Complex hunter-gatherers and first farmers in southern China

IF 0.9 2区历史学 0 ARCHAEOLOGY

Archaeological Research in Asia Pub Date : 2025-04-04 DOI:10.1016/j.ara.2025.100615

Guangmao Xie , Xiaoying Chen , Zhangwang Meng , Yan Wu , Charles Higham

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Our understanding of adaptation by hunter-gatherers in Southern China and Southeast Asia to one of the richest habitats known, has for long been dominated by the investigation of cave sites. These have provided a seriously biased interpretation that stressed transient occupation by small, mobile groups. We here provide the first Bayesian-modelled radiocarbon chronologies for three key sites in Guangxi Province, southern China. Yahuai was occupied thrice between ca. 44 ka and 16.2 ka. Jiangxi'an is an extensive settlement located on the bank of the Zuo River with two occupation phases dated between 9500 and 8300 BP. Ganzao, a second open site, lies nearby on the same river bank and extensive excavations have revealed nearly 100 burials, together with a rich assemblage of material and biological remains dated between 10,300–9500 BP. These river-bank settlements and contemporary coastal sites evidence a radically different adaptation to that derived from rock shelters alone, that coincided with the Holocene thermal optimum and provide a compelling image of the affluent, sedentary hunter-gatherer communities that encountered and were assimilated by the farmers who penetrated the region from their homeland in the Yangtze River region during the third millennium BCEE.

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复杂的狩猎采集者和中国南方最早的农民

长期以来，我们对中国南部和东南亚狩猎采集者适应已知最丰富栖息地之一的理解，主要是对洞穴遗址的调查。这些都提供了一种严重偏颇的解释，强调小规模流动群体的短暂占领。我们在这里提供了第一个贝叶斯模型的放射性碳年表在广西，中国南部的三个关键地点。约44 ka至16.2 ka之间，雅怀被占领过三次。江西是位于左河岸边的一个广泛的定居点，有两个占领阶段，时间在公元前9500年到8300年之间。甘枣是第二个开放遗址，位于同一河岸附近，经过广泛的挖掘，发现了近100个墓葬，以及丰富的物质和生物遗迹，可追溯到10300 - 9500年前。这些河岸定居点和当代沿海遗址证明了一种与岩石庇护所截然不同的适应方式，这与全新世的热最佳状态相吻合，并提供了一幅令人信服的画面：富裕的、定居的狩猎采集社区，在公元前三千年从长江流域的家园渗透到该地区，并被农民同化。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Archaeological Research in Asia ARCHAEOLOGY-

CiteScore

2.50

自引率

13.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Archaeological Research in Asia presents high quality scholarly research conducted in between the Bosporus and the Pacific on a broad range of archaeological subjects of importance to audiences across Asia and around the world. The journal covers the traditional components of archaeology: placing events and patterns in time and space; analysis of past lifeways; and explanations for cultural processes and change. To this end, the publication will highlight theoretical and methodological advances in studying the past, present new data, and detail patterns that reshape our understanding of it. Archaeological Research in Asia publishes work on the full temporal range of archaeological inquiry from the earliest human presence in Asia with a special emphasis on time periods under-represented in other venues. Journal contributions are of three kinds: articles, case reports and short communications. Full length articles should present synthetic treatments, novel analyses, or theoretical approaches to unresolved issues. Case reports present basic data on subjects that are of broad interest because they represent key sites, sequences, and subjects that figure prominently, or should figure prominently, in how scholars both inside and outside Asia understand the archaeology of cultural and biological change through time. Short communications present new findings (e.g., radiocarbon dates) that are important to the extent that they reaffirm or change the way scholars in Asia and around the world think about Asian cultural or biological history.