Agriculture, the Environment, and Social Complexity From the Early to Late Yangshao Periods (5000–3000 BC): Insights From Macro-Botanical Remains in North-Central China
Agriculture, the Environment, and Social Complexity From the Early to Late Yangshao Periods (5000–3000 BC): Insights From Macro-Botanical Remains in North-Central China
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DOI：
10.3389/feart.2021.662391
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发表时间：
2021-05
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Ya-ping Li;Junna Zhang;Xiaohu Zhang;Haitao Zhao
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Ya-ping Li;Junna Zhang;Xiaohu Zhang;Haitao Zhao
在中国北方，仰韶文化时期（公元前5000-3000年）是农业经济建立和社会复杂性出现的关键时期。对洛阳盆地12个遗址的58个土样进行了考古植物学分析，并在9个遗址中发现了5290个仰韶晚期植物化石。我们将新的数据集与以往的考古植物学数据进行了比较，共收集了来自河南中西部58个地点的196个样品。早在仰韶时期（公元前5000-4200年），一个新兴的，广泛的农业经济主要是基于高粱小米，与较小的谷子和水稻，是发展在小定居点（0.6平方公里）的规模。值得注意的是，与较小的定居点相比，小米在这些较大的定居点中往往不那么普遍，随着时间的推移，地点之间小米普遍存在的差异越来越大。受古气候变化影响的当地地表水文促使农业从仰韶早期较高的黄土台塬和黄土谷地向仰韶中晚期较边缘的黄土台塬和黄土平原扩散。水稻种植集中在山谷地区，似乎与水热条件较好的环境密切相关。我们的研究表明，全新世的气候条件促进了仰韶文化时期农业的发展，而这一时期的定居点分布受到高度局部化的地貌环境的影响，从而界定了农作物的分布。农业的兴起促进了仰韶文化时期复杂分层经济的形成，正是这些新的经济社会体系的深化和细化，导致了后来农业结构和聚落规模的转变。
In northern China, the Yangshao cultural period (5000–3000 BC) was a critical timespan in the establishment of agricultural economies and the emergence of social complexity. We present the results of archeobotanical analysis from 58 soil samples collected from 12 recently investigated sites located in the Luoyang Basin, and recovered 5290 carbonized plant remains from 9 sites dating to the Late Yangshao period. We compared our novel dataset with previous archeobotanical date, compiling a total of 196 samples from 58 sites in central and western Henan Province. During the Early Yangshao period (5000–4200 BC), a nascent, extensive agricultural economy based primarily on broomcorn millet, with lesser foxtail millet and rice, was developing in small settlements ( 0.6 km2) scale. Notably, millets tend to be less ubiquitous in these larger settlements compared to smaller ones, with differences in millet ubiquity between sites increasing over time. The local surface hydrology influenced by paleoclimatic changes prompted the spread of agriculture from higher loess tablelands and valleys during the early Yangshao period into more marginal loess tablelands and plains by the Middle and Late Yangshao periods. Rice cultivation is concentrated in valley areas and appears to have been closely tied to environments with better hydrothermal conditions. Our research shows that climatic conditions during the Holocene fostered the development of agriculture during the Yangshao Culture period and that the distribution of settlements throughout this time was influenced by highly localized geomorphologic environments delimiting the distribution of crops. The rise of agriculture promoted the formation of complex and stratified economies in the Yangshao Culture period and it was the intensification and elaboration of these new economic and social systems that led to later transformation in agricultural structures and settlement sizes.