Doctoral Dissertation Research: Craft Specialization and Animal Products at the Late Neolithic Longshan Period Sites of Taosi and Zhoujiazhuang, Shanxi Province, China

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Under the direction of Dr. P. Jeffrey Brantingham, Ms. Katherine Brunson will conduct a seven month fieldwork project to study the zooarchaeological record at the Late Neolithic Longshan period sites of Taosi and Zhoujiazhuang in Shanxi Province, China. Ms. Brunson's research will explore the possibility that animal exploitation strategies and animal products played a key role in the processes of craft specialization and state formation in ancient China. Unlike stone, clay, or metal resources, animals are uniquely vulnerable to environmental fluctuations and disease. This raises the question of whether complexity based on craft specialization in animal products is more fragile that that based on ceramics or bronze manufacturing. By studying evidence for secondary (ante-mortem) product use and bone working during the late third millennium and early second millennium BC at Taosi and Zhoujiazhuang, Ms. Brunson will examine the relationship between animal products, craft specialization, increased social complexity, environmental change, and societal collapse during the Longshan period. The research is significant because it provides insight into the complex interactions between environment, subsistence and other human behaviors which led to the rise of social complexity. Archaeology provides a unique set of data which permits scientists to examine this unfolding process over extended periods of time.Increasing social complexity during the Longshan period coincided with several changes in the zooarchaeological record. During the Early and Middle Neolithic, pigs and dogs were the main indigenous Chinese domesticates. During the Late Neolithic, sheep and cattle were introduced to China, likely through trade routes from West Asia. Whereas pigs and dogs are primarily used for meat, sheep and cattle may be used for secondary products such as wool and milk or as draught animals. The availability of new animal resources may have created opportunities for people to diversify their herd management strategies during times of environmental stress. New animal resources may have also promoted specialized craft production in crafts such as bone working. Ms. Brunson's previous research at Taosi revealed that kill-off patterns for sheep match a wool exploitation pattern, that there is evidence for cattle bone tool production, and that herding strategies changed significantly after political collapse at Taosi. Ms. Brunson will further examine these trends by creating more refined age and sex profiles, conducting a detailed analysis of bone craft production organization, and by analyzing faunal assemblages from nearby sites such as Zhoujiazhuang. Her research will form an important point of comparison with studies that emphasize prestige goods and bronze production in the formation of ancient Chinese states. Because many animal products were utilitarian or subsistence goods, they hold important information for how craft production was organized in different ways and why certain types of crafts are more resistant to political, economic, or environmental changes, while other crafts are less so. The broader impacts of Ms. Brunson's work include facilitating international scholarly exchange and contributing to the developing field of zooarchaeology in China. Ms. Brunson will build upon existing collaborations with Chinese scholars as she learns methods that will be important to her future work in China. She plans to publish her dissertation results in both English and Chinese language journals in order to make her findings available to a wide audience. Finally, Ms. Brunson will upload her data to an online open access archive so that researchers from around the world can have access to the faunal data from these important sites.