Sedentism and plant cultivation in northeast China emerged during affluent conditions

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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© 2019 Shelach-Lavi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Received: March 11, 2019; Accepted: June 8, 2019; Published: July 18, 2019. Data Availability Statement: The raw data of the Fuxin and Chifeng survey (on which part of Fig 2 and S1 Fig. are based) are deposited and open to the public in the Comparative Archaeology Database, University of Pittsburgh. Fuxin survey data: http://www.cadb.pitt.edu/shelach/index.html. Chifeng survey data: http://www.cadb.pitt.edu/chifeng/index.html. The raw data of the excavations of sites 12D16 and 12D56 (relevant to Figs 3–5 and to our discussion of the excavation results) are deposited and open to the public in the Comparative Archaeology Database, University of Pittsburgh. URL: http://www.cadb.pitt.edu/shelach/index.html. All the raw data relevant to our botanic analysis, to the Radiocarbon ages and to the dDwax analysis (including all the relevant figures) are found in the appendix (S1 Text). All other data used, including for the production of all the figures, is available here: https://doi.org/10.17026/dansxs7-rmqh. 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. The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Author Contributions: Conceptualization: Gideon Shelach-Lavi, Yonaton Goldsmith. Data curation: Gideon Shelach-Lavi, Mingyu Teng, Yonaton Goldsmith, Ido Wachtel, Chris J. Stevens, Ofer Marder, Xiongfei Wan, Xiaohong Wu, Dongdong Tu, Roi Shavit, Pratigya Polissar, Hai Xu, Dorian Q. Fuller. Formal analysis: Gideon Shelach-Lavi, Mingyu Teng, Yonaton Goldsmith, Ido Wachtel, Chris J. Stevens, Ofer Marder, Xiaohong Wu, Dongdong Tu, Roi Shavit, Pratigya Polissar, Hai Xu, Dorian Q. Fuller. Funding acquisition: Gideon Shelach-Lavi. Investigation: Gideon Shelach-Lavi, Yonaton Goldsmith, Ofer Marder, Xiongfei Wan, Dongdong Tu, Roi Shavit, Pratigya Polissar, Hai Xu, Dorian Q. Fuller. Methodology: Gideon Shelach-Lavi, Ido Wachtel. Project administration: Xiongfei Wan. Writing – original draft: Gideon Shelach-Lavi, Yonaton Goldsmith, Ido Wachtel, Chris J. Stevens, Xiaohong Wu. Writing – review & editing: Ofer Marder, Dongdong Tu, Dorian Q. Fuller.

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