Adaptive Strategies During the Paleolithic-Neolithic Transition in China

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With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Robert Elston and his collaborators will conduct one season of archaeological survey in the Pigeon Mountain Basin, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Peoples Republic of China. This region is characterized by a dry desertic environment quite similar in apparent ecology to areas within the United States Great Basin. The team will conduct systematic survey of several square kilometers, record and map sites, make extensive surface collections and conduct limited test excavations in a sample of spring mounds as well as other likely localities. They will use these data to begin a reconstruction of the culture history of the region and to examine the changing pattern of human adaptation in relation to environmental features. In particular they will focus on water utilization. Preliminary evidence indicates that the Pigeon Mountain Basin was inhabited by hunter and gatherer groups at the end of the last Ice Age and that at some later time a transition to agriculture occurred. The team will examine changes in cultural adaptation over this transition. Because one major goal of the research is to compare adaptive patterns in desertic China and the Western U.S., a Chinese archaeologist will also travel to the U.S. and conduct field research in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and analyze the materials collected. The goal of this work is to understand how humans at a relatively simple level of technological development adapt to extreme environmental conditions. A great deal of work has been conducted in the Western U.S. and the culture history of this area is reasonably well known. From these data archaeologists have attempted to draw broad ranging conclusions about human adaptation, but without at least one more case for comparison, it is impossible to know whether conclusions from one region can be generalized. The work planned by Dr. Elston and his colleagues will help to answer this question. The research is als o important because it will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and because it will strengthen scientific ties between the PRC and the U.S.