Hemudu Research Articles

Functionality and Morphology: Identifying Si Agricultural Tools from Among Hemudu Scapular Implements in Eastern China

Most Chinese archaeologists assume that the scapular implements used in the Hemudu culture in eastern China (7000–5000 BP) were the si agricultural implements (tools for breaking ground and turning soils over to assist in seeding) recorded in ancient Chinese literatures and, accordingly, assume the Hemudu culture was a farming society. However, ethnographic and historical literatures worldwide have suggested inconclusive functions for similar implements. We conducted a range of experiments under realistic conditions, including hide and plant processing and earth-working, followed by use-wear analysis, to identify the functions of the Hemudu scapular implements. The results suggest that no more than half of the implements were employed as si and that their penetrability and durability were rather limited. These findings help explain why Hemudu should not be labeled as a farming society. Through experimentation and use-wear analysis, we produced relatively large datasets that make a significant contribution to the identification of soil-derived wear patterns on bone tools. We also included quantitative measurements of soil properties to ensure similarities in use contexts between our experimental and archaeological analogies in order to reach reliable functional identifications. Our approaches and results, therefore, provided a solid base for re-evaluating previous research as well as building a standardized database of scientific value for future evaluation and adjustment, even if that future research is done in isolation and in different soil contexts.

Labor Costs for Prehistoric Earthwork Construction: Experimental and Archaeological Insights from the Lower Yangzi Basin, China

AbstractThis paper examines choices of earth-working tools made by Neolithic Chinese populations. In the Hemudu Culture (7000–5000 B.P.), bone (scapula) digging tools were used from the earliest times, whereas peoples in surrounding areas used stone spades. A range of experiments on manufacturing costs, durability, and use efficiency under realistic conditions show that bone and stone spades are functionally equivalent when soils are soft, but that stone implements provide significant and easily perceived advantages when working harder soils. The persistence of scapular spades in the Hemudu Culture would have constrained decisions about undertaking large construction projects under normal soil conditions. Our results show that, in addition to generalized labor for construction, labor demands for producing earth-working implements for large-scale prehistoric earthworks could have also been substantial. These findings not only help explain the processes of intensifying rice-agriculture and sedentary settlements in the Lower Yangzi Basin, but also create a solid foundation for further investigation of how the recruitment of both generalized and specialized laborers, the organization of craft production, and the relevant logistics for large-scale earthworks may have paralleled concentrations of political power in prehistory.

Response of rice cultivation to fluctuating sea level during the Mid-Holocene

Archaeological analysis of a section of ancient rice fields at Tianluoshan for diatoms, seeds and phytoliths has shown that the highest local sea level in eastern China during the Holocene appeared before 7.0 ka BP. Entering the Mid-Holocene, as seawater regressed, a vast wetland plain appeared in the coastal area, where farmers of the Neolithic Hemudu culture cultivated rice. However, there were still several sea-level fluctuations in the Mid-Holocene, of which the biggest were from 6.4 to 6.3 ka BP and from 4.6 to 2.1 ka BP. In addition, in the period dominated by wetland grass vegetation, 6.3 to 4.6 ka BP, smaller fluctuations apparently pushed the coastline back on to the land. Even though the sea-level rises associated with these shoreline transgressions did not have the intensity of the highest sea level period, there still would have been profound impacts on the lives and production activities of people living in the region. Archaeological evidence from ancient rice fields at Tianluoshan shows that larger sea-level rise events pushed seawater onto the land and inundated large areas of rice fields, whereas weaker sea-level rise events resulted in the intrusion of seawater along rivers, causing an increase in soil salinity and a decrease in rice yields. The impact of sea-level rise on rice cultivation caused changes in local diet. In regions where rice production fell, the prevalence of gathering and hunting rose. High sea levels in the early Holocene imply that the origin of rice cultivation in the eastern coastal plain is likely to have been in small nearby mountain basins.

Study on Traditional Vernacular Dwelling in China's Water Towns

At Jiangnan area, the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the water towns in where people live with a cultured life super abounded with resources and products, the traditional vernacular dwelling has made a reputation by their unique characteristics. The paper studies on the dwelling in the water towns, and presents to readers the changes the dwelling have gone through from the Hemudu culture in the New Stone Age to today. Through the research and analysis on the type and components in the local dwelling, this author brings about the characteristics of the dwelling and comes up with ideas of dwelling protection in the water towns.

The origin of rice cultivation in the Lower Yangtze Region, China

About the former half of the sixth millennium bc (Kuahuqiao culture) settlement area expanded to alluvial lowlands in the lower Yangtze region, and during the fifth millennium bc (Hemudu culture), adaptation to the wetland settings established. Although older rice remains have been found in this area, it is safe to say that rice cultivation began during Kuahuqiao and Hemudu cultures. At the beginning, it was only a part of broad-spectrum production highly dependent on lacustrine resources, and it took another millennium to establish the ancient civilization (Liangzhu culture) based on rice cultivation.

New data and new issues for the study of origin of rice agriculture in China

China was one of the major centers for the origin of agriculture in the world. The origins of agriculture in China, especially the origin of rice agriculture, made a significant contribution not only to the occurrence of Chinese civilization but also to the development of world history. Recently, the study on the origin of rice agriculture has attracted the attention of the academic community due to the dramatic development of archaeobotanical research in China. In recent years, the flotation technique has widely implemented in archaeological excavations in China. As the result, a tremendous amount of plant remains have been recovered from archaeological sites, including those much related to the study of early rice agriculture. The new data provide direct archaeological evidence for, and raise some new issues about, the origin of rice agriculture in China. For example, the rice remains from the Shangshan site, dated to ca. 10,000 cal. B.P., suggest the beginning of rice cultivation regardless of whether that rice was domesticated or not. The quantitative analysis of plant remains recovered by floatation from the Jiahu site, dated to ca. 8,000 cal. B.P., revealed that the subsistence of the Jiahu people mainly relied on fishing/hunting/gathering, while the products of rice cultivation and animal husbandry were only a supplement to their diet. The ongoing excavation, with floatation and water-sieving, at the Tianluoshan site, dated to 6,000 to 7,000 cal. B.P., suggests that rice farming, though important, was only part of a broader subsistence pattern of the Hemudu Culture, and rice domestication culminated after 6,500 B.P and the beginning of rice domestication remain unclear.

Paleosalinity in the Tianluoshan site and the correlation between the Hemudu culture and its environmental background

Paleosalinity records of the Tianluoshan site are derived from measurations data of clay mineral, boron, strontium, barium, after field sampling in three profiles of the Tianluoshan site. The relative sea level changes are discussed according to the lab results. The record indicates that the region where the Tianluoshan site located has witnessed at least three times of relative sea level high-stand before, during and after the Hemudu period. Based on previous researches, this paper also focuses on discussing several environmental elements, the inter-relationships between environmental condition, human activities and development of the Hemudu culture comprehensively.

The Origin of Flooded Rice Cultivation

Rice cultivation has long been considered to have originated from seeding of annual types of wild rice somewhere in subtropics, tropics or in the Yangtze River basin. That idea, however, contains a fatally weak point, when we consider the tremendous difficulty for primitive human to seed any cereal crop in the warm and humid climate, where weed thrives all year round. Instead of the accepted theory, we have to see a reality that vegetative propagation of edible plants is a dominant form of agriculture in such regions. The possibility is discussed that Job's tears and rice, two cereal crops unique to the region, might have been developed via vegetative propagation to obtain materials for medicine or herb tea in backyard gardens prior to cereal production. This idea is supported by the fact that rice in temperate regions is still perennial in its growth habit and that such backyard gardens with transplanted taro can still be seen from Yunnan Province of China to Laos. Thanks to detailed survey of wild rice throughout China for 1970–1980, it is now confirmed that a set of clones of wild rice exist in shallow swamps in Jiangxi Province, an area with severe winter cold. In early summer ancient farmers may have divided the sprouting buds and spread them by transplanting into flooded shallow marsh. Such way of propagation might have faster improved less productive rice through a better genetic potential for response to human interference than quick fixation in seed propagation, because vegetative parts are heterogeneous. Obviously, such a primitive manner of rice cultivation did include the essential parts of rice farming, i.e., nursery bed, transplanting in flooded field of shallow marsh like. Transfer from the primitive nursery to true nursery by seed may have later allowed rice cultivation to be extended to northern regions. In thus devised flooded cultivation there were a series of unique advantages, i.e.; continuous cropping of rice in a same plot, no soil erosion, slow decline of soil fertility, availability of minerals, and resulting in high yield per unit area, which have collectively attained the highly productive cereal cultivation in the warm and humid region. Rice cultivation in marsh is also favorable to raise fish culture, both of which constituted a nutritionally balanced base. Development of irrigation technology to construct flooded farms gave strong bases for stable rice-cultivating society, which in the end formulated the rise of ancient kingdoms of Yue and Wu in China in BC 6 th -5 th centuries. They were direct descendents of those people who had developed the unique rice cultivation from the era of Hemudu culture, which is dated back to 5 000 BC. Their movement to the south is considered to have established rice-cultivating communities in South China and Southeast Asia, while to the north it transferred the rice-based technology to ancient Korea and Japan and had established there a base for a civilized society.

A 5,600-year-old wooden well in Zhejiang Province, China

In 1973, traces of China’s early Neolithic Hemudu culture (7,000–5,000 BP) were discovered in the village of Hemudu in Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province, in the lower Yangtze River coastal plain. The site has yielded animal and plant remains in large quantities and large numbers of logs secured with tenon and mortise joints, commonly used in wooden buildings and other wooden structures. For hydrogeologists, the most interesting structure is an ancient wooden well. The well is believed to be about 5,600 years old, which makes it the oldest wooden well yet found in China. The well site contains over 200 wooden components and can be divided into inner and outer parts. The outer part consists of 28 piles around a pond. The inner part, the wooden well itself, lies in the middle of the pond. The walls of the well were lined with close-set timber piles reinforced by a square wooden frame. The 28 piles in the outer part of the site may have been part of a shelter for the well, suggesting that the people of the Hemudu culture were already concerned with water hygiene and protection of their water source.

On the Holocene sea-level highstand along the Yangtze Delta and Ningshao Plain, East China

The temporal-spatial distribution of Neolithic sites shows a long period of absence of human settlements during the early Holocene on the Yangtze Delta, and the area has not been colonized until 7000 aBP, corresponding to the onset of the Majiabang culture. Besides the regions east to the sandbar of Maqiao Site in Shanghai, foraminifera are not found in Neolithic cultural layers since 7000 aBP, indicating a widespread transgression between 10000 and 7000 aBP. Evidence of radiocarbon-dated cultural relics, foraminifera and pollen records from the Hemudu Site suggests that the Hemudu culture emerged and developed during the mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum. Therefore, the hypothesis of a mid-Holocene sea-level highstand along the Yangtze Delta and Ningshao Plain from 7000 to 5000 aBP is an open debate. New evidence from archaeological excavations and bio-stratigraphy suggests that, prior to 7000 aBP, a high sea level occurred along the Ningshao Plain. Subsequently, the sea level was lowered between 7000 and 5000 aBP, and the area suffered from frequent floods from 5000 to 3900 aBP.

Buildings with Spatial Forms in Remote Antiquity of China

China has a long history and different forms of primitive buildings were built several thousands years ago. Building forms in different times, such as Hemudu Culture, Yanshao culture and Banpo Remains are presented in the paper. It is interesting to find that many of these buildings were in spatial forms.