We describe the accretional development of pastoral technologies over eight millennia, including the productive breeding of domestic sheep, goats, and cattle in the early Neolithic and the subsequent domestication of animals used primarily for labor-donkeys, horses, and finally camels-as well as the first appearance of husbandry strategies such as penning, foddering, pasturing, young male culling, and dairy production. In this paper, we present a history of pastoralism in the ancient Near East from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age.
Focusing on the Xindian and Siwa archaeological phenomena, this paper provides a view into sub-regional responses to thisĬlimate event, warning against simplistic broad-brush reconstructions and calling for both a return to archaeological fundamentals and large-scale intensiveįieldwork and interdisciplinary studies involving archaeologists, paleobotanists, zooarchaeologists, isotope specialists, and climate scientists. Models of region-wide subsistence change in response to climate cooling tend to disregard local developments and group-specific responses as We argue that the old narratives perpetuating the image of a dichotomy between Steppe and Sown are inaccurate, while largescale Re-evaluates the Incipient Bronze Age in China’s Northwestern region, discussing evidence for climate change and its exact dates, as well as textual andĪrchaeological evidence. Yet, these explanatory models tend to rely on limited archaeological and environmentalĭata and non-contemporaneous historical data, resulting in simplistic causal relationships between environmental changes and social response. In particular, climate change, especially the so-called ~4.2k BP event has been seen as the main reason for an alleged collapse of Late Neolithic societiesĪnd a transition to pastoral-heavy economies and mobile lifeways. Over the past two decades, environmental studies in research on prehistoric China have been gaining popularity and importance. Remarkably, the connection with Upper Xiajiadian communities parallels the transport route along which millet agriculture spread from Northeast China to the Primorye during the Neolithic. Archaeologically, the combined study of artifact typology and chemistry indicates two possible origins for the metal: the Upper Xiajiadian culture in Northeast China and Slab Grave culture in Mongolia/Transbaikal. This may indicate an inland route of metal trade across Northeast China or alternately, a coastal route via the northern Korean Peninsula. Geologically, copper is unlikely to have come from local ore sources, but rather from the Liaoxi corridor and Liaodong Peninsula in Northeast China. The results suggest that most objects are made of a copper-tin alloy, but some have arsenic as a significant minor element. This paper investigates 12 copper artifacts from major Paleometal settlements using alloy composition, trace elements, and lead isotopes to explore the metal sources and distribution networks. However, little is known about raw material circulation and the role of metal in the context of inter-regional exchange.
1100 BC–400 AD) of the Primorye (Russian Far East) have shed new light on the introduction of the earliest bronzes into the Pacific coastal areas of prehistoric Eurasia. Metal artifacts from the Paleometal Epoch (ca. Our results highlight the need to consider the interplay of climatic dynamics with social upheaval in understanding the evolution of prehistorical civilization in NE Asia. The low temperatures caused unfavorable conditions for the agriculture-based society during the Lower Xiajiadian period and thus drove people to flee southward into the North China and Central China Plains, leading to a culturally desolated area that was gradually occupied by pastoralists in about 250 years. Comparing existing records suggests that this event represents a hemispherical-scale cooling probably driven by the prolonged El Niño conditions. Our record shows a persistent cooling between ca.3.5–3.0 ka, which coincides with the societal transition from a settled to a mobile lifestyle. Here we report a 3600-yr-long climate record based on branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether distributions in the Jinchuan peat core, Northeastern (NE) China. The role of climatic change in the social transition in NE China during the Bronze Age is poorly understood due to the lack of reliable climate proxy records.
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