Assessing Agricultural Strategies in Prehistoric Korea through Climate and Landscape Models

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New Evidence, Methods, Theories, and Challenges to Understanding Prehistoric Economies in Korea" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Relict fields and archaeobotanical remains from village sites in South Korea indicate intensive agriculture was practiced during the Mumun Period (ca. 1500-200 B.C.). In this paper, we discuss the effects of climate and landscape in the decision-making of Mumun farmers, particularly which crops to plant, at what times, and which locations. Our results are based on complementary models that consider temperature and soils across the Korean peninsula for multiple sites and multiple crops (i.e. millet, barley, rice). More than identifying the presence or absence of domesticates, we argue that our models help explain Mumun Period agricultural strategies such as diversification, specialization, and intensification.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• New Evidence, Methods, Theories, and Challenges to Understanding Prehistoric Economies in Korea

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25875