Yang Yishi, Wang Jia, Li Gang, Dong Jiajia, Cao Huihui, Ma Minmin, Chen Guoke, Dong Guanghui
Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Lanzhou, China.
MOE Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental System, College of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.
Front Plant Sci. 2022 Jul 26;13:939340. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.939340. eCollection 2022.
Broomcorn and foxtail millet were the most important crops in northern China during the Neolithic period. Although the significance of broomcorn millet in human subsistence exceeded that of foxtail millet during the early Neolithic, this pattern was reversed by the end of Neolithic period. However, the process underlying this shift remains unclear. The recent excavation of the Gedachuan (GDC) in Zhangjiachuan county has revealed an abundance of relics including millet crop remains from relatively continuous strata of the Yangshao and Qijia cultures, and therefore provides a unique opportunity to examine how and when foxtail millet replaced broomcorn millet as the dominant crop in the western Loess Plateau during the Neolithic period. In this study, we identify 1,738 and 2,686 broomcorn and foxtail millet remains, respectively, from 74 flotation samples, accounting for 38.81% and 59.98% of total plant remains, respectively. Compared with 23 direct dates of carbonized crop grains in GDC, we propose that the weight of foxtail millet in plant subsistence of GDC first exceeded that of broomcorn millet as early as ∼5,500 BP, filling an important gap in the archaeobotanical record from the western Loess Plateau. Further comparative analysis of multidisciplinary data suggests the shift in significance of these two millet crops during the late Neolithic may have been triggered by variations in human settlement intensity and climate change in the western Loess Plateau. The results of this study also suggest that the Banpo Phase of Yangshao Culture survived in the western Loess Plateau as late as ∼5,600 BP.
黍和粟是中国北方新石器时代最重要的作物。尽管在新石器时代早期黍对人类生存的重要性超过了粟，但到新石器时代末期这种模式发生了逆转。然而，这种转变背后的过程仍不清楚。最近在张家川县对圪垯川（GDC）的发掘揭示了大量遗迹，包括来自仰韶文化和齐家文化相对连续地层的粟类作物遗存，因此提供了一个独特的机会来研究新石器时代粟是如何以及何时在黄土高原西部取代黍成为主要作物的。在本研究中，我们分别从74个浮选样本中鉴定出1738粒黍和2686粒粟遗存，分别占植物遗存总数的38.81%和59.98%。与GDC中23个碳化作物籽粒的直接测年结果相比，我们提出早在公元前5500年左右，GDC植物生存中粟的比重就首次超过了黍，填补了黄土高原西部考古植物记录中的一个重要空白。多学科数据的进一步比较分析表明，新石器时代晚期这两种粟类作物重要性的转变可能是由黄土高原西部人类聚落强度和气候变化的差异引发的。本研究结果还表明，仰韶文化的半坡阶段在黄土高原西部一直延续到公元前5600年左右。
