Mayke Wagner

Radiocarbon-dated archaeological record of early first millennium B.C. mounted pastoralists in the Kunlun Mountains, China

Pastoral nomadism, as a successful economic and social system drawing on mobile herding, long-distance trade, and cavalry warfare, affected all polities of the Eurasian continent. The role that arid Inner Asia, particularly the areas of northwestern China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, played in the emergence of this phenomenon remains a fundamental and still challenging question in prehistoric archaeology of the Eurasian steppes. The cemetery of Liushiu (Xinjiang, China) reveals burial features, bronze bridle bits, weaponry, adornment, horse skulls, and sheep/goat bones, which, together with paleopathological changes in human skeletons, indicate the presence of mobile pastoralists and their flocks at summer pastures in the Kunlun Mountains, ∼2,850 m above sea level. Radiocarbon dates place the onset of the burial activity between 1108 and 893 B.C. (95% probability range) or most likely between 1017 and 926 B.C. (68%). These data from the Kunlun Mountains show a wider frontier within the diversity of mobile pastoral economies of Inner Asia and support the concept of multiregional transitions toward Iron Age complex pastoralism and mounted warfare.

Spatiotemporal distribution patterns of archaeological sites in China during the Neolithic and Bronze Age: An overview

A total of 51,074 archaeological sites from the early Neolithic to the early Iron Age (c. 8000–500 BC), with a spatial extent covering most regions of China (c. 73–131°E and c. 20–53°N), were analysed over space and time in this study. Site maps of 25 Chinese provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, published in the series ‘Atlas of Chinese Cultural Relics’, were used to extract, digitalise and correlate its archaeological data. The data were, in turn, entered into a database using a self-developed mapping software that makes the data, in a dynamic way, analysable as a contribution to various scientific questions, such as population growth and migrations, spread of agriculture and changes in subsistence strategies. The results clearly show asynchronous patterns of changes between the northern and southern parts of China (i.e. north and south of the Yangtze River, respectively) but also within these macro-regions. In the northern part of China (i.e. along the Yellow River and its tributaries and in the Xiliao River basin), the first noticeable increase in the concentration of Neolithic sites occurred between c. 5000 and 4000 BC; however, highest site concentrations were reached between c. 2000 and 500 BC. Our analysis shows a radical north-eastern shift of high site-density clusters (over 50 sites per 100 × 100 km grid cell) from the Wei and middle/lower Yellow Rivers to the Liao River system sometime between 2350 BC and 1750 BC. This shift is hypothetically discussed in the context of the incorporation of West Asian domesticated animals and plants into the existing northern Chinese agricultural system. In the southern part of China, archaeological sites do not show a noticeable increase in the absolute number of sites until after c. 1500 BC, reaching a maximum around 1000 BC.

Cannabis in Eurasia: origin of human use and Bronze Age trans-continental connections

A systematic review of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records of cannabis (fibres, pollen, achenes and imprints of achenes) reveals its complex history in Eurasia. A multiregional origin of human use of the plant is proposed, considering the more or less contemporaneous appearance of cannabis records in two distal parts (Europe and East Asia) of the continent. A marked increase in cannabis achene records from East Asia between ca. 5,000 and 4,000 cal bp might be associated with the establishment of a trans-Eurasian exchange/migration network through the steppe zone, influenced by the more intensive exploitation of cannabis achenes popular in Eastern Europe pastoralist communities. The role of the Hexi Corridor region as a hub for an East Asian spread of domesticated plants, animals and cultural elements originally from Southwest Asia and Europe is highlighted. More systematic, interdisciplinary and well-dated data, especially from South Russia and Central Asia, are necessary to address the unresolved issues in understanding the complex history of human cannabis utilisation.

The spread of agriculture into northern Central Asia: Timing, pathways, and environmental feedbacks

Over the past decade, researchers have directed greater focus toward understanding Bronze (3200–800 BC) and Iron Age (800 BC–AD 400) economies of Central Asia. In this article, we synthesize paleobotanical data from across this broad region and discuss the piecemeal archaeological evidence for agriculture in relation to environmental records of vegetation and climate change. The synthesis shows that agricultural products were present in northern Central Asia by the mid-3rd millennium BC; however, solid evidence for their spread even further north into the Altai Mountains and southern Siberia only comes from the late 2nd and early 1st millennia BC. The earliest crops introduced into Central Asia likely came as a mixed package of free-threshing wheat, naked barley, and broomcorn millet, an assemblage pioneered further south along the northern foothills of the Central Asian mountains. Further east, in Mongolia, and debatably to the west of Central Asia, in the steppe of northern Kazakhstan and the southern Ural region of Russia, the earliest evidence of agriculture (with a similar mixed assemblage) is considerably later, roughly late 1st millennium BC. The lack of clear-cut early evidence for agricultural goods either east or west of the Central Asian mountain belt suggests that agriculture spread northward along these mountains, based on an agropastoral system pioneered millennia earlier at higher elevations of lower latitudes. Additionally, moister regional environmental conditions in the northern mountains after 3000 cal. BC may have increased the favorability of adopting an agricultural component in the economy.

The ornamental trousers from Sampula (Xinjiang, China): their origins and biography

A decorated pair of trousers excavated from a well-preserved tomb in the Tarim Basin proved to have a highly informative life history, teased out by the authors – with archaeological, historical and art historical dexterity. Probably created under Greek influence in a Bactrian palace, the textile started life in the third/second century BC as an ornamental wall hanging, showing a centaur blowing a war-trumpet and a nearly life-size warrior of the steppe with his spear. The palace was raided by nomads, one of whom worked a piece of the tapestry into a pair of trousers. They brought no great luck to the wearer who ended his days in a massacre by the Xiongnu, probably in the first century BC. The biography of this garment gives a vivid glimpse of the dynamic life of Central Asia at the end of the first millennium.

Palaeobotanical records from Rebun Island and their potential for improving the chronological control and understanding human–environment interactions in the Hokkaido Region, Japan

Rebun Island with Hamanaka and Funadomari among the 43 documented archaeological sites and the environmental archive stored in the Lake Kushu sediment proves to be one of the key areas to study the interplay between ecology, climate and human activities. This paper focuses on the potential of palaeobotanical records from Rebun Island for improving the chronological control and understanding of late Quaternary climate changes and habitation environments of northern hunter-gatherers in the Hokkaido Region of Japan. A set of 57 radiocarbon dates of the RK12 core (Lake Kushu) demonstrates that it represents a continuous environmental archive covering the last c. 17,000 years. The RK12 pollen record reflects distinct vegetation changes associated with the onset of the lateglacial warming about 15,000 cal. yr BP and the cold climate reversal after c. 13,000 cal. yr BP. The onset of the current Holocene interglacial after c. 11,700 cal. yr BP is marked by a major spread of trees. The middle Holocene (c. 8000–4000 cal. yr BP) is characterized by a major spread of deciduous oak in the vegetation cover reflecting a temperature increase. A decline of oak and spread of fir and pine is recorded at c. 2000 cal. yr BP. After c. 1100 cal. yr BP, arboreal pollen percentages decrease, possibly linked to intensified usage of wood during the Okhotsk and Ainu culture periods. The results of diatom analysis suggest marshy or deltaic environments at the RK12 coring site prior to c. 10,500 cal. yr BP and a brackish lagoon between c. 10,500 and 7000 cal. yr BP. A freshwater lake developed after 6500 cal. yr BP, likely reflecting sea level stabilization and formation of the sand bar separating the Kushu depression from the sea. Plant macrofossil analysis shows use of various wild plants and also domesticated barley during the Okhotsk and Ainu periods.

Archaeobotanical records of Middle and Late Neolithic agriculture from Shandong Province, East China, and a major change in regional subsistence during the Dawenkou Culture

As heated debates about the origin of rice domestication and cultivation in southern and eastern China continuously attract attention of the broad scientific community, new evidence for early rice exploitation from the regions located outside the core area of domestication, the lower Yangtze, are very important. Here, we present new archaeobotanical results of plant macrofossil and phytolith analyses, including directly dated rice grains from the sites of Dongpan (4030–3820 cal. BC) and Beiqian (3700–2900 cal. BC). These results fill (at least partly) an existing gap between the c. 8000-year-old rice remains from the Early Neolithic Houli Culture (c. 6500–5500 BC) sites north of the Shandong Highlands and the Longshan Culture (c. 2600–1900 BC) sites, where intensive rice agriculture was practiced. Neither rice nor millet made substantial contribution to the plant macrofossil assemblage at Dongpan, while broomcorn (and to a lesser extent foxtail) millet contributed up to 75% to the macrofossil assemblage at Beiqian. This increase can be interpreted as a major change in regional subsistence from strongly relying on wild resources and small scale cultivation during the Beixin Cultural period to a millet-based economy during the Dawenkou Culture.

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) in the Okhotsk culture (5th–10th century AD) of northern Japan and the role of cultivated plants in hunter–gatherer economies

This paper discusses archaeobotanical remains of naked barley recovered from the Okhotsk cultural layers of the Hamanaka 2 archaeological site on Rebun Island, northern Japan. Calibrated ages (68% confidence interval) of the directly dated barley remains suggest that the crop was used at the site ca. 440–890 cal yr AD. Together with the finds from the Oumu site (north-eastern Hokkaido Island), the recovered seed assemblage marks the oldest well-documented evidence for the use of barley in the Hokkaido Region. The archaeobotanical data together with the results of a detailed pollen analysis of contemporaneous sediment layers from the bottom of nearby Lake Kushu point to low-level food production, including cultivation of barley and possible management of wild plants that complemented a wide range of foods derived from hunting, fishing, and gathering. This qualifies the people of the Okhotsk culture as one element of the long-term and spatially broader Holocene hunter–gatherer cultural complex (including also Jomon, Epi-Jomon, Satsumon, and Ainu cultures) of the Japanese archipelago, which may be placed somewhere between the traditionally accepted boundaries between foraging and agriculture. To our knowledge, the archaeobotanical assemblages from the Hokkaido Okhotsk culture sites highlight the north-eastern limit of prehistoric barley dispersal. Seed morphological characteristics identify two different barley phenotypes in the Hokkaido Region. One compact type (naked barley) associated with the Okhotsk culture and a less compact type (hulled barley) associated with Early–Middle Satsumon culture sites. This supports earlier suggestions that the “Satsumon type” barley was likely propagated by the expansion of the Yayoi culture via south-western Japan, while the “Okhotsk type” spread from the continental Russian Far East region, across the Sea of Japan. After the two phenotypes were independently introduced to Hokkaido, the boundary between both barley domains possibly existed ca. 600–1000 cal yr AD across the island region. Despite a large body of studies and numerous theoretical and conceptual debates, the question of how to differentiate between hunter–gatherer and farming economies persists reflecting the wide range of dynamic subsistence strategies used by humans through the Holocene. Our current study contributes to the ongoing discussion of this important issue.

Spatio-temporal distribution of hunter–gatherer archaeological sites in the Hokkaido region (northern Japan): An overview

The spatio-temporal distribution of archaeological sites in the Hokkaido region reveals hunter–gatherer population dynamics from the Upper Palaeolithic (>14,000 cal. yr BP) through the Neolithic/Jomon and Epi Jomom period (c. 14,000–1300 cal. yr BP) to the historic Ainu period (c. 700–100 cal. yr BP). It appears that most cultural transitions coincide with periods of climate and environmental change. However, this observation does not automatically mean causality and, therefore, other potential driving factors must be checked. The data support the hypothesis that Palaeolithic subsistence was (at least partly) based on terrestrial hunting. Paralleled by lateglacial climate amelioration, rising sea levels and a change in marine currents, this strategy shifted towards marine resources and plant exploitation at the beginning of the Jomon period. Along with continuous Holocene climate warming, Hokkaido’s Neolithic Jomon population increased culminating in the Middle Jomon period (5000–4000 cal. yr BP). Simultaneously, Jomon subsistence underwent a process of diversification and intensification in exploitation of food resources. This practice probably allowed the persistence of the Middle Jomon culture beyond the Holocene temperature optimum (around 5000 cal. yr BP). Thereafter, the population decreased until the end of the Jomon culture accompanied by a trend towards cooler climate conditions and a shift in subsistence towards a more narrow range of food resources with increased hunting and less plant food. Population re-increased during the Satsumon/Okhotsk culture periods (1500–700 cal. yr BP), which may be the result of Okhotsk immigration because of climate cooling in the regions north of Hokkaido and enhanced inner-Hokkaido trade (between Satsumon and Okhotsk) and trade with communities outside Hokkaido. During the Ainu period (c. 700–100 cal. yr BP), site, and possibly population numbers, re-decreased significantly and concentrated in eastern Hokkaido. Whether social and/or climatic factors brought about the Satsumon–Ainu cultural transition and the observed change in population pattern remains unresolved.

Ancient DNA identification of domestic animals used for leather objects in Central Asia during the Bronze Age

The arid climate of many regions within Central Asia often leads to excellent archaeological preservation, especially in sealed funerary contexts, allowing for ancient DNA analyses. While geneticists have looked at human remains, clothes, tools, and other burial objects are often neglected. In this paper, we present the results of an ancient DNA study on Bronze Age leather objects excavated from tombs of the Wupu cemetery in the Hami Oasis and Yanghai cemetery in the Turpan Oasis, both in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwestern China. In addition to species identification of goat (Capra aegagrus/hircus), sheep (Ovis orientalis/aries), and cattle (Bos primigenius/taurus), mitochondrial haplogroups were determined for several samples. Our results show that Bronze Age domesticated goats and sheep from the Hami and Turpan oases possessed identical or closely related haplotypes to modern domestic animals of this area. The absence of leather produced from wild animals emphasizes the importance of animal husbandry in the cultures of Wupu and Yanghai.