Yijie Zhuang

Archaeology of the Anthropocene in the Yellow River region, China, 8000–2000 cal. BP

Although archaeological analysis emphasizes the importance of climatic events as a driver of historical processes, we use a variety of environmental and archaeological data to show that human modification of the environment was a significant factor in shaping the early history of the Yellow River region of North China. Humans began to modify site-specific and local-level environments in the Early Holocene (~11,500–7000 BP). By the Mid-Holocene (~7000–5000 BP), the effects of humans on the environment become much larger and are witnessed at regional and tributary river basin scales. Land clearance and agriculture, as well as related land use, are dominant determinants of these changes. By the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age (~5000–3500 BP), population growth and intensification of agricultural production expanded the human footprint across the Yellow River region. By the Mid to Late Bronze Age (~3600–2200 BP), larger populations armed with better technology and propelled by more centralized governments were altering lands throughout the Yellow River region, gradually bringing the environment under human control. By the Early Dynastic period (221 bc–ad 220), the Yellow River region was an increasingly anthropogenic environment wherein human land management practices were, in many instances, as consequential as natural forces. Throughout the Holocene history of the Middle and Lower Yellow River, anthropogenic, climatic, and natural environmental processes were acting to shape human history and behavior, making it difficult, if not impossible, to say whether human or climate processes were more consequential. There is a complex relationship in China’s early history between natural and human forcing much like there is today. The Early Anthropocene concept is useful here because it recognizes that when natural and cultural forces become so intertwined, it no longer makes sense to separate the two.

Barnyard grasses were processed with rice around 10000 years ago

Rice (Oryza sativa) is regarded as the only grass that was selected for cultivation and eventual domestication in the Yangtze basin of China. Although both macro-fossils and micro-fossils of rice have been recovered from the Early Neolithic site of Shangshan, dating to more than 10,000 years before present (BP), we report evidence of phytolith and starch microfossils taken from stone tools, both for grinding and cutting, and cultural layers, that indicating barnyard grass (Echinochloa spp.) was a major subsistence resource, alongside smaller quantities of acorn starches (Lithocarpus/Quercus sensu lato) and water chestnuts (Trapa). This evidence suggests that early managed wetland environments were initially harvested for multiple grain species including barnyard grasses as well as rice, and indicate that the emergence of rice as the favoured cultivated grass and ultimately the key domesticate of the Yangtze basin was a protracted process.

Water management and agricultural intensification of rice farming at the late-Neolithic site of Maoshan, Lower Yangtze River, China

Intensifying water management for rice farming and related land use involves increasing labour investment in transforming local landscapes. By applying geoarchaeological investigation at the well-preserved late-Neolithic rice paddy site of Maoshan, Lower Yangtze River, during the excavation, this study provides detailed information of the changing relationship between water management, agricultural intensification, environmental change and social evolution during the critical time period of the late Holocene. It illustrates that the intensification of rice farming was facilitated by successful water management and landscape management in most time, and it was the combined effect of gradually increasing aridity, fluctuating sea-level patterns and increasing labour investment in water management that led to the eventual abandonment of the paddy field at the end of the Neolithic in this region. This study therefore draws attention from large-scale sites to small-scale, but economically important, sites in enhancing our understanding of the dynamic relationship between human societies and environmental changes during the late Holocene in this region.

Anthropocene archaeology of the Yellow River, China, 5000–2000 BP

In this paper, we use geoarchaeological and paleoenvironmental data from three localities in the Yellow River Valley, China – Taosi, Sanyangzhuang, and the Yiluo Valley – to argue that human activity in the mid- to late-Holocene contributed to large-scale changes in the behavior of the Yellow River and that these changes were of sufficient magnitude to bend the arc of China’s history. Massive anthropogenic landscape transformation from the later Neolithic into the early Dynastic periods, especially in the Chinese Loess Plateau, increased sedimentation in the Yellow River requiring intensive investment in flood control features to protect an ever-growing population. As the Yellow River channel aggraded, channel gradients became increasingly steep, and avulsions occurred with greater frequency and consequence. Flooding reached an apogee in the first decades of the Common Era when a massive avulsion of the Yellow River ca. 14–17 CE caused the river to shift to the south and east of its former channel. This avulsion and the catastrophic flooding that followed triggered the collapse of the Western Han dynasty. The Yellow River – known as ‘China’s Tribulation’ – has been seen as a natural scourge that afflicts the inhabitants of the fertile North China Plain. However, when viewed in an Anthropocene perspective, it is evident that China’s Tribulation largely is the result of human manipulation of the environment.

Comparing subsistence strategies in different landscapes of North China 10,000 years ago:

A recent switch in the study of the beginning of agriculture is to demonstrate the increasingly closer interaction between people and the landscape and how this would have played a crucial role in the transition to agriculture. Understanding the palaeo-ecology of the local environments at key sites and its relationship with subsistence strategies is critical to an improved appreciation of such interactions. This article examines macro- and micro-plant remains discovered at two important sites in North China, both dated to around 10,000 cal. yr BP. These two sites, Zhuannian and Nanzhuangtou, are located on the terrace of the Bai River in the Yan Mountains and next to Baiyangdian Lake on the piedmont of the Taihang Mountains, respectively. The floral remains at these two sites provide a great opportunity to examine (1) post-Pleistocene subsistence strategies, (2) the increasing consumption of millets and grassy plants and its significance and (3) the intra-regional diversity in food exploitation and its relationships with local environments. While the macro-plant remains at Nanzhuangtou indicate the importance of aquatic plants in the palaeo-diet, those at Zhuannian suggest a tendency of exploiting tree plants. This significance of these diversified plant food exploitation strategies by the last hunter-gatherers should be paid more attention in future research. Our data also once again confirm the importance of millet consumption to these hunter-gatherers on the eve of millet domestication.

New radiocarbon evidence on early rice consumption and farming in South China

While the possibility of indigenous rice cultivation cannot be entirely ruled out, there is increasing evidence suggesting that rice farming was introduced to South China during the late-Holocene. However, determination of the exact timing of the spread of rice farming to South China is fraught with the lack of reliable radiocarbon dates. In this article, we present 15 new AMS 14C dates of charred plant remains recovered from late-Holocene sites of Shixia and Guye in Guangdong Province of South China. Our new AMS 14C dates suggest a later arrival of rice farming in the Pearl River Delta than previously thought. These new AMS 14C dates will shed new lights to an improved understanding of the environmental background and ecology of the southward spread of rice farming.

Earliest hydraulic enterprise in China, 5,100 years ago

Significance The recently excavated Liangzhu hydraulic system in the Yangtze Delta has pushed back the date of formalized water engineering in China to approximately 5,100 years ago. The results are unprecedented in learning about the timing, structure, and function of a large-scale complex of dams, levees, ditches, and other water-controlling features in ancient China. Together with the well-excavated remains of Liangzhu city and its rice fields, the new findings represent one of the largest efforts of hydraulic landscape engineering in the ancient world. Here we present one of the world’s oldest examples of large-scale and formalized water management, in the case of the Liangzhu culture of the Yangtze Delta, dated at 5,300–4,300 years cal B.P. The Liangzhu culture represented a peak of early cultural and social development predating the historically recorded Chinese dynasties; hence, this study reveals more about the ancient origins of hydraulic engineering as a core element of social, political, and economic developments. Archaeological surveys and excavations can now portray the impressive extent and structure of dams, levees, ditches, and other landscape-transforming features, supporting the ancient city of Liangzhu, with an estimated size of about 300 ha. The results indicate an enormous collective undertaking, with unprecedented evidence for understanding how the city, economy, and society of Liangzhu functioned and developed at such a large scale. Concurrent with the evidence of technological achievements and economic success, a unique relationship between ritual order and social power is seen in the renowned jade objects in Liangzhu elite burials, thus expanding our view beyond the practicalities of water management and rice farming.

The cradle of heaven-human induction idealism: agricultural intensification, environmental consequences and social responses in Han China and Three-Kingdoms Korea

ABSTRACT Han China (206 bc–ad 220) witnessed significant population growth, pronounced technological development, intensified agricultural practices and the construction of large-scale hydraulic engineering projects in the Yellow River. These processes coincided with increased frequency and intensity of major floods along the Yellow River. The interactions between flooding and social-technical developments fundamentally reshaped the politics of the Han and stimulated the formation of so-called heaven-human induction idealism. This Confucian environmental ethic gradually became a powerful orthodoxy that shaped political and economic behaviours and society’s perspective on and actions towards utilizing environmental resources and transforming landscapes. Similar processes played out in Three-Kingdoms Korea (ad 300–668). The Korean case exemplifies how, as in China, this idealism was a product of the long-term interplay between state formation and the environment through the development of intensive agriculture.

Neolithisation in North China: Landscape and geoarchaeological perspectives

Abstract Multi-disciplinary research in different parts of the world has demonstrated that neolithisation or the establishment of the ‘neolithic’ way of life, including economy, settlement, landscape management and ideology, was a lengthy process. In North China, this prolonged neolithisation is characterised by ecological diversity and increasing landscape management throughout the Terminal Palaeolithic to the Early Neolithic. Geoarchaeology is a crucial subject for the improvement of a better understanding of long-term interaction between landscape change and cultural evolution. This paper presents brief summaries of geoarchaeological surveys in the Chinese Loess Plateau and the Lower Yellow River, reviews recent archaeological discoveries dating to the Terminal Palaeolithic to the Early Neolithic in the same and related areas from the geoarchaeological perspective and discusses the different roles that the environment played in the neolithisation process in various areas. The conclusions are: (a) there is an enhanced engagement between people and the landscape during the Pleistocene–Holocene transitional period and (b) the ecological diversity and continuing mobility of archaeological cultures during the Early Holocene were critical for the transition to the Neolithic.