Dry-Grinding or Wet-Grinding? Use-Wear Reveals the Grinding Technique Used for Cereal Processing in Early Neolithic Central China

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Different food processing techniques often shed light on the dietary habits and subsistence strategies adopted by prehistoric populations. Studies have shown that grinding cereals into flour took place since the Paleolithic age. Nevertheless, the grinding method employed in the prehistoric periods was often not investigated. This study discovered the different features of use-wear traces associated with dry-grinding and wet-grinding of cereals, which can be used to infer the ancient grinding techniques. By applying this reference baseline to Jiahu, an early Neolithic site which is known for the earliest finding of domesticated rice in the central plain of China, it reveals that dry-grinding rather than wet-grinding was adopted for cereal (including rice) processing 9000 years ago. This kind of grinding technique could have been inherited from the earlier hunter-gatherers, but also could be related to broad-spectrum subsistence strategy adopted at Jiahu. By comparing the properties and ethnographic uses of different plant species, it is also suggested that cereals such as rice was a more sensible choice for dry-grinding process.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24118