10/25 lecture

10/25

Jing et al and neolithic bronze age transition

• Ancient complex societies/civs in china

• Role of heritage in the modern Chinese nation

China

• Lots of environmental variation, similar to south Asia

• Note: ancient peoples thought of China as a series of biomes, without using political boundaries.

Sequence of development

• Hunters and gatherers in diverse environments (foragers)

Reading

• Subsistence vs persistence

  • Subsistence = just staying alive, going through the motions… “making a living”

  • Persistence = do things to advance and innovate… “resilience, adaptability”

• Neolithic Period

  • Basic farming, sedentism (farming instead of hunting and gathering), polished stone tools

  • Starts and ends in different places at different times

    • In some places, it has ended only very recently (industrialization) 

• Neolithic China

  • The period starts around 9 kya. Farming includes pig, dog, millet

    • Millet = lots of varieties

      • Can grow under drought conditions

      • Therefore can subsist and persist

• Neolithic to bronze age transition (note: slow transitions)

  • Pre-transition starts 5500 BP

  • Transition 4200-3800 BP

    • Addition of rice, soy

      • Rice 

        • requires lots of water and tending, unlike millet

      • Soy 

        • Also a big part of Chinese cuisine

  • Early Bronze Age starting c. 3800 BP

Jinsitai 

• Wang et al. article

• pigs/wild boar was discovered from ZooMS (~13kya).

Role of climate vs civilization

• Holocene is not stagnant as warm and dry. It is a net warm and dry period, but it has dips.

  • One of these dips is the 4.2k event.

    • Colling event of 2*C within a few decades

    • Then warming back up within a few decades

  • About the same time as the transition from neolithic to bronze age

    • People are varying and adapting their agricultural practices and crops

Jing et al study

• Zooarchaeological (animal bones)

• Paleobotanical (plant remains)

• Isotopic studies of human and animal bones

• “Big data” → more than one site

• Rice phytoliths

  • Evidence for rice

  • The rice phytolith (cell wall remains) is very distinctive

(when reading, take into account the climate and environment and their effects on populations)

What did people do when faced with climate change and increased population?

“The introduction of new crops diversified agricultural practices and resources, as well as the opportunities for field rotation between foxtail millet, broomcorn millet, wheat, soy, and rice. This potentially increased yields while diversifying risk.” (Jing et al. 2020:912)

• RISK

  • Similar to Stiner beads

    • Social ways of reducing beads

      • Alliances -  know who it's ok to interact with

  • Farmers also mitigate risk by diversifying crops in case a couple go bad

Plants and animals were also intensively managed together

• Pigs and dogs ate scraps

• Sheep turned field stubble into edible protein and wool

  • “Value-added” → bonus unexpected payoffs

What impact did the 4.2k event have?

• Changed how people interacted with their plants, animals, and environment

• “It is clear that the climate perturbations [changes] around 4200/4000 BP did not cause the societies of the Central Plains to collapse. Instead, continued agricultural development and diversification laid the foundations for the great polities of the Central Plains Bronze Age.” (Jing et al. 2020:913)

What happened after this initial period of settlement?

• Development of bronze age happens in China

  • MUCH larger sites and cities

  • Hundreds of hectares

  • All of these folks are fed by the farmers

Beginning of larger settlements starting 4200 BC (China)

• The colder climate at the 4.2k event “pushed” people to innovate

Bronze by 1500 BCE (3500 BP)

• Alloy of copper and tin

  • Metalworking is severely manmade and requires a ton of innovation and imagination

  • Copper and tin combo - someone had to figure this out

  • Bronze takes a lot of labor

Writing starts around 1400 BCE (3400 BP)

• On animal bones

  • Ex. large cowhide

• Used for ritual purposes

ALSO v

Political groups start by 1400 BC

• In tandem with writing

• In the central plain of China

• Super large areas of urbanism 

  • Cities

  • Tombs in the countryside

• Massive walls indicate complex society (ex. Chang’an/Xianyang)

  • Political leaders organize people to do ordinary and spectacular tasks

Tomb of the terracotta warriors

• Local leader built these in a politically integrated territory

• Afterlife: jit will take these with him

Qin Empire 221-210 BCE

• Fiscal intensification

  • Different tax rates, etc.

  • Helps us understand complex society developments

• Built from prior remains (like walls) and concepts (like writing)

• Imposed new regulations

  • Ex. calendars

• Officers supervise 

  • Warriors

  • Fields (massa)

    • The degree of oversight by bureaucrats was crazy

      • Documentation

        • Ex. rats/mice quality control regulation (PRECISION!)

• Huge amounts of labor

  • 700k people for the terracotta warriors

  • Other specialized jobs like farming

Role of heritage in modern Chinese nation

• Terracotta warriors

  • Heritage site, make it visitable

• Portray ancient Chinese history and civilization in the media (museums, news, social media, etc)

• Sense of place

  • People have always been in China

  • Very rich history

• Huge museums and siteswith lots of visitors

• Juxtaposition to modernity

  • Lingboa train station

    • Bronze age inspired vessel in front

      • 5k years of iconography!

        • LONG story of China all the way from the holocene

        • “Persistence” refers to: persistence of many things such as preservation of over 5000 years of  iconography