Farming as a dominant subsistence strategy? : Organic geochemical analyses on potsherds from prehistoric Korean peninsula

Summary

This study attempts to understand prehistoric human subsistence in Korean peninsula using organic geochemical analyses on potsherds. Organic geochemical analyses strive to be precise about the types of food groups that were processed within a pot by attempting to isolate and identify the specific organic compounds trapped in the fabric of its wall or adhering to its surface in residues. Traditionally, the transition from foragers to farmers in the central part of the Korean peninsula has been described as the subsistence change from hunter gathering to intensive rice farming around 3400BP. However, due to the limited paleobotanical evidence in this region and high acidity of the sediment, detailed information about the subsistence is not yet known. Organic compounds have the advantage that organic compounds are often preserved directly within archaeological ceramics. Studies have showed that high-temperature boiling using pottery is particularly effective in the preparation of various resources. In this regard, the methods have potential to become important tools of investigation to better understand the subsistence of ancient Korean people. This research provides a unique opportunity to reveal the characteristics of the transition from foragers to farmers in the central part of the Korean peninsula.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Environmental Archaeological Approaches in Southeast Asia

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