Yangshao Period Research Articles

Starch grain analysis of human dental calculus to investigate Neolithic consumption of plants in the middle Yellow River Valley, China: A case study on Gouwan site

Starch grain analysis of human dental calculus offers a direct link to plant consumption and a new avenue to investigate subsistence economy. This article is a pilot starch grain analysis on thirty-five samples of human dental calculus at Gouwan, a Neolithic site in the middle Yellow River valley. Starch grains from a wide range of plants, including cereals and gathered plants, were recovered from human dental calculus. Starchy plants including roots and tubers, wild Triticeae grasses, acorns and possible Job's tears, although not found in the macro-botanical remains, were recovered and identified in the micro-botanical remains from the dental calculus. This research increases our understanding of human diet and plant-based subsistence strategies in the middle Yellow River valley during the Yangshao period.

Phytolith identification criteria for foxtail and broomcorn millets: a new approach to calculating crop ratios

Broomcorn and Foxtail millets were major crops in the Yellow River Valley region, Henan, China, during the Neolithic Yangshao period. Phytoliths and macro remains have been used to understand crop choices in this period. Distinguishing between phytoliths from millet crops and panicoid non cultigens can be challenging. We examine the effect of using only one or two identification criteria compared with a more stringent five or more with phytoliths from archaeological samples to examine crop ratios. We compare our results with the results from the macro remains. This demonstrates, firstly, that using more identification markers has a very definite effect on the results and secondly, phytoliths and macro remains are complementary proxies that when used together can produce more accurate results than used alone.

The study of size-grade of prehistoric settlements in the Circum-Songshan area based on SOFM network

Choosing site area, cultural layer thickness, significant relics and significant remains as the variables, we applied cluster analysis to the ancient settlements of four cultural periods, respectively, which were Peiligang, Yangshao, Longshan and Xiashang, in 9000–3000 a BP, around Songshan Mountain. Through application of the SOFM (self-organizing feature map) networks, every type of ancient settlements was classified into different size-grades. By this means, the Peiligang settlements were divided into two grades, Yangshao and Longshan settlements were divided into three grades, respectively, and Xiashang settlements were divided into four grades. The results suggested that the size-grade diversity of ancient settlements was not significant during the Peiligang period in this area. Around the middle-late Yangshao period (5000 a BP), the size-grade diversity of ancient settlements began to appear, a process that continued during the Longshan period and finally matured in the Xiashang period. Moreover, the results reflected the regional differences in cultural characteristics in a particular period, which were mainly represented in that there were three Peiligang cultural systems distributed in different areas. Such differences also existed in the spatial distributive characteristics between the Xia and Shang cultures. Based on the size-grade study of ancient settlements in the Circum-Songshan area, it was found that the SOFM networks method was very suitable for size-grade classification of ancient settlements, since, using this method, adjacent cells would compete and learn from each other, a benefit that reduced the effect on classification by the inaccuracy of site acreages.

Jiangzhai: Social and economic organization of a Middle Neolithic Chinese village

The Early Yangshao period (5000–4000 BC) village of Jiangzhai is the most completely excavated and reported of any early agricultural community in the middle reaches of northern China’s Yellow River Valley. This comprehensive dataset can better our understanding of early agricultural village societies and complex society development, especially the emergence of economic inequality. Analyses of Jiangzhai’s architectural remains and their arrangement; estimates of household population, storage capacity, and animal consumption; and analyses of household artifact assemblages are used to reconstruct the social and economic organization of this important Neolithic settlement. Our analyses suggest that differences in economic organization at the household level are responsible for patterns of intra-settlement economic differentiation previously attributed to higher-order “corporate” institutions. Rather than a segmental society composed of redundant homologous units, Jiangzhai displays substantial variability among residential sectors and constituent households in terms of activity emphases and surplus accumulation. Substantial intrasite variation in socioeconomic organization has previously been thought characteristic only of more complex Late Neolithic societies in the middle Yellow River Valley region.

Light weight concrete of Yangshao Period of China: The earliest concrete in the world

During 1970s, the residential remains of the Yangshao Period were discovered at the Dadiwan site in Qin’an County, Gansu Province, China. With carbon-14 dating, scanning electron microscope (SEM), thermal expansion analyzer, polarizing microscope (PLM), and X ray diffraction (XRD), the microstructures and chemical compositions of the pottery shard, floor materials of the housing site, kunkur, calcined kunkur, ginger nut (calcium concretion) from the Dadiwan site were analyzed and researched. Analysis and simulation tests were also carried out to study the hydratability of calcined ginger nut and calcined kunkur, and the manufacturing process of the residential floors. The research shows that the floor was made of a light concrete formed by the mixture of aggregate of calcinated ginger nut (locally deposited), red clay and kunkur. The dicalcium silicate (C2S) from the floor material of the housing site is one of the main constituents of modern cement, and the floor is also similar to modern concrete in nature. Therefore, the floor material of the housing site at the Dadiwan site was the earliest man-made concrete in the world ever discovered.

Retracted: A Possible Case of Hypopituitarism in Neolithic China

ABSTRACTA human skeleton with a possible case of hypopituitarism is reported. The individual (burial M53) is from the site of Guanjia, a Neolithic settlement in northern China, dated to the Late Yangshao period (6000–5500 bp). On the basis of the fully erupted third permanent molars and moderate occlusal dental wear resulting in substantial exposure of dentine, the initially estimated age‐at‐death was placed between 26 and 33 years. However, dimensions of the postcranial skeleton fall significantly below and outside the range from contemporaneous adult populations, and along with delayed epiphyseal fusion present throughout the skeleton, the postcranial age is concordant to that of an 11‐ to 13‐year‐old child. Most long bone epiphyses display incomplete fusion or are entirely unfused, but a lack of microporosity in the metaphyseal areas near growth plates indicates a cessation of longitudinal bone growth. Because no signs of porotic hyperostosis,cribra orbitalia, periosteal lesions or linear enamel hypoplasia are observed, the restricted growth of this individual is likely caused by a growth hormone disorder and is unrelated to nutritional deficiencies or systemic infection. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Human diets of Yangshao Culture in the Central Plains

In this paper the isotope analysis of 13 C and 15 N is used for researching the diet of the past people on human bones from the Yangshao Culture sites in the Central Plains. The results showed that these people all took C4 plant as staple food. The isotope analysis of 15 N showed that there has been some meat in their diet. Meanwhile, some animal bones from related regions are also analyzed, showing that the domesticated animals' diet might have been influenced by that of the people. These analyses with the situations of the burials reflected that the social hierarchies in the Yangshao period were also shown by the people's diets.

The impact of environmental change and human land use on alluvial valleys in the Loess Plateau of China during the Middle Holocene

In recent years a growing number of studies have reported proxy evidence for Holocene climatic and environmental change on the Loess Plateau of north-central China. Pollen from lake cores and sediment analyses from loess sections firmly point to a warm-moist Mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum. Archaeological evidence indicates that at the same time, human agricultural settlements expanded into this area during the Middle Neolithic Period. A geoarchaeological study of sediment sections from several valleys within the catchment of the Yiluo River, Henan Province, indicates a sequence beginning with a stable landscape, soil development and high water tables in the Early Mid-Holocene, which was exploited by Early Neolithic millet farmers in the Peiligang Period. Subsequently, there was a rapid shift to episodes of hillslope erosion and increased valley alluviation in the later Mid-Holocene. The resulting alluvial sediments, dating from 5300/5010 cal. BC through 2130/1870 cal. BC, represent clay-rich water-logged deposits that contain sediment and phytolith evidence for the first rice paddy farming in this region. This coincides with the first migration of Neolithic rice farmers to the area in the Yangshao Period ca. 5500 cal. BC. These fills, temporally and stratigraphically linked to archaeological sites and human land-use practices, suggest that they originated as a direct result of human impact on the landscape. After ca. 2000 cal. BC, Holocene valley incision in this catchment led to narrowing floodplains, the disappearance of the valley wetland deposits, and a reduction in land available for paddy farming.

Special section on the Yiluo project] THE ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPLEX SOCIETIES IN CHINA: A STUDY FROM THE HUIZUI SITE

Holocene environmental change on the Loess Plateau of China presented both opportunities and challenges for populations inhabiting the region. A study of sediment sections within the catchment of the Yiluo River, Henan Province, indicates a sequence beginning with a stable landscape and high water tables in the early MidHolocene corresponding to the Peiligang occupation, shifting to a period of valley alluviation in the later MidHolocene at the time of the Yangshao occupation. Alluvial sediments dating from 5300/5010 cal. BC through 2130/1870 cal. BC are waterlogged deposits that contain sediment and phytolith evidence for the first rice paddy farming in this region. This coincides with the first migration of rice farmers to the area in the Yangshao Period ca. 5500 cal. BC. After ca. 2000 cal. BC stream incision in this catchment led to narrowing floodplains, the disappearance of the marsh deposits, and a reduction in land available for paddy farming. Ironically, this period coincided with the first Chinese state society and large population increases, necessitating new agricultural and economic strategies on the part of the Early Bronze Age inhabitants of the Loess Plateau. This study illustrates how human responses to environmental change depend on social as well as environmental considerations.

Special section on the Yiluo project] SOIL MICROMORPHOLOGY, CHEMISTRY AND MAGNETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY STUDIES AT HUIZUI (YILUO REGION, HENAN PROVINCE, NORTHERN CHINA), WITH SPECIAL FOCUS ON A TYPICAL YANGSHAO FLOOR SEQUENCE

31 thin sections and 25 bulk samples were investigated from Huizui (Loess Plateau of northern China) creating a broad, albeit limited, dataset for the Peiligang, Yangshao, Longshan and Erlitou Periods. The study provides punctuated insights into the occupational and landscape history of the site. These are briefly reported in order to examine, in context, some details of a typical Yangshao Period floor sequence (11 layers). Here, ground-raising was achieved mainly through constructing layers of planttempered adobe, manufactured from `clean' loess that is present at Huizui. A dark, `red' coloured mud-plastered surface was made at the top of the adobe layers, to underlie each `white' floor. Contrary to expectation, soil micromorphology found that the `white' floors are not `burned lime' floors, but single and multiple quarried slabs of fossiliferous tabular formed tufa, of likely Quaternary age and local origin; a finding consistent with bulk analyses. As these slabs appear to be at least 3-4 m in size their quarrying and transport imply a high degree of social organization. No Yangshao occupation floor deposits were found, suggesting that either floors were of ritual use or were swept or mat-covered. An example of an off-site gleyed, Yangshao to Longshan soil-sediment sequence, containing anthropogenic inclusions, was found to overlie the local truncated grey, gleyed, and archaeologically sterile Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene alluvial soil.