastal Wuguishan site in the Ningbo Plain. Analyses of alkaline-earth elements in surficial sediments collected from present-day alluvial plain, tidal river, and saltmarsh/tidal flat environments in the Ningbo Plain were also undertaken to explain sedimentary environmental changes and their linkage to Hemudu activity at the Wuguishan site. Results indicate high sediment acetic-acid-leachable Ca and Sr contents with high Sr/Ba ratios, and high sediment total inorganic carbon contents at the site during 6300–6000 cal. year BP, which coincided with a marine incursion at the nearby Neolithic Yushan site. However, the increasing sediment total organic carbon contents and decreasing δ13C values suggest that the Wuguishan site evolved from an upper tidal flat to a saltmarsh environment, attracting settlement by the prehistoric Hemudu people after ~6200 cal. year BP. Sr and Ca contents and Sr/Ba ratios decreased after ~6000 cal. year BP, indicating that the site developed into a low-salinity marsh in the supratidal environment after rapid accumulation caused by a storm event at ~6020 cal. year BP. Furthermore, the high Sr and Ba contents in the layers of Hemudu Culture Period III indicate the Hemudu people’s consumption of seafood and their adaption strategy for living in the vulnerable coastal wetland.
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Jones, Andy M. "Monuments and Memories Set in Stone: a Cornish Bronze Age Ceremonial Complex in its Landscape (on Stannon Down)." Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 72 (2006): 341–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0079497x00000888.
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Three seasons of archaeological fieldwork were carried out in 1998–2000 by Cornwall Archaeological Un within the Imerys Stannon China Clay Works, Bodmin Moor. The first two seasons involved the excavation of an Early Bronze Age cairn group and Middle Bronze Age and Middle Iron Age settlement activity. The third season on the Northern Downs involved the evaluation a number of cairns, field systems, and palaeoenvironmental sites.The cairn group consisted of three earlier Bronze Age ring-cairns and two ‘tailed’ cairns. One ring-cairn continued to be used as a ceremonial monument in the Middle Bronze Age and was reused during the Iron Age as a dwelling. An artefact assemblage including Bronze and Iron Age pottery and stonework was recovered. Two prehistoric beads one of faience, the other of amber, were also found.Ten Bronze Age radiocarbon determinations spanning 2490–1120 cal BC and two Iron Age determinations (370–40 cal BC) were obtained from three of the cairns. Two pollen columns on the Northern Downs were also dated. Significantly, a series of eight determinations was obtained from a single column, which provided environmental information from the Mesolithic through to the early medieval period. The radiocarbon dating showed that impact on the vegetation of the Down commenced during the Neolithic, with larger-scale clearance during the Bronze Age. Widespread open grassland was established by the Middle Bronze Age.It is suggested here that use of space within the cairn group was structured and that the cairns formed a monument complex which was part of a wider landscape cosmology, involving groupings of particular monument types and the referencing of rocky outcrops and tors.The investigations on Stannon Down were important as an opportunity to study an Early Bronze Age ceremonial landscape and reconsider how later Middle Bronze Age and Iron Age peoples on Bodmin Moor might have engaged with and interpreted the materiality of earlier prehistoric monuments.
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Derevianko, A. P., Yu A. Azarenko, and S. A. Komissarov. "Changbin culture on Taiwan: history of investigations and basic characteristics." Archaeology and Ethnography 17, no. 5 (2018): 21–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.25205/1818-7919-2018-17-5-21-29.
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Purpose. The paper describes the most ancient archaeological culture of Taiwan and its significance for the reconstruction of the early stage of the human society’s development in the region. Results. Changbin, the culture of the Late Paleolithic Age, named after Changbin Township in Taidong County on the eastern coast of the island and its southern extremities where it was discovered. Excavations of the primary site, Baxiandong (Baxian caves; or Pahsientung), started in 1968, with new findings being made nowadays. The Baxian sea-cave samples were tested with radiocarbon measurement to have been dated from 15 to 5 thousand years ago, making earlier dates (around 50,000 years ago) debatable. The bulk of artifacts found includes chipped stone and bone tools, mainly of them are flint scrapers, sharp-edged flake tools, pebble chopping tools, shell scrapers and also tools made of bone, such as wedges, stitching awls and fish hooks. The ancient people, who lived in the caves, hunted, fished and gathered seafood on the coast. Typlogically, the Changbin tools are similar to the Hoabinhian industry. It is possible that Changbinhians came to Taiwan from the Southeast China, but also probably from the Phillipines. At its late stage, the Changbin culture overlaps with the Neolithic Dabenkeng culture (about 5000–2500 years BC), but there is no evidence to any contacts between them. Conclusion. Changbin Culture is extremely important for the understanding of the origin of the first settlements in prehistorical Taiwan. Farther research can bring new results in revealing the features of anthropogenesis on the territory of the Eastern Asia. Detailed reconstruction of the stages of development of this territory, with special attention to the initial settlement of Taiwan, is necessary to understand the basic characteristics of the cultural evolution of the early cultures in the region and can help solve the problem of the spread of a modern anthropological type in ecumene, make possible the identifying the ways of ancient migrations in the Asia-Pacific region. The initial period of studies of Baxian caves made possible to formulate the tasks for the new search, the answers to which will be received within the next stage of the archaeological works, having begun about 10 years ago.
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Carmichael, Stephen W. "Microscopes Reveal Prehistoric High Technology." Microscopy Today 14, no. 2 (March 2006): 3–5. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1551929500055280.
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Since the beginning of human civilization, people have apparently been fascinated with the reflection of light from surfaces. The creation of shiny surfaces extends from 4,000 B.C., when Neolithic farmers in ancient China polished jade objects, to the present day where modern polishing techniques are key to creating flat surfaces in the fabrication of electronic microcomponents. The question we are posing here is how does one determine when high technology was introduced in the process of polishing? Recently, Peter Lu, Nan Yao, Jenny So, George Harlow, Jianfang Lu, Genfu Wang, and Paul Chaikin offered an answer to this question. Interestingly, microscopes were used to provide the answer.
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Pang, Xiaoxia. "A study on the Neolithic turquoises in China." Chinese Archaeology 16, no. 1 (November 27, 2016): 152–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/char-2016-0014.
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Abstract The turquoise objects of the Neolithic Age in China are mainly unearthed in the seven regions: the Central Plains, the Haidai cultural zone, the Gansu-Qinghai-Ningxia region, the Northern Frontier Zone, the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the lower reach of the Yangtze River and the South China. Their main functions are ornaments and burial objects, and their distribution was expanding constantly from the early to the late Neolithic Age: in the early period, they were only seen in the Central Plains and the Northern Frontier Zone; down to the late period, they were found in all of the seven regions. The forms and types of the turquoise objects were changing from simple to complex and from single object to parts and adornments inlayed or attached to other objects. At the beginning, the manufacturing techniques were relatively simple, but the engraving skill appeared. The turquoise objects were mainly unearthed from burials; when they just emerged, they were not the symbols of the statuses, positions and the wealth as well as genders and ages of the tomb occupants. However, during the Longshan Age, in some regions the turquoise was attached to some exquisite utensils or implements which might be used as ritual instruments, and began to become symbols of statuses and ranks, which was the most obvious in the Haidai area. As for the resources of the turquoise, it is still to be explored that they were imported from the peripheral area of present-day China or obtained locally.
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Zhao, Chaodong, Jincheng Yu, Tao Wang, Wu Xiaohong, Hao Shougang, Xueping Ma, and Zhengkai Xia. "A study on an early Neolithic site in North China." Documenta Praehistorica 30 (January 1, 2003): 169–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/dp.30.11.
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These are few sites about 10 000 BP in the early Neolithic period in North China; among these, the Donghulin site is the only one which included the remains of peoples' use of fire (hearth pits), stone implements, pottery objects, and human tombs. The excavation of the Donghulin site in 2001 provides very important information for research on people and culture in the early Neolithic period in North China. The finding of Donghulin Man has filled the gap in our knowledge of human development since the period of the "Upper Cave Man" (30 000a BP) in North China. It is also important for research on people-land relationships.
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Li, Zhong Xuan, and Guo Xi Wu. "Prehistoric Human Activities and its Environmental Background in Central China: A Case Study in Henan Province." Applied Mechanics and Materials 357-360 (August 2013): 448–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.357-360.448.
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Based on amount change and distribution density of the Neolithic sites in Henan Province, these sites are divided into three types: (1)the Growth type. This type is mainly located in Luoyang Basin where the landform was convenient for millet-farming and settlement-clustering. (2) the Atrophy type. It mainly sits in the Nanyang Basin in which was a transition zone for cultural exchange. And (3) is the Oscillation type. This type distributes around the area of Yinghe-Ruhe River downstream with low land and frequent floods, which affected the amounts of sites in respond to series climate fluctuations in the early and middle Holocene. Comparatively, the unique terrain environment and water networks in the Luoyang Basin heralded the earliest civilized fruit in China and to be the cradle of early cultural transmission.
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Yuan, Sixun, Guoxing Zhou, Zhiyu Guo, Zimo Zhang, Shijun Gao, Kun Li, Jiangjun Wang, Kexing Liu, Bin Li, and Xiangyang Lu. "14C AMS Dating the Transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic in South China." Radiocarbon 37, no. 2 (1995): 245–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0033822200030708.
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To study the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic period and its duration, samples of charcoal, bone, flowstone and shells excavated from Bailiandong and Miaoyan caves, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, South China were dated using the Peking University AMS facility and liquid scintillation counter. The remains excavated from these sites show typical characteristics of the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic. Radiocarbon dating results show a rapid transition from ca. 20 to 10 ka bp.
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Jin, Jianhui, Yunming Huang, Zhizhong Li, Xuechun Fan, Zhiyong Ling, Zhixing Li, and Xiaoju Liu. "Optically stimulated luminescence dating of coastal sediments at Funing Bay, Southeastern China." Geochronometria 46, no. 1 (February 11, 2019): 15–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/geochr-2015-0103.
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Abstract The possible role of environmental change, especially sea level change, as a stimulus for the development of human residence and migration is poorly understood. We investigate this problem by showing a record of sea-level change and coastal transformation based on a sediment core (FN1 core) and a Neolithic site (Pingfengshan site) obtained from the Funing bay on the northeast coast of Fujian, China. The Funing bay coastal area represents a unique feature in China’s Neolithic cultures, comprising a silty beach dominated by quartz-rich sand and several important sites of Huangguashan cultural period. Samples from FN1 core and Pingfengshan site were taken for grain size ananlyses and for optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating. The blue-light stimulated OSL signals were measured by the single aliquot regenerative dose (SAR) protocol to determine the ages of of the samples. Samples from FN1 core yield OSL ages ranging from 49.9 ka to 0.8 ka, providing the systematic geochronological evidence for the sea level change of Funing bay. The comparison of sea level change and Neolithic cultural periods presents a good relationship in coastal area of Fujian, China since about 7 ka before present. In detail, the cultural types of Keqiutou culture and Huangguashan culture all belong to coastal mountainous culture, of which flourishing periods corresponds to the higher sea level periods of mid-late Holocene. Tanshishan culture belongs to estuarine coastal culture, and most sites of this period correspond to a lower sea level located at lower altitudes.
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Xie, Liye, Steven L. Kuhn, Guoping Sun, John W. Olsen, Yunfei Zheng, Pin Ding, and Ye Zhao. "Labor Costs for Prehistoric Earthwork Construction: Experimental and Archaeological Insights from the Lower Yangzi Basin, China." American Antiquity 80, no. 1 (January 2015): 67–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.7183/0002-7316.79.4.67.
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AbstractThis paper examines choices of earth-working tools made by Neolithic Chinese populations. In the Hemudu Culture (7000–5000 B.P.), bone (scapula) digging tools were used from the earliest times, whereas peoples in surrounding areas used stone spades. A range of experiments on manufacturing costs, durability, and use efficiency under realistic conditions show that bone and stone spades are functionally equivalent when soils are soft, but that stone implements provide significant and easily perceived advantages when working harder soils. The persistence of scapular spades in the Hemudu Culture would have constrained decisions about undertaking large construction projects under normal soil conditions. Our results show that, in addition to generalized labor for construction, labor demands for producing earth-working implements for large-scale prehistoric earthworks could have also been substantial. These findings not only help explain the processes of intensifying rice-agriculture and sedentary settlements in the Lower Yangzi Basin, but also create a solid foundation for further investigation of how the recruitment of both generalized and specialized laborers, the organization of craft production, and the relevant logistics for large-scale earthworks may have paralleled concentrations of political power in prehistory.
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Cai, Yudong, Weiwei Fu, Dawei Cai, Rasmus Heller, Zhuqing Zheng, Jia Wen, Hui Li, et al. "Ancient Genomes Reveal the Evolutionary History and Origin of Cashmere-Producing Goats in China." Molecular Biology and Evolution 37, no. 7 (April 23, 2020): 2099–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaa103.
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Abstract Goats are one of the most widespread farmed animals across the world; however, their migration route to East Asia and local evolutionary history remain poorly understood. Here, we sequenced 27 ancient Chinese goat genomes dating from the Late Neolithic period to the Iron Age. We found close genetic affinities between ancient and modern Chinese goats, demonstrating their genetic continuity. We found that Chinese goats originated from the eastern regions around the Fertile Crescent, and we estimated that the ancestors of Chinese goats diverged from this population in the Chalcolithic period. Modern Chinese goats were divided into a northern and a southern group, coinciding with the most prominent climatic division in China, and two genes related to hair follicle development, FGF5 and EDA2R, were highly divergent between these populations. We identified a likely causal de novo deletion near FGF5 in northern Chinese goats that increased to high frequency over time, whereas EDA2R harbored standing variation dating to the Neolithic. Our findings add to our understanding of the genetic composition and local evolutionary process of Chinese goats.
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Li, Xueqin, Garman Harbottle, Juzhong Zhang, and Changsui Wang. "The earliest writing? Sign use in the seventh millennium BC at Jiahu, Henan Province, China." Antiquity 77, no. 295 (March 2003): 31–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00061329.
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Early Neolithic graves at Jiahu, Henan Province, China, include tortoise shells which are incised with signs – some of which anticipate later Chinese characters and may be intended as words. Is this the earliest writing? The authors decide rather that the signs in this very early period performed as symbols connected with ritual practice, but they presage a long period of sign use which led eventually to a writing system.
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Pankenier, David W. "The cosmic center in Early China and its archaic resonances." Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 7, S278 (January 2011): 298–307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1743921311012737.
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AbstractStudy of the role of astronomical alignments in shaping the built environment suggests that centuries before establishment of the Empire in 221 BCE, the Chinese had already developed practical, geometrical applications of astronomical knowledge useful in orienting high-value structures. The archaeological record clearly shows this fundamental disposition was already firmly established by the formative period of Chinese civilization in the early 2nd millennium BCE. The cosmological identification of the imperial center with the celestial Pole and an intense focus on the circumpolar ‘skyscape’ are manifested in the highly symbolic orientation of early imperial capitals. Certain features of this cosmological world-view may have emerged as early as the Neolithic.
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Owlett, Tricia. "FINDING GREENER PASTURES: THE LOCAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGRO-PASTORALISM IN THE ORDOS REGION, NORTH CHINA." Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology 40 (January 20, 2017): 42. http://dx.doi.org/10.7152/jipa.v40i0.14994.
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<p><em>The results of recent archaeological research in the Ordos region provide new information on the timing and process of the development of agro-pastoralism in China. Integrating previously published archaeological materials with archaeological research conducted since 2000, this essay synthesizes our current understanding of archaeological data for the middle to late Neolithic period (c. 3500–1800 B.C.) of the Ordos Region. The region is generally defined as including northern Shaanxi, southwestern Inner Mongolia, eastern Ningxia, and western Shanxi Provinces. Research into this transition to large-scale reliance upon domesticated herd animals is just beginning, but sheep, goat, and cattle husbandry were important from the Late Neolithic period onwards. During this time wild resources obtained through hunting and foraging appear to have been complementary to the diet in this region, though in small amounts. With the increasing use of zooarchaeological analysis, the foundation is laid for a greater understanding of the origins and the development of agro-pastoralism in the Ordos Region, Northwest China.</em></p>
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LI, KaiFeng, HanSheng HE, LiuGen LIN, Yan TAN, Bing LI, ZiJian WANG, Li WU, et al. "Recognition of sea-level change during the Neolithic period in the Jiangsu Area, East China." Chinese Science Bulletin 61, no. 3 (January 1, 2016): 374–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1360/n972015-00713.
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Demattè, Paola. "The Origins of Chinese Writing: the Neolithic Evidence." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20, no. 2 (June 2010): 211–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959774310000247.
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In China, a number of signs from some Late Neolithic contexts suggest that recoding activities were well developed before Chinese writing became widespread during the Shang period. Archaeological and palaeographic evidence indicates that mature writing is likely to have evolved from these earlier signing systems as a result of the increasing social and political complexity of the societies of the Late Neolithic. This article analyses three Late Neolithic signing systems that may have led to the mature Chinese writing of the Shang oracle bone inscriptions, and argues that non-linguistic visual signing played a role in the emergence of writing systems.
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Yang, Xiaoping, Louis A. Scuderi, Xulong Wang, Louis J. Scuderi, Deguo Zhang, Hongwei Li, Steven Forman, et al. "Groundwater sapping as the cause of irreversible desertification of Hunshandake Sandy Lands, Inner Mongolia, northern China." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 3 (January 5, 2015): 702–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418090112.
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In the middle-to-late Holocene, Earth’s monsoonal regions experienced catastrophic precipitation decreases that produced green to desert state shifts. Resulting hydrologic regime change negatively impacted water availability and Neolithic cultures. Whereas mid-Holocene drying is commonly attributed to slow insolation reduction and subsequent nonlinear vegetation–atmosphere feedbacks that produce threshold conditions, evidence of trigger events initiating state switching has remained elusive. Here we document a threshold event ca. 4,200 years ago in the Hunshandake Sandy Lands of Inner Mongolia, northern China, associated with groundwater capture by the Xilamulun River. This process initiated a sudden and irreversible region-wide hydrologic event that exacerbated the desertification of the Hunshandake, resulting in post-Humid Period mass migration of northern China’s Neolithic cultures. The Hunshandake remains arid and is unlikely, even with massive rehabilitation efforts, to revert back to green conditions.
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Li, Qiang, and Bin Li. "Study on the Origin of Textile Technology in Ancient China." Advanced Materials Research 332-334 (September 2011): 2045–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.332-334.2045.
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Some researchers use the drawing about primitive hunting with stone balls in order to explain the origin of textile technology in ancient China. However, the description in the drawing is inconsistent with the historical facts and lead to a wrong conclusion drawn by the researchers. We aimed to explain objectively the origin of the textile technology in ancient China. We have had some queries for the authenticity of the drawing after we made some archaeological and folk-custom investigations on the application of primitive stone balls. It is concluded that the origin of spinning in ancient China dated back to the upper Palaeolithic period and was an indispensable link of human evolution from ape man to human, but the origin of weaving in ancient China dated back to the Neolithic period. Only when the primitive farming became the main production department and the explosion of population required the substitute of clothes made of hide, did the spinning, weaving and textile design merged together and finally resulted in the formation of the textile technology system.
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Li, Ruo, Feiya Lv, Liu Yang, Fengwen Liu, Ruiliang Liu, and Guanghui Dong. "Spatial–Temporal Variation of Cropping Patterns in Relation to Climate Change in Neolithic China." Atmosphere 11, no. 7 (June 27, 2020): 677. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/atmos11070677.
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The Neolithic period witnessed the start and spread of agriculture across Eurasia, as well as the beginning of important climate changes which would take place over millennia. Nevertheless, it remains rather unclear in what ways local societies chose to respond to these considerable changes in both the shorter and longer term. Crops such as rice and millet were domesticated in the Yangtze River and the Yellow River valleys in China during the early Holocene. Paleoclimate studies suggest that the pattern of precipitation in these two areas was distinctly different. This paper reviews updated archaeobotanical evidence from Neolithic sites in China. Comparing these results to the regional high-resolution paleoclimate records enables us to better understand the development of rice and millet and its relation to climate change. This comparison shows that rice was mainly cultivated in the Yangtze River valley and its southern margin, whereas millet cultivation occurred in the northern area of China during 9000–7000 BP. Both millet and rice-based agriculture became intensified and expanded during 7000–5000 BP. In the following period of 5000–4000 BP, rice agriculture continued to expand within the Yangtze River valley and millet cultivation moved gradually westwards. Meanwhile, mixed agriculture based on both millet and rice developed along the boundary between north and south. From 9000–7000 BP, China maintained hunting activities. Subsequently, from 7000–6000 BP, changes in vegetation and landscape triggered by climate change played an essential role in the development of agriculture. Precipitation became an important factor in forming the distinct regional patterns of Chinese agriculture in 6000–4000 BP.
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Zhao, Chao. "The Climate Fluctuation of the 8.2 ka BP Cooling Event and the Transition into Neolithic Lifeways in North China." Quaternary 3, no. 3 (August 4, 2020): 23. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/quat3030023.
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Early Neolithic lifeways in North China, which are marked by a low-level food production economy, population aggregation, and sedentism, thrived just after the period of a climatic cooling event at 8.2 ka. Instead of simply regarding this climate fluctuation as a cause for the significant socio-economic transition, this paper attempts to explore the interplay between people’s choices of coping strategies with climate change as a perspective to learn how people respond to this climate fluctuation and how such responses generated the interlocked socio-economic transitions. This analysis indicates that pre-existing changes in human adaptive behaviors prior to the cooling events were sufficient to enable people in certain areas to apply the intensification of food procurement in circumscribed territories as a strategy to cope with the climate fluctuations of the 8.2 ka BP cooling event. The application of such a coping strategy facilitated the economic and sociopolitical transition into Neolithic lifeways and led to the flourishing development of Neolithic cultures after 8 ka BP in North China.
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Zong, Yongqiang, James B. Innes, Zhanghua Wang, and Zhongyuan Chen. "Mid-Holocene coastal hydrology and salinity changes in the east Taihu area of the lower Yangtze wetlands, China." Quaternary Research 76, no. 1 (July 2011): 69–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2011.03.005.
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AbstractDuring the mid-Holocene the eastern Taihu area, on China's Yangtze delta plain, was populated by advanced late Neolithic cultures supported by intensive domesticated rice cultivation. This agricultural system collapsed around 4200 cal yr BP, with severe population decline, the end of the Liangzhu culture, and about half a millennium of very low-scale human activity in the area before the re-establishment of agricultural production. Microfossil analyses from six sedimentary sequences, supported by AMS 14C dating, has allowed reconstruction of mid-Holocene hydrological conditions and salinity changes which would have had a major influence on agricultural viability and cultural history in the coastal wetlands. These data, allied to existing stratigraphic and sea-level records, show that chenier ridges that developed after ca. 7000 cal yr BP in the east of the area sheltered it from marine inundation and although still connected to the sea through tidal creeks, low-salinity conditions persisted throughout the Neolithic period. There is no evidence that marine flooding caused the collapse of Liangzhu culture. Marine influence was stable and evolved slowly. Social and cultural causes may also have been important, but if environmental change triggered the collapse of Neolithic agricultural society here, other natural forces must be sought to explain this event.
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Hung, Hsiao-chun, and Mike T. Carson. "Foragers, fishers and farmers: origins of the Taiwanese Neolithic." Antiquity 88, no. 342 (December 2014): 1115–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00115352.
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The Neolithic of Taiwan represents the first stage in the expansion of Austronesian-speaking peoples through the Pacific. Settlement and burial evidence from the Tapenkeng (TKP) or Dabenkeng culture demonstrates the development of the early Taiwanese Neolithic over a period of almost 2000 years, from its origin in the pre-TPK of the Pearl River Delta and south-eastern coastal China. The first TPK communities of Taiwan pursued a mixed coastal foraging and horticultural lifestyle, but by the late TPK rice and millet farming were practised with extensive villages and large settlements. The broad-spectrum subsistence diversity of the Taiwanese Neolithic was an important factor in facilitating the subsequent expansion of Austronesian-speaking peoples to the Philippines and beyond.
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Zhang, Juzhong, Xinghua Xiao, and Yun Kuen Lee. "The early development of music. Analysis of the Jiahu bone flutes." Antiquity 78, no. 302 (December 2004): 769–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00113432.
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The authors present the musical properties of well-preserved bone flutes recently recovered from Jiahu, an early Neolithic site in central China with a sequence beginning in the seventh millennium BC (Antiquity 77: 31–44). Tonal analyses of five of the flutes indicate a gradual development from four-tone to seven-tone scale. By adding more holes to the pipe, structuring the pitch intervals closer to each other, and by alternating the keynote, the prehistoric musicians could play increasingly expressive and varied music. In addition, the flutes became progressively standardised in pitch, presumably so they could play in harmony. The study shows that the Jiahu flute makers and their musicians became progressively familiar with acoustics and developed a cognitive scheme of music comparable to that of modern times.
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Jørgensen, Lise Bender. "The question of prehistoric silks in Europe." Antiquity 87, no. 336 (June 1, 2013): 581–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00049140.
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Textiles and clothing are among the most visible aspects of human social and symbolic behaviour and yet they have left all too few traces in the archaeological record and it is easy to overlook their importance. Luxury textiles such as silk can additionally provide evidence of long-distance contact, notably between Europe and China during the Han dynasty and the Roman empire. But can these connections be projected back in time to the prehistoric period? The late Irene Good proposed a number of identifications of silk in Iron Age Europe and was instrumental in bringing the issue to wider attention. Closer examination reported here, however, calls those identifications into question. Instead, the case is put that none of the claimed Iron Age silks can be confirmed, and that early traffic in silk textiles to Europe before the Roman period cannot be substantiated.
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Bennett, Gwen P. "Context and Meaning in Late Neolithic Lithic Production in China: The Longshan Period in Southeastern Shandong Province." Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 17, no. 1 (June 28, 2008): 52–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ap3a.2007.17.1.52.
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Jia, Xin, Guanghui Dong, Hu Li, Katherine Brunson, FaHu Chen, Minmin Ma, Hui Wang, Chengbang An, and Keren Zhang. "The development of agriculture and its impact on cultural expansion during the late Neolithic in the Western Loess Plateau, China." Holocene 23, no. 1 (July 19, 2012): 85–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683612450203.
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Based on radiocarbon dating and our analysis of plant and animal remains from Buziping, a Majiayao (5300–4300 BP) and Qijia (4200–3800 BP) period site located in Dingxi, Gansu Province, China, and our review of archaeobotanical studies in the Western Loess Plateau and adjacent areas, we discuss subsistence strategies during the Majiayao and Qijia periods. We also discuss the development of agriculture in the Western Loess Plateau and its influence on cultural expansion during the late Neolithic period. Humans settled at Buziping for the first time during the Majiayao period (4890–4710 cal. yr BP by 14C dating). Charred seeds from the site indicate that people engaged in millet-based agricultural production. People continued this type of agriculture during a second phase of occupation (4130–3880 cal. yr BP by 14C dating) during the Qijia period, but the proportion of foxtail millet to broomcorn millet increased from the Majiayao to Qijia period. Raising domestic animals was another aspect of subsistence during the Qijia period. The main domestic animals were likely pigs and dogs, although hunting of wild animals also took place. Subsistence at Buziping site was affected by the rapid development of intensive agriculture that diffused across eastern Gansu Province during the late Neolithic. Our work suggests that millet-based agriculture spread from east to west across the Western Loess Plateau and likely promoted the expansions of those two cultures in the area during the Majiayao period and early–mid Qijia period. Climate change might have also promoted Majiayao and Qijia expansions and probably facilitated the adoption of rain-fed agriculture in this region.
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Jin, Jianhui, Zhizhong Li, Yunming Huang, Feng Jiang, Xuechun Fan, Zhiyong Ling, Yan Cheng, and Xiaolin Xu. "Chronology of a late Neolithic Age site near the southern coastal region of Fujian, China." Holocene 27, no. 9 (January 24, 2017): 1265–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683616687383.
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An archaeological site at Anshan in the coastal area of Fujian province, southern China, was excavated in 2007, 2009 and 2015. Abundant artefacts including adzes, cores, bronze fishhook, pottery and bone arrowheads are found in the aeolian sediments. The aim of this article is to understand the geomorphological backdrop and process of Anshan site, and the coupling relationship between human activity and environmental evolution. In this study, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) technique was employed to establish the chronological framework of the site. Samples from the top and bottom of cultural layer yield OSL ages ranging from 1.4 to 6.1 ka, providing a systematic geochronological evidence for the development of ‘Anshan culture’ in coastal area of southern Fujian province and eastern Guangdong province. In the meantime, there is a clear link between the varying regional sea levels, the chronology of regional wind-sand deposition and the period of Anshan culture since the mid-Holocene.
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Li, Liu. "Mortuary Ritual and Social Hierarchy in the Longshan Culture." Early China 21 (1996): 1–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0362502800003394.
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The mortuary data from the Longshan culture provide crucial information for understanding the process of socio-political change from non-stratified to stratified societies in late Neolithic China. This article identifies the variables in Longshan burials that can be correlated with social rank, and then studies four Longshan burial sites (Taosi, Chengzi, Yinjiacheng, and Zhufeng) in two steps. The first step is to classify the evidence for determining burial rank; the second step is to analyze intra-cemetery spatial patterns through time, including the location of graves within a site, the distribution of differently ranked graves and spatial relationships between graves and associated features (houses and pits), the diachronic changes observed in a site, and the depositional practices relating to ritual activities. The results of these analyses suggest that kinship-based Longshan communities were internally and externally stratified in their social structure; that this social stratification was ideologically legitimized by ritual activities that emphasized ancestor worship; and that their society was politically reinforced by an elite exchange network of high status goods at both regional and interregional levels. These social, political, and religious relationships formed the foundation for the development of civilization in prehistoric North China.
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Shelach, Gideon, Kate Raphael, and Yitzhak Jaffe. "Sanzuodian: the structure, function and social significance of the earliest stone fortified sites in China." Antiquity 85, no. 327 (February 2011): 11–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00067405.
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The authors present new research on the Chifeng area of north-eastern China where they have been studying the remains of a society of the second millennium BC. This northern region, which saw the introduction of agriculture at the same time as the Yellow River basin experienced a brief and intensive period of fortification in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age: natural ridges above the valleys were ringed with double stone walls and semicircular towers enclosing clusters of round houses with yards. Using large-scale survey and analysis of the structures at the key site of Sanzuodian, they place this phenomenon in its cultural and social context.
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Wang, Can, Houyuan Lu, Wanfa Gu, Xinxin Zuo, Jianping Zhang, Yanfeng Liu, Yingjian Bao, and Yayi Hu. "Temporal changes of mixed millet and rice agriculture in Neolithic-Bronze Age Central Plain, China: Archaeobotanical evidence from the Zhuzhai site." Holocene 28, no. 5 (November 24, 2017): 738–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683617744269.
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Mixed millet and rice agriculture is a unique agricultural style of China, and is distributed in a broad band between the Yangtze and Yellow River basin. However, the development of this style during the Neolithic-Bronze Age has not been comprehensively clarified, owing to limited archaeobotanical data and imprecise chronology for most of the regions. Here, the Central Plain, a location where mixed agriculture may have first appeared, was selected as the area for research. Phytolith and macrofossil analyses from the Zhuzhai site, together with the accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon dating of samples, reveal information about the temporal changes of mixed agriculture as well as the domestication and cultivation of crops in this region. The results indicate that mixed millet and rice agriculture formed in the Central Plain about 8000 years ago. Common millet was the principal crop in the Peiligang and Yangshao periods, with the domestication process beginning in the Peiligang period and continuing up to the Shang period, at which time it was replaced by foxtail millet. Foxtail millet may have gone through a significant degree of domestication by ca. 6000 cal. BC, but its domestication process was still unclear. Rice had appeared since the Peiligang period, but its proportions were always low. Rice assigned to the Peiligang and Yangshao Cultures was the domesticated japonica, and its cultivation was always performed in dry field systems through the Neolithic-Bronze time. Within the subsistence economy, mixed agriculture was a minor component during the Peiligang period, but has been dominant since the Yangshao period.
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Piezonka, Henny. "THE WORLD’S OLDEST POTS: ON THE DISPERSAL OF THE CERAMIC INNOVATION AMONG EURASIAN HUNTER-GATHERERS SINCE THE LATE GLACIAL PERIOD." History and Modern Perspectives 2, no. 2 (June 30, 2020): 66–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.33693/2658-4654-2020-2-2-66-78.
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The earliest ceramic vessels of the world have been produced in southern China by Late Glacial hunter-gatherers in the remote times around 18,000 calBC. Over the following millennia the new technology became known among forager communities in the Russian Amur region, in Japan, Korea, Transbaikalia and ultimately appeared also in the Urals and in eastern and northern central Europe. Contrary to common views of pottery as part of the “Neolithic package”, the Eurasian hunter-gatherer ceramic tradition is an innovation that developed completely independent of other Neolithic traits such as agriculture, animal husbandry and sedentary lifestyle. The paper explores the chronological sequence of the appearance of hunter-gatherer ceramic vessel production on the basis of radiocarbon dates in northern Eurasia from the Pacific coast to the Baltic and outlines promising methodological approaches that currently play a role in researching this much-discussed topic.
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Cai, Shuhui, Wei Chen, Lisa Tauxe, Chenglong Deng, Huafeng Qin, Yongxin Pan, Liang Yi, and Rixiang Zhu. "New constraints on the variation of the geomagnetic field during the late Neolithic period: Archaeointensity results from Sichuan, southwestern China." Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth 120, no. 4 (April 2015): 2056–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2014jb011618.
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Zhu, Yizhi, Peng Cheng, Shi-Yong Yu, Huagui Yu, Zhihai Kang, Yachang Yang, A. J. T. Jull, T. Lange, and Weijian Zhou. "Establishing a Firm Chronological Framework for Neolithic and Early Dynastic Archaeology in the Shangluo Area, Central China." Radiocarbon 52, no. 2 (2010): 466–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0033822200045495.
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Technological and theoretical advancements in modern radiocarbon chronology make the precise dating of archaeological and geological events possible. Here, we show examples of how these state-of-the-art methods can be used to establish and refine the archaeological cultural chronology for the Shangluo area in the Qinling Mountains of central China. In this study, the Donglongshan and Zijing sites were dated using the high-precision accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C method. Also, detailed magnetic-susceptibility measurements were conducted at both sites to gain preliminary information about past climate changes. The 14C dates, after being treated with Bayesian statistics, provide a firm constraint on the archaeological chronological framework for this area. Within this framework, the Malan loess-Holocene soil transition can be placed at 10,400–10,090 BC, while the duration of the Yangshao and Longshan cultures was dated to ∼4200–2900 and ∼2900–2100 BC, respectively, revealing an undisrupted history of human occupation in this area until the early dynastic period. Magnetic susceptibility values began to increase in the early Holocene, indicating a progressive amelioration of regional climate. The widespread development of paleosol during the middle Holocene indicates that warm and wet climate conditions prevailed, providing a favorable environmental context within which the Yangshao culture thrived. Magnetic susceptibility values then decreased from ∼2100 BC when the Xia Dynasty started, and loess accumulated again, pointing to cooling and drying climate conditions that may have led to a cultural transition from the Neolithic to the dynastic civilization.
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Liu, Li. "Who were the ancestors? The origins of Chinese ancestral cult and racial myths." Antiquity 73, no. 281 (September 1999): 602–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00065170.
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Ancestor worship has been a dominant religious form in ancient as well as modern China. It has shaped thought and behaviour for millennia, and has been used by élites as propaganda legitimizing their political positions. Ancestors can be created and modified, so the nature of the ancestral cult has changed through time. Using archaeological data from China, this article first enables an exploration of the earliest manifestations and the development of ancestor-worship ritual in the Neolithic period; secondly, demonstrates that lineage/tribal ancestors became state deities in the Shang dynasty (c. 1600-1100 BC); and, thirdly, investigates the process in modern history by which a legendary sage, the Yellow Emperor, was first transformed into the progenitor of the Han Chinese, and then into the common ancestor of all Chinese people.
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Wang, Wei. "On the archaeological culture and related issues." Chinese Archaeology 16, no. 1 (November 27, 2016): 148–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/char-2016-0013.
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Abstract Archaeological culture is a fundamental concept of archaeology, and an essential subject of theoretical thinking. In China, the study of cultures has been a central subject of archaeological research, especially that of the Neolithic Age and the Xia-Shang-Zhou Period. Since the 1980s, however, cultural sequence has been established in most regions of China, and all sorts of scientific techniques and archaeological theories have been extensively employed in archaeology; should we continue to take archaeological cultures as a central subject of research? If yes, how can we carry on the research in line with the new developments? Such questions must be addressed from both the theoretical and practical perspectives. Based on personal observation of Chinese archaeology, the author would present new thoughts on the concept of culture and related issues.
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Lander, Brian. "BIRDS AND BEASTS WERE MANY: THE ECOLOGY AND CLIMATE OF THE GUANZHONG BASIN IN THE PRE-IMPERIAL PERIOD." Early China 43 (September 2020): 207–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/eac.2020.10.
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AbstractThis paper reviews current knowledge on the geography, climate, flora, and fauna of Shaanxi's Guanzhong 關中 Basin, a region that has been particularly well studied because it was a capital region of the Zhou, Qin, Han, and Tang dynasties. Humans have so thoroughly transformed the region that it is hard to imagine that it was ever full of wild plants and animals. And since much of the English-language scholarship on the Zhou period focuses on the texts and ideas of urban elites, it is easy to forget that most people were rural farmers living in environments full of wild plants and animals, and that many places had no humans at all. Scholars in various fields have produced abundant new information on the environments of ancient China, making it possible to reconstruct climate and ecology far more accurately than was possible before. This research shows that, contra older claims that ancient North China had a subtropical climate, the climate of the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods was only slightly warmer and wetter than the present. The most important factor in the transformation of the region's ecosystems has been humans, not climate. We will focus on the pre-imperial period because various lines of evidence suggest that the first millennium b.c.e. was a period of population growth in which agricultural societies wiped out many of the natural ecosystems of lowland North China. Only by reconstructing what North China looked like thousands of years ago will we be able to understand how humans came to be the dominant force in the region's ecology.
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Fuller, Dorian Q., Jacob van Etten, Katie Manning, Cristina Castillo, Eleanor Kingwell-Banham, Alison Weisskopf, Ling Qin, Yo-Ichiro Sato, and Robert J. Hijmans. "The contribution of rice agriculture and livestock pastoralism to prehistoric methane levels." Holocene 21, no. 5 (June 1, 2011): 743–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683611398052.
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We review the origins and dispersal of rice in Asia based on a data base of 443 archaeobotanical reports. Evidence is considered in terms of quality, and especially whether there are data indicating the mode of cultivation, in flooded (‘paddy’ or ‘wet’) or non-flooded (‘dry’) fields. At present it appears that early rice cultivation in the Yangtze region and southern China was based on wet, paddy-field systems from early on, before 4000 bc, whereas early rice in northern India and Thailand was predominantly dry rice at 2000 bc, with a transition to flooded rice documented for India at c. 1000 bc. On the basis of these data we have developed a GIS spatial model of the spread of rice and the growth of land area under paddy rice. This is then compared with a review of the spread of ungulate livestock (cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goat) throughout the Old World. After the initial dispersal through Europe and around the Mediterranean (7000–4000 bc), the major period of livestock expansion is after 3000 bc, into the Sub-Saharan savannas, through monsoonal India and into central China. Further expansion, to southern Africa and Southeast Asia dates mostly after 1000 bc. Based on these two data sets we provide a quantitative model of the land area under irrigated rice, and its likely methane output, through the mid to late Holocene, for comparison to a more preliminary estimate of the expansion of methane-producing livestock. Both data sets are congruent with an anthropogenic source of later Holocene methane after 3000 bc, although it may be that increase in methane input from livestock was most significant in the 3000–1000 bc period, whereas rice paddies become an increasingly significant source especially after 2000 bc.
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Wang, Tingting, Dong Wei, Xien Chang, Zhiyong Yu, Xinyu Zhang, Changsui Wang, Yaowu Hu, and Benjamin T. Fuller. "Tianshanbeilu and the Isotopic Millet Road: reviewing the late Neolithic/Bronze Age radiation of human millet consumption from north China to Europe." National Science Review 6, no. 5 (February 24, 2017): 1024–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwx015.
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AbstractThe westward expansion of human millet consumption from north China has important implications for understanding early interactions between the East and West. However, few studies have focused on the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the vast geographical area directly linking the ancient cultures of the Eurasian Steppe and the Gansu Corridor of China. In this study, we present the largest isotopic investigation of Bronze Age China (n = 110) on material from the key site of Tianshanbeilu, in eastern Xinjiang. The large range of δ13C values (–17.6‰ to –7.2‰; –15.5 ± 1.2‰) provides direct evidence of unique dietary diversity and consumption of significant C4 resources (millets). The high δ15N results (10.3‰ to 16.7‰; 14.7 ± 0.8‰) likely reflect sheep/goat and wild game consumption and the arid climate of the Taklamakan Desert. Radiocarbon dates from four individuals indicate Tianshanbeilu was in use between 1940 and 1215 cal bc. The Tianshanbeilu results are then analysed with respect to 52 Bronze Age sites from across Eurasia, to investigate the spread and chronology of significant human millet consumption and human migration. This isotopic survey finds novel evidence that the second millennium bc was a dynamic period, with significant dietary interconnectivity occurring between north China, Central Asia and Siberia. Further, we argue that this ‘Isotopic Millet Road’ extended all the way to the Mediterranean and Central Europe, and conclude that these C4 dietary signatures of millet consumption reflect early links (migration and/or resource transfer) between the Bronze Age inhabitants of modern-day China and Europe.
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Rapp, George (Rip). "Raphael Pumpelly (1837–1923): Pioneering archaeological geologist in central Asia." Earth Sciences History 34, no. 1 (January 1, 2015): 23–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.17704/1944-6187-34.1.23.
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The early twentieth century was a time of rapid expansion of field work in archaeological geology. During this time the connections between geology [especially stratigraphy (Gamio 1913) and geomorphology (Davis 1904)] and archaeology became apparent. Among those involved who made major archaeological contributions during this period was American geologist Raphael Pumpelly. His excavation at Anau in Turkmenistan was an exemplary example of a geologist with no training a experience in archaeology undertaking a successful and pioneering excavation in Central Asia. A similar situation occurred in China where Swedish geologist, Johan Gunnar Andersson, discovered and defined the Chinese Neolithic.
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Oh, Kangwon. "A Study on the Rim Perforation Decorated Pottery from Northeastern China Region from Neolithic Age to the Early Iron age." Yeongnam Archaeological Society, no. 84 (May 30, 2019): 59–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.47417/yar.2019.84.59.
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The rim perforation decorated potteries in northeastern China are classified as followings. Type Ala, which pushes the decoration tool from an internal substrate to external substrate, forms raised decoration on the outside of the substrate. Type Alb, which is similar in the way of Ala, forms two to three rows of raised decorations on the outside of the substrate. Type All, which seals the inside of the substrate with clay after the formation of two to three rows of raised decorations. By contrast, type Ba, which forms the raised decoration on the internal substrate by pushing the decoration tool from the outer side of the substrate to the internal side of the substrate. Type Bb, which is highly similar to type Ba, however, different by having two to three rows of raised decorations. Unlike above, type C potteries completely perforates holes from one side to the other side of the substrates. The transition relationships are as followings. Type Ala and Type Ba were derived from type Ala in the Upper Neolithic, which first appeared in the Middle Neolithic. Type All and type Bb, finished with more than two rows of decorations and finished by covering the inside of the substrates with clays, were derived from type Al and type Ba, respectively, within the same period of time with little time difference. Type C differs completely from the aforementioned types in the aspects of culture and regional context. This type appeared in the west side of the Ussuri River and Yalu River in accordance with the cultural exchange and a small immigrant between Upper Neolithic in Russia’s Khabarovsk Province and Gonggwi-ri pattern. The rim perforation decorated potteries in northeastern China has originated and prevalent in the downstream of Nen River. Most of the rim perforation decorated potteries in northeastern China are distributed in this area and adjacent areas. Additionally, all types except type C were first found in this area. During the late Upper Bronze Age, the production of rim perforation decorated potteries started to decline. At the same time, the rim perforation decorated potteries have been temporarily produced in the upper stream of West Liao River, and Liao River area. The rim perforation decorated potteries are speculated to be found in accordance with the cultural exchange in the downstream of Nen River.
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Yang, Bao, Chun Qin, Achim Bräuning, Timothy J. Osborn, Valerie Trouet, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Jan Esper, et al. "Long-term decrease in Asian monsoon rainfall and abrupt climate change events over the past 6,700 years." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, no. 30 (July 19, 2021): e2102007118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2102007118.
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Asian summer monsoon (ASM) variability and its long-term ecological and societal impacts extending back to Neolithic times are poorly understood due to a lack of high-resolution climate proxy data. Here, we present a precisely dated and well-calibrated tree-ring stable isotope chronology from the Tibetan Plateau with 1- to 5-y resolution that reflects high- to low-frequency ASM variability from 4680 BCE to 2011 CE. Superimposed on a persistent drying trend since the mid-Holocene, a rapid decrease in moisture availability between ∼2000 and ∼1500 BCE caused a dry hydroclimatic regime from ∼1675 to ∼1185 BCE, with mean precipitation estimated at 42 ± 4% and 5 ± 2% lower than during the mid-Holocene and the instrumental period, respectively. This second-millennium–BCE megadrought marks the mid-to late Holocene transition, during which regional forests declined and enhanced aeolian activity affected northern Chinese ecosystems. We argue that this abrupt aridification starting ∼2000 BCE contributed to the shift of Neolithic cultures in northern China and likely triggered human migration and societal transformation.
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Lu, Jingyao, Qinghai Xu, Yao Liu, Ya’nan Hu, Manyue Li, and Shengrui Zhang. "Holocene environmental changes and human activity at the Jijitan site in the Nihewan Basin, China." Holocene 28, no. 7 (March 30, 2018): 1151–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683618761544.
Full textAbstract:
Knowledge of the relationship between human activities and environmental changes during the Holocene is important for understanding the survival and development of prehistoric humans. Using AMS 14C dating and pollen and charcoal analysis, we reconstructed the history of environmental changes and human activity during the Holocene at the Jijitan site in the Nihewan Basin. During 13,000–7500 cal. yr BP, the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) gradually intensified and precipitation increased, the vegetation changed from temperate grassland to wooded grassland and human activity remained at a low intensity. During 7500–5500 cal. yr BP, the EASM reached peak level, and the climate was warm and humid interval, and human activity intensified substantially. Within this interval, from 6600 to 6000 cal. yr BP, the forests were burned to increase the area of farmland. After 5500 cal. yr BP, the forest cover continued to gradually decrease due to the combined influences of the weakening EASM and increasing human activity. Comparison with regional climate records shows that the optimum period of forest development in northern China was approximately 8000–5000 cal. yr BP, indicating that the EASM reached a peak level in the mid-Holocene, which we suggest may have been due to the reduced influence of the high northern-latitude ice sheets and rising global sea level, rather than in the early Holocene.
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Zhuang, Yijie, and Tristram R. Kidder. "Archaeology of the Anthropocene in the Yellow River region, China, 8000–2000 cal. BP." Holocene 24, no. 11 (August 20, 2014): 1602–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683614544058.
Full textAbstract:
Although archaeological analysis emphasizes the importance of climatic events as a driver of historical processes, we use a variety of environmental and archaeological data to show that human modification of the environment was a significant factor in shaping the early history of the Yellow River region of North China. Humans began to modify site-specific and local-level environments in the Early Holocene (~11,500–7000 BP). By the Mid-Holocene (~7000–5000 BP), the effects of humans on the environment become much larger and are witnessed at regional and tributary river basin scales. Land clearance and agriculture, as well as related land use, are dominant determinants of these changes. By the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age (~5000–3500 BP), population growth and intensification of agricultural production expanded the human footprint across the Yellow River region. By the Mid to Late Bronze Age (~3600–2200 BP), larger populations armed with better technology and propelled by more centralized governments were altering lands throughout the Yellow River region, gradually bringing the environment under human control. By the Early Dynastic period (221 bc–ad 220), the Yellow River region was an increasingly anthropogenic environment wherein human land management practices were, in many instances, as consequential as natural forces. Throughout the Holocene history of the Middle and Lower Yellow River, anthropogenic, climatic, and natural environmental processes were acting to shape human history and behavior, making it difficult, if not impossible, to say whether human or climate processes were more consequential. There is a complex relationship in China’s early history between natural and human forcing much like there is today. The Early Anthropocene concept is useful here because it recognizes that when natural and cultural forces become so intertwined, it no longer makes sense to separate the two.