Agriculture, Alcohol, and Urban Economies in Late Neolithic North China: A Case Study from the Shimao Site

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Cultivating Cities: Perspectives from the New and Old Worlds on Wild Foods, Agriculture, and Urban Subsistence Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The late Neolithic period in China witnessed a boost of settlement scale and number, interregional interactions and exchanges, and sociopolitical and economic complexities. The Shimao site, located in the north Loess Plateau, China, was one of the most important urban centers in the Late Neolithic period. Several recent macrobotanical studies have revealed the pivotal role of millets in the urban subsistence of this region. Nevertheless, the discussions of the ways in which food plants, especially millets, were cooked or consumed are still lacking. In this study, the results by employing microbotanical methods will shed light on the consumption of millet-based alcohol and their relationship with sociopolitical and economic complexities in this urban center.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Cultivating Cities: Perspectives from the New and Old Worlds on Wild Foods, Agriculture, and Urban Subsistence Economies

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32522