Expanding frontier and building the sphere in the western deserts

Summary

During the early and middle Holocene the deserts of Mongolia and northern China were characterized by arid grasslands and numerous lakes and wetlands. Specialized wetland exploitation defined land-use during this period, but more detailed data on subsistence is not clear. The prevalent use of microlithic technology and the lack of architectural structures underscores the presumption that these groups were highly mobile hunter-gatherers, but increasing evidence reveals that pastoralism spread widely across the steppes of Northeast Asia during the third millennium BC. There has been no clear discussion of how desert groups were impacted by these changes. Here I examined the extent of climatic amelioration and present evidence to suggest that inhabitants of the western deserts were numerous and influential, and that they played a substantial role in the spread of pastoralist technologies – such as herding and bronze – into and across China.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• From Foragers to Frontiers: Recent Research on the Archaeology of the Ordos Region, China   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15919