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

Author(s): Guanghui Dong; Weimiao Dong

Year: 2015

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.

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Cite this Record

Cereal cultivation shift during Qijia culture period in Gansu and Qinghai Province, NW China: Archaeobotanic evidence. Weimiao Dong, Guanghui Dong. Presented at The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco, California. 2015 ( tDAR id: 395269)

Keywords

General
Barley Millet Wheat

Geographic Keywords
East/Southeast Asia

Spatial Coverage

min long: 66.885; min lat: -8.928 ; max long: 147.568; max lat: 54.059 ;