Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T14:03:46.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Later hunter-gatherers in southern China, 18 000–3000 BC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2012

Zhang Chi  and
Hsiao-chun Hung
Zhang Chi
Affiliation:
1School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, Beijing, China
Hsiao-chun Hung
Affiliation:
2Department of Archaeology and Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language and School of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia (Email: hsiao-chun.hung@anu.edu.au)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The authors present new research on social and economic developments in southern China in the Early Holocene, ninth to fifth millennia BC. The ‘Neolithic package’ doesn't really work for this fascinating chapter of the human experience, where pottery, social aggregation, animal domestication and rice cultivation all arrive at different places and times. The authors define the role of the ‘pottery-using foragers’, sophisticated hunter-gatherers who left shell or fish middens in caves and dunes. These colonising non-farmers shared numerous cultural attributes with rice cultivators on the Yangtze, their parallel contemporaries over more than 5000 years. Some agriculturalists became hunter-foragers in turn when they expanded onto less fertile soils. No simple linear transition then, but the practice of ingenious strategies, adaptations and links in a big varied land.

Keywords

southern Chinanorthern VietnamNeolithic transitionhunter-gatherersearly farmersrice cultivation
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 331 , March 2012 , pp. 11 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bellwood, P. 2005. First farmers. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bellwood, P. 2009. The dispersals of established food-producing populations. Current Anthropology 50(5): 621–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bettinger, R. L., Barton, L., Morgan, C., Chen, F., Wang, H., Guilderson, T. P., Ji, D. & Zhang, D.. 2010. The transition to agriculture at Dadiwan, People's Republic of China. Current Anthropology 51(5): 703–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boaretto, E, Wu, X. H., Yuan, J. R., Bar-Yosef, O., Chu, V., Pan, Y., Liu, K., Cohen, D., Jiao, T. L., Li, S. C., Gu, H. B., Goldberg, P. & Weiner, S.. 2009. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal and bone collagen associated with early pottery at Yuchanyan Cave, Hunan Province, China. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 106(24): 9595–9600.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bu, G. 1999. Chronologies and genealogies of the Late Neolithic at the mouth of the Zhujiang River. Wenwu 11: 48–56 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Crawford, G. W. & Chen, S.. 1998. The origins of rice agriculture: recent progress in East Asia. Antiquity 73: 858–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fu, X. G. 2002a. The Dingsishan site and the prehistory of Guangxi, southern China. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 22: 63–72.Google Scholar
Fu, X. G. 2002b. The first archaeological culture in Guangxi-Yongning Dingsishan site, in Li, Wen-ru (ed.) Top 100 new archaeological discoveries of China 1990- 1999: 237. Beijing: Wenwu Press (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Fuller, D. Q., Qin, L., Zheng, Y., Zhao, Z., Chen, X., Hosoya, L. A. & Sun, G. P.. 2009. The domestication process and domestication rate in rice: spikelet bases from the Lower Yangtze. Science 323: 1607–1610.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gu, H. B. 1999. Studies of the phytoliths and pollen of the Yingde Niulandong Cave in Guangdong, in Yingde City Museum, Anthropology Department of Zhongshan University & Guangdong Provincial Museum (ed.) Treatises of international conference on Mesolithic culture: 113–206. Guangzhou: Guangdong People (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Gu, H. B. & Zhao, Z. J.. 2009. Study on carbonized rice from different cultural phases in Hunan. Dongfang Kaogu 6: 358–65 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Guangxi Team, IA of CASS, ATGZ & Nanning Museum. 1998. Excavation at Dingsishan in Yongning, Guangxi. Kaogu 11: 11–33 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Guangxi Team, IA of CASS & ATGZ. 2003. Excavation at Baozitou in Nanning, Guangxi. Kaogu 10: 22–34 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
He, G. 2006a. Reappearance of prehistoric religious and ritual scenario-the Neolithic Gaomiao site in Hongjiang, Hunan. Paper presented at The archaeology forum of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: new discoveries in Chinese archaeology in 2005, Chinese Academy of Social Science, Beijing, 10 January 2006 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
He, G. 2006b. The big discovery of Hongjiang Gaomiao site in Hunan. China Cultural Relics News, 6 January 2006, p. 1 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
He, J. J. 1994. Prehistoric painted pottery and Daxi culture of the Zhujiang River mouth, in Tang, C. (ed.) Ancient cultures of south China and neighbouring regions: 71–8. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Hung, H-C. 2008. Migration and cultural interaction in southern coastal China, Taiwan and the northern Philippines, 3000 BC to AD 100: the early history of the Austronesian-speaking populations. Unpublished PhD dissertation, The Australian National University.Google Scholar
IA, CASS, ATGZ, Cultural Relic Survey Team of Guilin City & Zengpiyan Site Museum 2003. Guilin Zengpiyan. Beijing: Wenwu (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Ia, Hunan. 2000. Excavation of the Gaomiao site at Qiangyang in Hunan. Wenwu 4: 4–23 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Ia, Hunan. 2006. Excavation of the Neolithic Gaomiao site, Hongjiang in Hunan. Kaogu 7: 9–15 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Jiao, T. L. 1994. The prehistoric culture of the Lingnan region from the Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene. Kaogu Xuebao 1: 1–24 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Lin, G. W. 2005. Neolithic culture of the Fujian coastal region, in Chen, Z. Y. & Pan, J. G. (ed.) Archaeological seminar on the southeastern coastal islands of China: 75–90. Lienchiang: Cultural Affairs Bureau (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Liu, Y. C. & Guo, S. Q.. 2005. Status and meaning of Kinmen's Fuguodun in the southeastern coastal areas of China, in Chen, Z. Y. & Pan, J. G. (ed.) Archaeological seminar on the southeastern coastal islands of China: 135–95. Liechiang: Cultural Affairs Bureau (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Lu, P. 2010. Zooarchaeological study on the shell middens in the Yong Valley of Guangxi. Unpublished PhD dissertation, IA of CASS, Beijing (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Lu, T.L-D. 1999. The transition from foraging to farming in China. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 18: 77–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lu, T.L-D. 2007. Natural resources and subsistence strategies in prehistoric Hong Kong. Kaogu 6: 36–45 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Ma, J. X. 1988. Distribution characteristics of the ancient sites in the Sanxia region of the Yangtze River. Jianghan Kaogu 4: 115–19 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Matsumura, H., Oxenham, M., Dodo, Y., Domett, K., Nguyen, K. T., Nguyen, L. C., Nguyen, K.D., Huffer, D. & Yamagata, M.. 2008. Morphometric affinity of the late Neolithic human remains from Man Bac, Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam: key skeletons with which to debate the ‘two layer’ hypothesis. Anthropological Science 116(2): 135–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matsumura, H., Oxenham, M., Nguyen, K. T., Nguyen, L.C. & Nguyen, K. D.. 2011. Population history of mainland Southeast Asia: the two layer model in the context of northern Vietnam, in Enfield, N. & White, J. (ed.) Dynamics of human diversity: the case of mainland Southeast Asia: 1–23. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Meacham, W. 1978. Sham Wan, Lamma Island: an archaeological site study (Journal monograph 3). Hong Kong: Hong Kong Archaeological Society.Google Scholar
Nakamura, S. 2000. The origin of Chinese rice cultivation. Chinese Archaeology 10: 1–11 (in Japanese).Google Scholar
Nishitani, M. 1997. The Neolithic in coastal southern China. Bulletin of the National Museum of the Japanese History 70: 1–56 (in Japanese).Google Scholar
Nguyen, V. 2005. The Da But culture: evidence for cultural development in Vietnam during the Middle Holocene. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 25: 89–93.Google Scholar
Nguyen, W. H. 2006. Da But culture in Vietnam, in Ia, Cass (ed.) Prehistoric archaeology of south China and Southeast Asia: 341–6. Beijing: Wenwu (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Pei, A. P. 1999. Xiantouling assemblage in the Zhujiang estuary. Dongnan Kaogu Yanjiu 2: 117–31 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Shenzhen Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology Identification. 2006. 7000-year-old Neolithic site found at Xintouling in Shenzhen. China Cultural Relics News, 6 December 2006, p. 2 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Tang, C. 1999. Archaeological reconstruction of the aboriginal culture in south China. Dongnan Kaogu Yanjiu 2: 83–9 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Wang, H. G. 2006. New discoveries and new knowledge of Guizhou archaeology. Kaogu 8: 3–10 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Wang, Y. P. 2005. Prehistoric cultural origin in China. Beijing: Science (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Wu, C. M. 1999. Local tradition and outside influence of the Mesolithic culture in south China, in Yingde City Museum, Department of Anthropology, Sun Yat-sen University and Guangdong Provincial Museum (ed.) Thesis collection of the Mesolithic culture and its related issues: 6–18. Guangdong: People Press (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Yan, W. M. 2002. The origins of rice agriculture, pottery and cities, in Yoshinori, Y. (ed.) The origins of pottery and agriculture: 151–6. New Delhi: Roli Books.Google Scholar
Yasuda, Y. 2002. Origins of pottery and agriculture in East Asia, in Yoshinori, Y. (ed.) The origins of pottery and agriculture: 119–42. New Delhi: Roli Books.Google Scholar
Yuan, J. R. 1991. Early Holocene cave sites in Dao county of Hunan and its related issues, in Fengkai County Museum, IA of Guangdong, Guangdong Provincial Museum & Relics and Museum Association of Guangdong Province (ed.) Thesis collection in remembrance of the Huangyandong Cave being discovered for 30 years: 100–108. Guangdong: Travel and Tourism Press (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Yuan, J. R. 2000. The 10 000-year-old rice husks and potteries of the Yuchanyan Cave of Dao county in Hunan, in Yan, W. M. & Yasuda, Y. (ed.) The origins of rice agriculture, pottery, and cities: 35. Beijing: Wenwu (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Zhang, C. 1999. The excavations at Xianrendong and Diaotonghuan, Jiangxi. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 18: 97–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, C. 2000. A brief review of the Early Neolithic culture of southern China, in Xu, Z. Y. & Zhang, Z. P. (ed.) New century reflection and expectation of Chinese archaeology: 190–98. Beijing: Science (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Zhang, C. 2007. The early potteries of southern China, in Center for the Study of Chinese Archaeology et al. (ed.) Gudai Wenming [Ancient civilisation] 5: 1–16. Beijing: Wenwu (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Zhang, C. 2011. Cultural remains of the Jiahu phase I. Wenwu 3: 46–53 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Zhang, C. & Hung, H-C.. 2008. The Neolithic of southern China-origin, development and dispersal. Asian Perspectives 47(2): 299–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, C. & Hung, H-C.. 2010. The emergence of agriculture in southern China. Antiquity 84: 11–25.Google Scholar
Zhang, W.X. 2000. Rice bi-peaked tubercles, the characteristics of ancient rice, and the origin of rice cultivation, in Yan, W. M. & Yasuda, Y. (ed.) The origins of rice agriculture, pottery, and cities: 122. Beijing: Wenwu (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Zhao, C.H. & Wu, X. H.. 2003. The discovery and the related issues of Chinese early potteries, in School of Archaeology and Museology, Beijing University (ed.) Kaoguxue Yanjiu [Study of Archaeology] 5: 98–100. Beijing: Science (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Zhao, Z.J., Lu, L. D. & Fu, X. G.. 2005. The study of the excavated phytoliths in the Dingsishan site of Yongning County of Guangxi. Kaogu 11: 76–84 (in Chinese).Google Scholar