Archaeobotanical records of Middle and Late Neolithic agriculture from Shandong Province, East China, and a major change in regional subsistence during the Dawenkou Culture. (October 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jin, GuiYun; Wagner, Mayke; Tarasov, Pavel E; Wang, Fen; Liu, YanChang
• Other Names: Spengler Robert N. guest-editor.; Tarasov Pavel E. guest-editor.; Wagner Mayke guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Holocene. Volume 26:Number 10(2016)
• Page Start: 1605
• Page End: 1615
• Publication Date: 2016-10
• Subjects: AMS dates -- eastern China -- Huai River -- middle Holocene -- Neolithic rice exploitation -- phytolith analysis -- plant macrofossils -- Yellow River; Geology, Stratigraphic -- Holocene -- Periodicals; Paleoclimatology -- Periodicals; 333.7
• DOI: 10.1177/0959683616641746
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0959-6836

Abstract

As heated debates about the origin of rice domestication and cultivation in southern and eastern China continuously attract attention of the broad scientific community, new evidence for early rice exploitation from the regions located outside the core area of domestication, the lower Yangtze, are very important. Here, we present new archaeobotanical results of plant macrofossil and phytolith analyses, including directly dated rice grains from the sites of Dongpan (4030–3820 cal. BC) and Beiqian (3700–2900 cal. BC). These results fill (at least partly) an existing gap between the c . 8000-year-old rice remains from the Early Neolithic Houli Culture ( c . 6500–5500 BC) sites north of the Shandong Highlands and the Longshan Culture ( c . 2600–1900 BC) sites, where intensive rice agriculture was practiced. Neither rice nor millet made substantial contribution to the plant macrofossil assemblage at Dongpan, while broomcorn (and to a lesser extent foxtail) millet contributed up to 75% to the macrofossil assemblage at Beiqian. This increase can be interpreted as a major change in regional subsistence from strongly relying on wild resources and small scale cultivation during the Beixin Cultural period to a millet-based economy during the Dawenkou Culture.