Center for Archaeological Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
SAIE Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA.
Sci Rep. 2024 Feb 2;14(1):2010. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-50556-9.
Tibetan cultures reflect deeply rooted, regional interactions and diverse subsistence practices across varied high-altitude environments of the Tibetan Plateau. Yet, it remains unclear how these cultural relationships and social interactions took shape through time and how they were influenced by ecologically oriented behavioral strategies (e.g. mobility) emerging in prehistory. Recent applications of network analysis provide novel tools to quantitatively measure shared forms of material culture, but there have been fewer attempts to couple social network analysis with fine-grained geospatial modelling of prehistoric human mobility in Tibet. In this study, we developed an integrated high-resolution geospatial model and network analysis that simulates and correlates subsistence-based mobility and ceramic-based cultural material connectivity across the Tibetan Plateau. Our analysis suggests that (1) ecologically driven patterns of subsistence-based mobility correspond geographically with Bronze and Iron Ages settlement patterns across the Tibetan Plateau; (2) diverse material interaction networks among communities within western and central Tibet and trans-Himalayan connectivity across the broader Inner Asian Mountain Corridor can be linked to modeled differences in regional networks of subsistence mobility. This research provides ecological and archaeological insights into how subsistence-oriented mobility and interaction may have shaped documented patterns of social and material connectivity among regional Bronze and Iron Age communities of the Tibetan Plateau, prompting a reconsideration of Tibet's long-term cultural geography.
藏文化反映了藏高原不同高海拔环境中根深蒂固的、区域性的相互作用和多样化的生存实践。然而，目前尚不清楚这些文化关系和社会互动是如何随着时间的推移而形成的，以及它们是如何受到史前出现的以生态为导向的行为策略（如流动性）的影响的。网络分析的最新应用为定量测量共享的物质文化形式提供了新的工具，但将社会网络分析与西藏史前人类流动的细粒度地理空间建模结合起来的尝试较少。在这项研究中，我们开发了一个集成的高分辨率地理空间模型和网络分析，模拟和关联了藏高原基于生计的流动和基于陶瓷的文化物质连通性。我们的分析表明：（1）基于生态的生计流动模式在地理上与藏高原青铜和铁器时代的定居模式相对应；（2）在西藏西部和中部以及更广泛的内亚山地走廊的跨喜马拉雅连接的社区之间，多样化的物质互动网络可以与基于生计的流动的区域网络的差异联系起来。这项研究为我们提供了生态和考古学方面的见解，即基于生计的流动和互动是如何塑造藏高原记录的青铜和铁器时代社区之间的社会和物质连通模式的，并促使人们重新考虑西藏的长期文化地理。
