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. 2019 Jul 18;14(7):e0218751.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0218751. eCollection 2019.

Sedentism and plant cultivation in northeast China emerged during affluent conditions

Gideon Shelach-Lavi  1   2 , Mingyu Teng  2 , Yonaton Goldsmith  3   4 , Ido Wachtel  5 , Chris J Stevens  6 , Ofer Marder  7 , Xiongfei Wan  8 , Xiaohong Wu  9 , Dongdong Tu  1 , Roi Shavit  7 , Pratigya Polissar  10 , Hai Xu  11 , Dorian Q Fuller  6
Affiliations

Sedentism and plant cultivation in northeast China emerged during affluent conditions

Gideon Shelach-Lavi et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The reasons and processes that led hunter-gatherers to transition into a sedentary and agricultural way of life are a fundamental unresolved question of human history. Here we present results of excavations of two single-occupation early Neolithic sites (dated to 7.9 and 7.4 ka) and two high-resolution archaeological surveys in northeast China, which capture the earliest stages of sedentism and millet cultivation in the second oldest center of domestication in the Old World. The transition to sedentism coincided with a significant transition to wetter conditions in north China, at 8.1-7.9 ka. We suggest that these wetter conditions were an empirical precondition that facilitated the complex transitional process to sedentism and eventually millet domestication in north China. Interestingly, sedentism and plant domestication followed different trajectories. The sedentary way of life and cultural norms evolved rapidly, within a few hundred years, we find complex sedentary villages inhabiting the landscape. However, the process of plant domestication, progressed slowly over several millennia. Our earliest evidence for the beginning of the domestication process appear in the context of an already complex sedentary village (late Xinglongwa culture), a half millennia after the onset of cultivation, and even in this phase domesticated plants and animals were rare, suggesting that the transition to domesticated (sensu stricto) plants in affluent areas might have not played a substantial role in the transition to sedentary societies.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Location maps.
Left: Map of the survey areas and the paleoclimate records discussed in the paper. Right: Topographic map of the Fuxin survey region, showing the borders of the survey and the two sites excavated.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Paleoclimate of northeast China.
a. Radiocarbon ages from both excavated sites (red–site 12D56, purple–site 12D16). b. avgδDwax from both sites (color same as 4a). c. Normalized pottery density from the two survey regions [28]. d. Lake Dali lake level (for symbols see [32]). e. Lianhua Cave δ18O (light green- redrawn from ref [33], dark green is a Gaussian smoothing of data). The vertical bar denotes the time span of both periods.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Excavated sites.
Left: The earlier site - 12D56. Right: The later site - 12D16. The plans of the excavation sites showing the structures excavated (solid lines are places where the perimeter of the structure was excavated, dashed lines represent extrapolation of the structure parameter and are provided as context reference, shading is pottery density (sherd/m2), see S1 Text for details).
Fig 4
Fig 4. Artifacts excavated at site 12D56.
Stone artifacts (upper half) and pot shards (lower half).
Fig 5
Fig 5. Artifacts excavated at site 12D16.
Stone artifacts (upper half) and ceramic vessels (lower half).
Fig 6
Fig 6. Remains of common millet (Panicum miliaceum) from site 12D16.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Publication types

Grants and funding

Funding for this research was provided by the Israel Science Foundation (Grants no. 501/11 and 728/17 to G.S), the National Geographic Society (Grant no. 8614-09 to G.S) and by the joint Israel Science Foundation – National Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 2487/17 and no. 41761144070 to Y.G and X.H). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.