Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T04:24:16.917Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lijiagou and the earliest pottery in Henan Province, China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2015

Youping Wang ,
Songlin Zhang ,
Wanfa Gu ,
Songzhi Wang ,
Jianing He ,
Xiaohong Wu ,
Tongli Qu ,
Jingfang Zhao ,
Youcheng Chen  and
Ofer Bar-Yosef
Youping Wang*
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100871China
Songlin Zhang
Affiliation:
Zhengzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Zhengzhou, Henan, China
Wanfa Gu
Affiliation:
Zhengzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Zhengzhou, Henan, China
Songzhi Wang
Affiliation:
Zhengzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Zhengzhou, Henan, China
Jianing He
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100871China
Xiaohong Wu
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100871China
Tongli Qu
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100871China
Jingfang Zhao
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100871China
Youcheng Chen
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100871China
Ofer Bar-Yosef
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
*
*Author for correspondence (Email: ypwang@pku.edu.cn)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It has long been believed that the earliest ceramics in the central plain of China were produced by the Neolithic cultures of Jiahu 1 and Peiligang. Excavations at Lijiagou in Henan Province, dating to the ninth millennium BC, have, however, revealed evidence for the earlier production of pottery, probably on the eve of millet and wild rice cultivation in northern and southern China respectively. It is assumed that, as in other regions such as south-west Asia and South America, sedentism preceded incipient cultivation. Here evidence is presented that sedentary communities emerged among hunter-gatherer groups who were still producing microblades. Lijiagou demonstrates that the bearers of the microblade industry were producers of pottery, preceding the earliest Neolithic cultures in central China.

Keywords

Chinaearly Holocenesedentary hunter-gatherersmicrobladespotteryLijiagou culture
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 89 , Issue 344 , April 2015 , pp. 273 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd., 2015 

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

Bae, K. 2010. Origins and patterns of the Upper Paleolithic industries in the Korean peninsula and movement of modern humans in East Asia. Quaternary International 211: 103–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2009.06.011 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. 2011. Climatic fluctuations and early farming in West and East Asia. Current Anthropology 52 (S4): S175–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/659784 Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Wang, Y.P.. 2012. Paleolithic archaeology in China. Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 319–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145832 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bettinger, R.L., Barton, L. & Morgan, C.. 2010. The origins of food production in north China: a different kind of agricultural revolution. Evolutionary Anthropology 19: 9–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/evan.20236 Google Scholar
Bleed, P. 2001. Trees or chains, links or branches: conceptual alternatives for consideration of stone tool production and other sequential activities. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 8: 101–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1009526016167 Google Scholar
Bleed, P. 2002. Cheap, regular, and reliable: implications of design variation in Late Pleistocene Japanese microblade technology, in Elston, R.G. & Kuhn, S.L. (ed.) Thinking small: global perspectives on microlithization: 95–102. Arlington (VA): American Anthropological Association.Google Scholar
Bleed, P. 2008. Skill matters. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 15: 154–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10816-007-9046-0 Google Scholar
Boaretto, E., Wu, X., Yuan, J., Bar-Yosef, O., Chu, V., Pan, Y., Liu, K., Cohen, D., Jiao, T., Li, S., Gu, H., 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 Sciences of the USA 106: 9595–600. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0900539106 Google Scholar
Cohen, D.J. 2011. The beginnings of agriculture in China: a multiregional view. Current Anthropology 52 (S4): S273–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/659965 Google Scholar
Crawford, D.W. 2006. East Asian plant domestication, in Stark, M.T. (ed.) Archaeology of Asia: 77–95. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Elston, R.G. & Kuhn, L. (ed.). 2002. Thinking small: global perspectives on microlithization. Arlington (VA): American Anthropological Association.Google Scholar
Elston, R.G., Dong, H. & Zhang, D.. 2011. Late Pleistocene intensification technologies in northern China. Quaternary International 242: 401–15.Google Scholar
Flenniken, J.J. 1987. The Paleolithic Dyuktai pressure blade technique of Siberia. Arctic Anthropology 24 (2): 117–32.Google Scholar
Fuller, D.Q., Asouti, E. & Purugganan, M.D.. 2011. Cultivation as slow evolutionary entanglement: comparative data on rate and sequence of domestication. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 21: 131–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00334-011-0329-8 Google Scholar
Goebel, T., Waters, M.R. & Dikova, M.. 2003. The archaeology of Ushki Lake, Kamchatka, and the Pleistocene peopling of the Americas. Science 301: 501–505. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1086555 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Inizan, M.-L. 1991. Le débitage par pression: des choix culturels. 25 ans d’études technologiques en préhistoire. Bilan et perspectives. XI rencontres internationales d’archéologie et d’histoire d’Antibes: 367–78. Antibes: APDCA.Google Scholar
Inizan, M. L., Lechevallier, M. & Plumet, P.. 1992. A technological marker of the penetration into North America: pressure microblade debitage. Its origin in the Paleolithic of North Asia and its diffusion, in Vandiver, P.M., Druzik, J.R., Wheller, G.S. & Freestone, I.C. (ed.) Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology III Volume 267: 661–81. Pittsburgh, (PA): Materials Research Society.Google Scholar
Jordan, P. & Zvelebil, M. (ed.). 2009. Ceramics before farming: the dispersal of pottery among prehistoric Eurasian hunter-gatherers. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast.Google Scholar
Kobayashi, T. 1970. Microblade industries in the Japanese archipelago. Arctic Anthropology 7 (2): 3–58.Google Scholar
Kuzmin, Y.V., Keates, S.G. & Shen, C. (ed.). 2007. Origin and spread of microblade technology in north-eastern Asia and North America. Burnaby: Archaeology Press, Simon Fraser University.Google Scholar
Liu, L. & Chen, X.C.. 2012. The archaeology of China from the Late Palaeolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, L., Field, J., Fullagar, R., Zhao, D., Chen, X.C. & Yu, J.. 2010. A functional analysis of grinding stones from an early Holocene site at Donghulin, north China. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 2630–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.05.023 Google Scholar
Liu, L., Ge, W., Bestela, S., Jones, D., Shi, J., Song, Y. & Chen, X. C.. 2011. Plant exploitation of the last foragers at Shizitan in the middle Yellow River Valley, China: evidence from grinding stones. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 3524–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2011.08.015 Google Scholar
Liu, L., Bestel, S., Shi, J., Song, Y. & Chen, X.C.. 2013. Paleolithic human exploitation of plant foods during the last glacial maximum in north China. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 110: 5380–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1217864110 Google Scholar
Lu, T.L. 1998. The microblade tradition in China: regional chronologies and significance in the transition to Neolithic. Asian Perspectives 37: 84–112.Google Scholar
Morlan, R.E. 1967. The pre-ceramic period of Hokkaido: an outline. Arctic Anthropology 4 (1): 164–220.Google Scholar
Nakazawa, Y., Izuho, N., Takakura, J. & Yamada, S.. 2005. Toward an understanding of technological variability in microblade assemblages in Hokkaido, Japan. Asian Perspectives 44: 276–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/asi.2005.0027 Google Scholar
Nian, X., Gao, X.G., Xie, F., Mei, H. & Zhou, L.-P.. 2014. Chronology of the Youfang site and its implications for the emergence of microblade technology in north China. Quaternary International 347: 113–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2014.05.053 Google Scholar
Qu, T.L., Bar-Yosef, O., Wang, Y.P. & Wu, X.H.. 2013. The Chinese Upper Paleolithic: geography, chronology, and techno-typology. Journal of Archaeological Research 21: 1–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10814-012-9059-4 Google Scholar
Reimer, P.J., Baillie, M.G.L., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J.W., Bertrand, C., Blackwell, P.G., Buck, C.E., Burr, G., Cutler, K.B., Damon, P.E., Edwards, R.L., Fairbanks, R.G., Friedrich, M., Guilderson, T.P., Hughen, K.A., Kromer, B., McCormac, F.G., Manning, S., Bronk Ramsey, C., Reimer, R.W., Remmele, S., Southon, J.R., Stuiver, M., Talamo, S., Taylor, F.W., van der Plicht, J. & Weyhenmeyer, C.E.. 2004. IntCal04 terrestrial radiocarbon age calibration, 0–26 cal kyr BP. Radiocarbon 46: 1029–58.Google Scholar
Seong, C. 1998. Microblade technology in Korea and adjacent north-east Asia. Asian Perspectives 37: 245–78.Google Scholar
Shi, J.M. & Song, Y.H.. 2010. The excavation of Locality S9 of the Shizitan site in Jixian County, Shanxi. Archaeology 10: 7–17.Google Scholar
Shizitan Team. 2002. The excavation of the Paleolithic site Shizitan (Loc. S14), Ji County, Shanxi Province. Archaeology 4: 1–28.Google Scholar
Tang, C. 2000. The Upper Palaeolithic of north China: the Xiachuan culture. Journal of East Asian Archaeology 2: 37–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156852300509781 Google Scholar
Wagner, M., Tarasov, P., Hosner, D., Fleck, A., Ehrich, R., Chen, X. & Leipe, C.. 2013. Mapping of the spatial and temporal distribution of archaeological sites of northern China during the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Quaternary International 290–91: 344–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2012.06.039 Google Scholar
Wang, Y.P. & Qu, T.L.. 2014. New evidence and perspectives on the Upper Paleolithic of the Central Plain in China. Quaternary International 347: 176–82.Google Scholar
Wang, Y.P., Zhang, S.L., Gu, G.W., Wang, S.Z., He, J.N., Zhang, J.F. & Qu, T.L.. 2013. The lithic assemblage of Lijiagou site. Acta Archaeologica Sinica 32: 411–20.Google Scholar
West, F.H. (ed.). 1996. American beginnings. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wu, X., Zhang, C., Goldberg, P., Cohen, D., Pan, Y., Arpin, T. & Bar-Yosef, O.. 2012. Early pottery at 20,000 years ago in Xianrendong Cave, China. Science 336: 1696–700. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1218643 Google Scholar
Xia, Z.K., Liu, D., Wang, Y.P. & Qu, T.. 2008. Environmental background of human activities during MIS3 stage recorded in the Zhijidong cave site, Zhengzhou. Quaternary Sciences 28: 96–102.Google Scholar
Yang, X., Wan, Z., Perry, L., Lu, H., Wang, Q., Zhao, C., Li, J., Xie, F., Yu, J., Cui, T., Wang, T. & Ge, Q.. 2012. Early millet use in northern China. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 109: 3726–730. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1115430109 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yi, M., Barton, L., Morgan, C., Liu, D., Chen, F., Zhang, Y., Pei, S., Guan, Y., Wang, H., Gao, X. & Bettinger, R.L.. 2013. Microblade technology and the rise of serial specialists in north-central China. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 32: 212–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2013.02.001 Google Scholar
Zhang, C. & Hung, H.-C.. 2008. The Neolithic of southern China: origin, development, and dispersal. Asian Perspectives 47: 299–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/asi.0.0004 Google Scholar
Zhang, C. & Hung, H.-C. 2012. Later hunter-gatherers in southern China, 18 000–3000 BC. Antiquity 86: 11–29.Google Scholar
Zhang, C. & Hung, H.-C. 2013. Jiahu 1: earliest farmers beyond the Yangtze River. Antiquity 87: 46–63.Google Scholar
Zhang, J.-F., Wang, X.-Q., Qiu, W.-L., Shelach, G., Hu, G., Fu, X., Zhuang, M.-G. & Zhou, L.-P.. 2011. The Paleolithic site of Longwanchan in the middle Yellow River, China: chronology, paleoenvironment and implications. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 1537–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2011.02.019 Google Scholar
Zhang, J.H. & Li, Z.Y.. 1996. Preliminary report on the excavation of Dagang microlithic site in Wuyang County, Henan Province. Acta Anthropologica Sinica 15: 105–13.Google Scholar
Zhang, J., Harbottle, G., Wang, C. & Kong, Z..1999. Oldest playable musical instruments found at Jiahu early Neolithic site in China. Nature 401: 366–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhang, S.L., Zin, Y.J., Hu, Y.Y. & Yan, F.H.. 2008. Excavation of Peiligang culture remains on the Tanghu site in Xinzheng City, Henan. Archaeology 5: 3–20.Google Scholar
Zhao, C., Wang, T., Wu, X., Liu, M., Yuan, X., Yu, J. & Guo, J.. 2006. Donghulin, Zhuannian, Nanzhuangtou, and Yujiagou sites, in Institute of Archaeology (ed.) Prehistoric archaeology of south China and South-east Asia: collected papers of an international academic workshop, celebrating 30 years of the excavations of Zengpiyan cave: 116–27. Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe.Google Scholar
Zhao, H.L. 2011. An experimental study of flaking microblades. Acta Anthropologica Sinica 30: 22–31.Google Scholar
Zhao, Z. 2010. New data and new issues for the study of origins of rice agriculture in China. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 2: 99–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12520-010-0028-x Google Scholar
Zhao, Z. 2011. New archaeobotanic data for the study of the origins of agriculture in China. Current Anthropology 52: 295–306. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/659308 Google Scholar
Zhao, Z. & Zhang, J.. 2011. Report on the 2001 flotation results from the site of Jiahu. Chinese Archaeology 10: 196–202.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Wang supplementary material

Wang supplementary material 1

Download Wang supplementary material(File)
File 35.3 KB