Paleoethnobotany of Yangguanzhai

Summary

Yangguanzhai is a valuable resource for paleoethnobotanists to understand human-plant interactions in Neolithic northwestern China due to its excellent conditions for the preservation of macro-botanical materials. In recent years, several palaeoethnobotanical studies on Yanguanzhai have been carried out on site, yielding many results that greatly contribute to our understanding of Neolithic agriculture in the region. Presented in this paper are the results of two systematic flotations conducted in the vicinity of Yangguanzhai. The first is from a well-defined Neolithic house feature, and the second is from a Neolithic moat. The authors utilized a combination of horizontal and vertical sampling strategies to enhance the interpretative value of macro-botanical remains during collection, and the resulting studies were the first intra-feature analyses on Neolithic plant materials conducted in northwestern China. Our results demonstrate that the human-plant interactions at a typical archaeological feature can go through various functional stages and vary spatially. These studies show that inter- and intra-feature relationships can provide substantial context for understanding the diverse trajectories through which plants and human cultures developed in the context of Neolithic China.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Discoveries and Multidisciplinary Research at Yangguanzhai, China   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14563