Detection of the Agricultural Demographic Transition in China

Abstract

The signal of the Agricultural Demographic Transition (ADT) has been detected in northern China (3912 sites/Loess plateau layers: millet domestication) and in eastern China (396 sites/Yangtze River plain layers: domestication of rice) from cemetery data (N = 29) and the density of archaeological sites during the Neolithic agricultural transition. From 800 to 1300 years after the adoption of the agricultural system, the proportion of immature skeletons from the hunter-gatherer-fisher economy increases from 0.08–0.14 to 0.2. The site densities also change abruptly and correlatively. The observed demographic momentum of the ADT signal is more likely to indicate geographic zones of secondary expansion of the agricultural system than original areas of agricultural invention.