New evidence for the origins of sedentism and rice domestication in the Lower Yangzi River, China.

New evidence for the origins of sedentism and rice domestication in the Lower Yangzi River, China. The Shangshan site Shangshan is located at Qu'nancun in Pujiang county, Zhejiangprovince. It is situated on a flat basin in the upper Puyang River The Puyang River (浦阳江) is one of the three main tributaries of the Qiantang River (钱塘江) in Zhejiang Province (浙江省), China. , atributary of the Qiantang River The Qiantang River (Chinese: 钱塘江; Pinyin: Qi��nt��ng Jiāng, also known as the Qian River) is a southeast Chinese river that originates in the borders of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces (Figure 1). The site, 50m above sealevel, appears to be one of many small mounds in the basin, about 3-5mhigher than the surrounding ground; most of these mounds, however, havebeen levelled to make agricultural lands in recent decades.Archaeologists of the Zhejiang Institute of Archaeology The Institute of Archaeology is an academic department of University College London (UCL), in the United Kingdom. The Institute is located in a separate building at the north end of Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. discovered theShangshan site during a survey project in 2000. Archaeologists excavated an area of 600[m.sup.2] in 2001. Thecultural deposits are about 80-100cm in thickness. The Neolithicoccupation, divided into five strata and measuring up to 60cm inthickness, is superpositioned by a Shang-Zhong stratum (second-firstmillennium BC) and a ploughed layer. Four AMS AMS - Andrew Message System carbon (14) dates obtainedfrom charred plants tempered in the Neolithic pottery point to a periodaround 10 000 cal. BP (Table 1). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] The site appears to have been a sedentary village. Within theexcavated area there were several dwellings and more than twenty ashpits, round or nearly square in shape. The dwelling remains are composedof rows of trenches or postholes. The earliest building, Building F2,was unearthed Unearthed is the name of a Triple J project to find and "dig up" (hence the name) hidden talent in regional Australia.Unearthed has had three incarnations - they first visited each region of Australia where Triple J had a transmitter - 41 regions in all. from the lowest strata. It was a trench-style structure,composed of a foundation surrounded by a U-shaped trench on the eastern,northern and western sides. The better-preserved western trench measures8.5m long, lm wide, and 10-26cm deep. The trenches on the three sideswere filled with soil in different colours. This type of structure seemsto be unique in the region. Building F1, found in an upper stratum of the Neolithic period Neolithic periodor New Stone Age.The term neolithic is used, especially in archaeology and anthropology, to designate a stage of cultural evolution or technological development characterized by the use of stone tools, the existence of , isa structure of 14m long and 6m wide, oriented along anorth-west-south-east axis. There are three parallel rows of postholes,which are 27-50cm in diameter and 70-90cm in depth. In each row thedistance between postholes is about 1.6m, while the distance betweenrows is 3m (Figure 2). Some of the postholes are constructed with smallstones on the side or base. Such a structural plan seems to resemble thewell-preserved pile-dwellings found at the Hemudu site (ZhejiangInstitute of Archaeology 2003), some 150km north-east of but 2000 yearslater than Shangshan. [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] The Shangshan material assemblage includes stone balls The terms Stone balls, "stone ball", "stone spheres", and "stone sphere" have been used to designate spherical stone objects of both natural and artificial origin. Different types of stone balls include: Natural , chippedstone In archaeology, chipped stone refers to a method of manufacturing stone tools through lithic reduction, wherein lithic flakes are struck off a mass of tool stone with a percussor. tools, large grinding slabs, rectangular-shaped stone pestle pestle/pes��tle/ (pes��'l) an implement for pounding drugs in a mortar. pes��tlen.A club-shaped, hand-held tool for grinding or mashing substances in a mortar. , andred pottery tempered with charred plants. Due to the acid soilconditions, most organic material has not been preserved. The stone tool assemblage shows a transition from Palaeolithic toNeolithic technologies. More than 100 stone balls, similar in size andshape, were uncovered. They are made of river pebbles, 5-10cm indiameter; while most show chipped and worn surfaces, some still have acortex. There are many chipped stone core and flake tools, showingcontinuity of Palaeolithic traditions. Grinding slabs are 30-50cm inwidth, with a concave ConcaveProperty that a curve is below a straight line connecting two end points. If the curve falls above the straight line, it is called convex. surface, while pestles are made of pebbles, oftenshowing a convex surface on one side. These slab-and-pestle sets mayhave been used together for processing food. Some perforated pebbledisks, which probably served as digging stick weights (Song & Zhou1994), are made by hammer-dressing technique and worked from both sides.The Neolithic technology is indicated by the presence of a few finelypolished stone axes and adzes, and whetstones (Figure 3). [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] Pottery appears to have been fired at a low temperature. Thefabrics are yellowish in colour, walls are thick, in some cases morethan 2cm in thickness, and the exterior surfaces seem to be covered withred slip. Most pottery vessels are tempered with charred plants, but afew with sand. Some potsherds show layers in cross-section, revealingthat slab-modelling technique was employed. Based on preliminaryanalysis, 85 per cent of pottery vessels are flat-bottomed in shape,while a few are round-bottomed and short ring-bottomed. The basin is thedominant vessel form, with 30-50cm in rim diameter, 9.5-12.5cm inheight, and 10.5-24cm in base diameter; a ring-shaped loop is oftenattached on the middle of the exterior vessel wall (Figure 4). Otherpottery forms include fu cooking vessels and guan jars. Most vesselshave plain surfaces, but a few are decorated with cord-marks and stampedpatterns. Cord-marks normally occur on the areas of loop, handle orconcave spots on vessel surface, which seem to be left out after thelarger part of the vessel was wiped to make a smooth surface. Thestamped patterns appear on basin rims. [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] Pottery pastes are tempered with charred plants including ricehusks. Many plant remains in potsherds contain fan-shaped phytolithsfrom rice stalks (Figure 5). A preliminary observation of the charredrice husks in pottery fabrics suggests that the rice is shorter inlength but greater in width than wild rice (Figure 6), suggesting thatthe Shangshan rice was probably already in an early stage ofdomestication domesticationProcess of hereditary reorganization of wild animals and plants into forms more accommodating to the interests of people. In its strictest sense, it refers to the initial stage of human mastery of wild animals and plants. . [FIGURES 5-6 OMITTED] All previously discovered early Holocene sites, which yieldedpottery or rice remains dating to 10 000 years ago, are cave sites, suchas Yuchanyan in Hunan (Yuan 2002), Xianrendong and Diaotonghuan inJiangxi (Zhang 2002), and Zengpiyan in Guangxi (Institute ofArchaeology, CASS CASSCardiology, cardiovascular surgery A randomized, open label, multicenter trial that compared the outcomes of CABG vs. medical therapy on M&M in Pts with coronary artery disease after an MI. See Angina, CABG, Silent ischemia. 2003). The Shangshan site is situated in the middle ofa flat basin, suggesting a new strategy of sedentary adaptation. The material assemblage from Shangshan is also very similar tothose from other early Holocene sites in China, including slab-mouldtechniques in pottery production, simply formed and lowtemperature-fired pottery, perforated pebble disks, chipped stone tools,and combinations of stone slabs and pestles. These material remainssuggest a subsistence mode relating to gathering and incipientagriculture. However, Shangshan shows cultural elements more advanced than thosecave sites. The construction of pile-dwellings established thislong-lasting architectural tradition in the Lower Yangzi River region.The finely polished woodworking tools provide the earliest evidence forground stone tool technology associated with the development ofsedentism in open-air sites. The pottery tempered with charred plants isthe earliest example of this technology, as parallel examples did notoccur until some 1000 years later at Pengtoushan in the middle YangziRiver region (Pei 1998). Conclusion The Yangzi River valley has been recognised as the area where ricewas first domesticated do��mes��ti��cate?tr.v. do��mes��ti��cat��ed, do��mes��ti��cat��ing, do��mes��ti��cates1. To cause to feel comfortable at home; make domestic.2. To adopt or make fit for domestic use or life.3. a. . In the 1970s, with the discoveries of severalrice-producing Neolithic sites dated to c. 7000 BE such as Hemudu,Luojiajiao, Caoxieshan and Songze, many archaeologists suggested thatrice domestication first occurred in the Lower Yangzi River valley (Van1982). In the 1990s, however, new finds of early rice remains dated to10 000-8000 BP from Yuchanyan, Pengtoushan and Bashidang in Hunan ledarchaeologists to switch their attentions to the Middle Yangzi Riverregion for the origins of rice domestication (Higham & Lu 1998; Pet1998; Zhao 1998). The recent discovery of 10 000 year old rice remainsat Shangshan has renewed speculation about the area of earliest ricedomestication. It is likely, based on current evidence, that rice wasfirst domesticated in a broad area including both lower and middleYangzi River regions, and the beginning of rice cultivation was closelyassociated with the emergence of sedentary villages with construction ofvarious types of dwellings. Acknowledgements We thank the Institute for Advanced Studies at La Trobe University 1. u/r = unranked2.AsiaWeek is now discontinued. Student lifeDuring the 1970s and 1980s, La Trobe, along with Monash, was considered to have the most politically active student body of any university in Australia. for its generous support which made this collaborative project possible. Received: 20 May 2005; Accepted: 14 July 2005 References HIGHAM, C. & T.L.-D. Lu. 1998. The origins and dispersal ofrice cultivation. Antiquity 72: 867-77. INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY, CASS. 2003. Guilin Zengpiyan. Beijing:Wenwu Press. PEI, A. 1998. Notes on new advancements and revelations in theagricultural archaeology of early rice domestication in the DongtingLake region. Antiquity 72: 878-85. SONG, Z. & G.X. ZHOU. 1994. Yuanshi juetubang shang dechuankong zhongshi (The perforated weighting stones), in G.X Zhou, Y.Zhang & X. Zhang (ed.) Zhongri Gurenlei yu Shiqian Wenhua YuanyuanGuanxi Guoji Xueshu Yantaohui Lunwenji (International SymposiumRelationship between Chinese and Japanese Ancient People and PrehistoricCultures): 254-62. Beijing: China International Radio Press. YAN YAN Youth Action NetworkYAN Yangambi, Zaire (airport code)YAN You Are NiceYAN Yancey Railroad Company , W. 1982. Zhongguo Daozuo nongye de qiyuan (Origins of ricecultivation in China). Nongye kaogu 1: 19-31,151. YUAN, J. 2002. Rice and pottery 10 000 yrs. BP at Yuchanyan, Daocounty, Hunan province, in Y. Yasuda (ed.) The Origins of Pottery andAgriculture: 157-66. New Delhi: Roll Books. ZHANG, C. 2002. Early pottery and rice phytolith phy��to��lith?n.A minute particle formed of mineral matter by a living plant and fossilized in rock. remains fromXianrendong and Diaotonghuan sites, Wannian, Jiangxi province, inYoshinori Yasuda (ed.) The Origins of Pottery and Agriculture: 185-92.New Delhi: Roli Books. ZHAO, Z. 1998. The middle Yangtze region in China is one placewhere rice was domesticated: phytolith evidence from the Diaotonghuancave, northern Jiangxi. Antiquity 72: 885-97. ZHEJIANG INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY. 2003. Hemudu. Beijing: WenwuPress. Leping Jiang (1) & Li Liu (2) (1) Zhejiang Institute of Archaeology, China (2) La Trobe University, Australia (Email: L.Liu@latrobe.edu.au)Table 1. Carbon 14 dates from the Shangshan site Context of Material [sup.14]C Date BPSample# sample dated ([T.sub.1/2] = 5568)BA02235 House Pottery 8740 [+ or -] 110 F2 temperBA02236 Pit H31 Pottery 9610 [+ or -] 160 temperBA02237 Stratum (6) Pottery 8620 [+ or -] 160 temperBK02238 Stratum (3) Pottery 8050 [+ or -] 110 temper Cal. BC DateSample# l[sigma] (68.2%) 2[sigma] (95.4%) LabBA02235 7960 (68.2%) 8250 (95.4%) Peking 7600 7550 UniversityBA02236 9220 (67.1%) 9400 (95.4%) Peking 8790 8450 UniversityBA02237 7950 (67.2%) 8250 (95.4%) Peking 7520 7300 UniversityBK02238 7180 (3.5%) 7350 (95.4%) Peking 7150 6660 University 7140 (61.6%) 6800 6790 (3.1%) 6750