Cereal cultivation shift during Qijia culture period in Gansu and Qinghai Province, NW China: Archaeobotanic evidence

Summary

Qijia period (4400- 3500 cal yr BP) is the key period for the introduction of wheat and barley originated from West Asia into Gansu and Qinghai Province, northwest China. Based on archaeobotanic and radiocarbon data from Caomaidian, Lajia, Jinchankou and Lijiaping Qijia sites, we discuss change of cereal cultivation through that period. Our results suggest only foxtail millet and common millet were cultivated in Caomaidian and Lajia sites dated to 4300-3900 cal yr BP, which account for 97.19% of crop remains in Jinchankou site (4200-3700 cal yr BP), while barley and wheat weight 2.67% and 0.15% in that site respectively, which were firstly introduced around 4000 cal yr BP. Charred seeds of foxtail millet, common millet, barley and wheat weight 69.94%, 28.21%, 14.38% and 0.40% of crop remains in Lijiaping site dated to 3700-3500 cal yr BP. Though millet crops were the most important cultivated cereal crops throughout Qijia period, new crops including barley and wheat were utilized during late Qijia period, and significance of which in subsistence strategy increased after their emergence in the area.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Qijia Culture of Northwest China – Entering a New Era of Research   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage