High-Risk Survey For The Earliest Agriculture In North China

华北最早农业高风险调查

• 批准号: 0222742
• 负责人: Robert Bettinger
• 金额: $ 2.31万
• 依托单位: University of California-Davis
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-06-01 至 2005-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0222742&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Risk; Survey; Earliest; Agriculture; North

The invention of agriculture is one of humankind's greatest achievements and archaeology's greatest challenges. Despite great strides in archaeological understanding, archaeologists still do not fully grasp why the first experiments with agriculture began so late in time (10,000 BP) and in only a handful of centers (Near East, Mesoamerica, South America, North China, South Asia, Africa). Of this handful, the North China center is the least known and most likely to shed new light on these questions. The problem in North China is that the archaeological hunter-gatherers whose knowledge of plants laid the foundation for agriculture are well removed in time and space from the oldest presently known agricultural cultures (Cishan, Peiligang, and Dadiwan), which are too highly developed to represent the first stages of agriculture. The transitional groups that connect the two, North China's earliest agriculturalists, are missing. For the Dadiwan culture (7000 BP) in western North China, the antecedent hunter-gatherer complex is found 250 miles (400 km) due north, in the Helan-Tengger sequence (12,700 - 10,000 BP) documented in surveys and excavations by a team of Chinese (Chen Fahu) and US scholars (R. Bettinger, R. Elston, P. J. Brantingham, and D. B. Madsen) have been conducting in Nei Mongol Autonomous Region and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region since 1989. The research suggests that early Holocene plant intensification began in the Helan-Tengger study area but that the earliest agricultural experiments were somewhat further south, toward Dadiwan. These probably began during a warm-wet episode about 9300 BP that encouraged northern hunter-gatherers to intensify plant use and experiment with plant propagation in a limited way to augment more favored food sources, mainly game. A severe, cold-dry climatic reversal documented around 9000 BP forced this pattern further south, to the Dadiwan area, where agriculture became established on a small scale and then expanded dramatically when climate turned warmer and wetter around 8000 BP. Plainly, the early agricultural sites that connect the hunter-gatherer Helan-Tengger complex in the North to the developed agricultural Dadiwan complex in the South must lie in the area between. The proposed survey will use substantial vehicle travel to locate, and foot travel to reach, likely site locations in this intervening area. Archaeological charcoal suitable for radiocarbon dating will be obtained from sites whose stone tools and ceramics place them within the Helan-Tengger to Dadiwan gap. Our research team of US and PRC scholars has extensive experience with this sort of survey north of the Yellow River but none in the proposed study area to its south, where site locations should be different and perhaps more difficult to detect. Success in finding and dating these sites is not assured but would surely be of great significance. It would articulate the first continuous record of the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture in China - and in so doing document this first critical step in the development of one of the world's greatest civilizations.

农业的发明是人类最伟大的成就之一，也是考古学面临的最大挑战。尽管考古学家在考古理解上取得了长足的进步，但考古学家仍然不能完全理解为什么第一次农业实验开始得这么晚(公元前10000年)，而且只在少数几个中心(近东、中美洲、南美洲、北中国、南亚和非洲)开始。在这几个中心中，北方的中国中心是最不为人所知的，也最有可能为这些问题提供新的线索。中国北部的问题是，考古狩猎采集者的植物知识为农业奠定了基础，他们在时间和空间上与目前已知的最古老的农业文化(磁山、裴里岗和大地湾)相去甚远，这些文化太发达了，不能代表农业的第一阶段。连接两者的过渡群体--北方中国最早的农学家--失踪了。中国人(陈发虎)和美国学者(R·贝廷格、R·埃尔斯顿、P·J·布兰丁汉和D·B·马德森)自以来一直在内蒙古自治区和宁夏回族自治区进行调查和发掘，发现了北中国西部的大地湾文化(7000 BP)，在正北250英里(400公里)处的贺兰-腾格里层序(12,700-10,000 BP)中发现了原始的狩猎-采集复合体。研究表明，早全新世植物强化开始于贺兰-腾格里研究区，但最早的农业实验在更南边的大地湾。这些可能开始于大约公元前9300年的一次暖湿事件，当时鼓励北方狩猎采集者加强植物的使用，并以有限的方式试验植物繁殖，以增加更受欢迎的食物来源，主要是猎物。公元前9000年左右记载的一次严重的冷干气候逆转迫使这种模式进一步向南，来到大地湾地区，那里的农业开始小规模发展，然后在公元前8000年左右气候变得更温暖和更潮湿时，农业急剧扩大。显然，连接北部狩猎采集的贺兰-腾格里综合体和南部发达的农业大地湾综合体的早期农业遗址肯定位于这两个地区之间。拟议的勘测将使用大量车辆来定位，并使用步行来到达该中间区域中可能的工地位置。适用于放射性碳测年的考古木炭将从贺兰-腾格里到大地湾缺口内的石器和陶瓷遗址获得。我们由美国和中国学者组成的研究团队在黄河以北的这类调查方面拥有丰富的经验，但在黄河以南拟议的研究区没有经验，因为那里的地点位置应该不同，可能更难检测到。成功地找到并确定这些地点的年代并不是板上钉钉的事情，但肯定具有重大意义。它将阐明中国从狩猎和采集向农业过渡的第一个连续记录-这样做就记录了世界上最伟大的文明之一发展的第一个关键步骤。