A 5,500-Year Model of Changing Crop Niches on the Tibetan Plateau
A 5,500-Year Model of Changing Crop Niches on the Tibetan Plateau
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DOI：
10.1086/687255
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发表时间：
2016-08-01
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
Bocinsky, R. Kyle
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Guedes, Jade d'Alpoim;Manning, Sturt W.;Bocinsky, R. Kyle
青藏高原是地球上最具挑战性的环境背景之一，农业向青藏高原传播的时间和机制是最近工作和辩论的焦点。了解农业的时间和传播是世界考古学和历史学的基础。研究人员寻找最早、最远或最高出现的诊断元素的证据。然而，青藏高原的案例说明了当前工作中的一个关键缺陷：考古学家经常不加批判地将考古遗址中驯化植物的存在解释为当地农业实践的指示。这种假设忽略了高原上食物交换的悠久历史，就像世界上其他地方一样，甚至超过了当时农业的限制。其原因是对史前农作物的种植地缺乏基本的了解。使用一个正式的模型之间的农业热生态位的5500 BP和现在，我们认为，在青藏高原的农业生态位被严格限制在整个时间的低海拔河谷。对高原现代作物生产范围的分析证实了这一模式。早期藏人所面临的来自海拔高度限制的挑战，在很大程度上解释了西藏经济是如何以及为什么以这种方式发展的。
The timing and mechanics of the spread of agriculture to the Tibetan Plateau—one of the most challenging environmental contexts on earth—is a focus of recent work and debate. Understanding the timing and spread of agriculture is basic to archaeology and history worldwide. Researchers seek evidence for the earliest, furthest, or highest occurrences of diagnostic elements. However, the Tibetan Plateau case illustrates a key flaw in current work: archaeologists have often uncritically interpreted the presence of plant domesticates at archaeological sites as being indicative of local agricultural practice. This assumption neglects the long history of food exchange on the Plateau, as elsewhere in the world, even beyond what were then the limits of agriculture. The cause is a fundamental lack of understanding of where crops could be grown in prehistory. Using a formal model of the agricultural thermal niche between the 5500 BP and the present, we argue that agricultural niches on the Tibetan Plateau were tightly constrained to lower-elevation river valleys throughout time. This pattern is confirmed by analysis of the extent of modern crop production on the Plateau. The challenges deriving from these altitudinal constraints placed on early Tibetans largely explain how and why the Tibetan economy developed in the way that it did.