Early Neolithic plant exploitation in East China

Summary

Early Neolithic plant exploitation is a key subject for understanding the subsistence strategies of late hunter-gatherers and early farmers. As archaeobotany has developed in China, plant remains, together with other ecofacts, have been recovered from several early Neolithic sites around Shandong Highlands, East China. Preliminary results show changes in the role of plant resources. At about 10000 year BP, the inhabitants of Bianbiandong Cave relied mainly on animal food with very small amount of plants. At about 9000 year BP, the Zhangmatun people exploited at least 38 species of plant resources on the floodplain near the mountains in the south. There have been very few animal remains recovered from this open-air site. At about 8000 year BP, the diversity of plant remains from Xihe and Yuezhuang site decreased to 19 wild species of plants but with 3 species of cultivated or domesticated cereals (rice, foxtail and broomcorn millet) and more than 20 species of animals which were dominated by fresh water creatures.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Perspectives on the Archaeology of Economics in China   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage