26

Eastern Asia: archaeology

Zhang Chi and Hung Hsiao-chun

This chapter examines the prehistory of migration in China from the Late Paleolithic onwards, with a focus on the Neolithic and the spreads of early agricultural societies from the Yangzi River and Yellow River basins, and regions in between. Some of these migrations contributed to the origins of many populations in Southeast Asia, to be considered in the following chapters.

The foundations

Chinese paleoanthropologists and geneticists have followed two competing hypotheses regarding the origin of Homo sapiens in China (Gao et al. 2010). Some suggest that modern Homo sapiens in China evolved partially from indigenous populations of Homo erectus, who eventually hybridized with immigrating populations of Homo sapiens from Africa. This can be summarized as the continuity with hybridization model (Wu 1990, 1998). However, mtDNA and Y chromosomes studies on modern populations indicate that the ancestors of all modern populations of Homo sapiens in China originated in Africa and entered the region via central Asia and/or southeastern Asia. From this perspective, ancestral modern humans completely replaced the earlier populations of Homo erectus in East Asia (Jin & Su 2001; Ke 2001). However, both models are under modification today, and the currently most favored one combines out of Africa movement with limited degrees of hybridization with archaic hominins, such as Neanderthals in the west and Denisovans in Siberia (as explained in chapter 4).

In terms of the archaeological record, two lithic tool assemblages existed in China after 25 kya; a microblade tradition in the north and a pebble tool tradition in the south. The northern microblade tradition developed from an earlier central and northern Asian Late Paleolithic blade industry. The subsistence economy of this tradi-tion was focused on the hunting of large or middle-sized mammals (Wang 2005).

The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, Edited by Immanuel Ness.© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.DOI: 10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm826

2 eastern asia: archaeology

Similar microblade assemblages occur across the whole northeast Asian region, includ-ing the Russian Far East, the Korean peninsula, Japan, and further into Alaska and western Canada. In southern China, the pebble tool assemblages are mostly located in caves, and this tradition is related to contemporary so-called “Hoabinhian” assem-blages in Southeast Asia (Zhang 2000). Important excavated open sites in northern China include Shizitan in Shanxi province and Nihewan in Hebei province. Most southern Chinese sites are caves, for instance Xianrendong in Jiangxi, Yuchanyan in Hunan, and Bailiandong in Guangxi.

The continuity with hybridization model as currently formulated proposes that these two distinct Late Paleolithic stone tool assemblages developed from indigenous Chinese Early and Middle Paleolithic cultural traditions. In contrast, the replacement model proposes that the microblade assemblages of northern China originated in the Lake Baikal and Altai regions of central Asia, and that the pebble tool tradition was introduced into southern China from Southeast Asia, in both cases by populations of modern Homo sapiens. Although these two models remain in opposition, it is still widely agreed that there were two different cultural assemblages in northern and southern China during the Late Palaeolithic, presumably manufactured by distinct human populations.

Early Holocene hunter-gatherer migrations and the emergence of early farmers

During the Last Glacial Maximum, at about 20 kya, and in the following period of glacial retreat, microblade assemblages spread southwards to the Huai River and north-ern Jiangsu province, between the Yellow and Yangzi rivers. The site of Dagang in Henan province (lower Yellow River valley) is the southernmost find place of micro-blades, here dated to about 9000 bce (Zhang & Li 1996). After this time, the microblade assemblages of northern China began to retreat into Inner Mongolia and northeast China, to be replaced gradually to the south by Neolithic assemblages with increasing quantities of pottery and grindstones, often in association with continuing but dimin-ishing numbers of microblades. A representative site of this cultural phase is located at Donghulin in Beijing City (SAMPU 2006). At the same time, populations in the Yangzi basin to the south began to establish the first village settlements. Shangshan in Zhejiang province (c.7000 bce) is a representative site of this period that contains timber houses raised above the ground on posts, red-slipped pottery, grindstones, and polished axes and adzes (ZPICRA 2007). Subsistence in the Yangzi basin was reliant on tubers and nuts, such as acorns (Quercus spp.), walnuts, and foxnuts. Wild rice (ancestral Oryza sativa) was also utilized, possibly involving deliberate cultivation (Zheng & Jiang 2007).

After 7000 bce, during the middle Holocene in southern China, these terminal hunter-gatherer societies on the verge of agriculture began to develop in several different subsistence directions. One group appears to have moved from somewhere near the Yangzi River into the Huai valley at c.7000–6500 bce, where they started the process of morphological domestication of rice (Zhang 2011). Jiahu phase 1 in the

eastern asia: archaeology 3

Huai valley offers an example (e.g. Zhang et al. 1999; Liu et al. 2007; Cucchi et al. 2011), and similar cultural assemblages occur at Baligang in southern Henan (Zhang 2011). So far, the most advanced rate of morphological domestication of rice in China comes from these sites (Deng 2009), where the rice was actually beyond the early Holocene north-ern boundary of wild rice distribution (Fan et al. 1999). This discovery supports Yan Wenming’s theory of peripheral origins for the beginning of rice domestication (Yan 2002).

Another direction of development was adopted by the contemporary hunter-gatherers further south. The Zengpiyan and Dingsishan cultures of the southern Nanling Mountains region of Guangxi became reliant on aquatic animals such as fish and shellfish, commonly heaping their remains into shell middens. These people pro-duced coarse pottery and lived in large settlements with domesticated dogs, but there is no evidence for agriculture or pig domestication. After 6000 bce, this population started to spread with pottery manufacture from Guangxi into northern Vietnam (Da But, Late Hoabinhian or Bacsonian). Related populations were very widespread at this time in coastal southeast China, northern coastal Vietnam, and along the southern coast of Hainan Island, surviving until the introduction of agricultural economies in the 3rd millennium bce.

A different development, also involving hunter-gatherers, occurred along rivers in the northern Nanling Mountains, particularly associated with the Gaomiao culture of the Yuanshui valley (c.5800 bce). These populations appear to have originated amongst contemporary rice-farming populations in the Yangzi basin (see below), dispersing as hunter-gatherers down tributary rivers southwards and westwards into eastern Guangxi and the Zhujiang (Pearl River) delta in Guangdong, where the derived cultural tradi-tion is referred to as Xiantouling, c.5000 bce. The Gaomiao population seems also to have founded the Keqiutou culture in coastal Fujian, and the early Dabenkeng culture in coastal Taiwan. Other groups moved westwards from the northern Nanling Moun-tains, along tributaries of the Yangzi River, finally reaching northeastern Guizhou and the Xiajiang region of eastern Sichuan between 5000 and 3000 bce (Zhang & Hung 2012).

Early migrations of Chinese Neolithic farmers

As mentioned, current evidence suggests that the earliest farming cultures in China developed in the region between the Yellow and Huai Rivers, c.7000-6000 bce (Zhang 2011; Zhang & Hung in press). Increasing reliance on domesticated forms of rice and millets led to rapid population increase and dispersal, especially in the period from 6000 to 4500 bce. In the middle and lower Yellow River region of northern China, the Laoguantai culture in Shanxi, the Peiligang culture in Henan, and the Houli culture in Shandong all developed in the ecological zone where rice (Oryza sativa), common millet (Panicum miliaceum), and foxtail millet (Setaria italica) could all coexist. Further north, the Cishan culture in Hebei and the Xinglongwa culture in western Liaoning and eastern Inner Mongolia were both dependent on millet agriculture, rice being unsuited to the cool and dry temperate climate in this region. In the middle and lower Yangzi Valley, the Chengbeixi, early Zaoshi cultures in Hubei and Hunan, and the Kuahuqiao culture in Zhejiang province, were all involved in increasing dependence

4 eastern asia: archaeology

Figure 26.1 Suggested pre-farming cultural and population movements in southern China, 8000–3000 bce. From the Yangzi basin, it is proposed that (B) Gaomiao, (C) Xiantouling (Lingnan facies of the Daxi culture) and (G) the Xiajiang facies of the Daxi and Yuxiping cultures all developed in connection with (A) the Pengtoushan-Zaoshi complex of the middle Yangzi. Independently to the south, the Da But (I) and Hainan shell middens (J) developed in connection with basal Ding-sishan (H). Later, populations from Xiantouling and Kequitou (D), possibly with other influences from Zhejiang (E), moved to (F) Taiwan (Early Dabenkeng, 3500–3000 bce; Zhang and Hung 2010). Base mapping copyright Australian National University, College of Asia and the Pacific.

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Southern limit of Microlithic tool-kit (7000/9000 BCE)

Figure 26.2 Early farming cultures in China, 7000–4500 bce. (A) Jiahu phase 1, at c.7000–6000 bce, is considered to be within the oldest region with agriculture. Early Neolithic cultures in the Yellow River Valley include (B) Laoguantai, (C) Peiligang, (D) Houli and (E) Cishan. (F) Xinglongwa is in Inner Mongolia and Liaoning. The Yangzi Valley early Neolithic cultures include (G) Chengbeixi and the lower layer of Zaoshi, and (H) Kuahuqiao (Zhang and Hung in press). Base mapping copyright Australian National University, College of Asia and the Pacific.

AB C

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International border

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kilometers

eastern asia: archaeology 5

on rice cultivation. By about 5000 bce the Hemudu culture was well developed in the Qiantangjiang valley in northern Zhejiang, and expanded by boat rapidly offshore into the Zhoushan archipelago in the East China Sea (Wang & Chen 1983).

Between 4500 and 3000 bce in northern China, the Yangshao and Hougang phase I cultures in central Shanxi, Henan, and Hebei gradually expanded into the Hetao region of Inner Mongolia, northern Shanxi, Gansu, and eastern Qinghai (Han 2003: 76–88). In northeastern China, the Hongshan culture in eastern Inner Mongolia and western Liaoning spread into the lower Liao valley, with a continuing focus on dry-land millet agriculture. Millet and rice agriculture expanded during the 1st millennium bce from eastern Liaoning into Korea and Japan (Yan 1989; see also chapters 28 and 29, this volume).

Between 3000 and 2100 bce, the Majiayao and Banshan-Machang populations in Gansu and Qinghai spread into northwestern and southwestern China. After 2000 bce, one of these groups reached the Hexi Corridor, to form the Siba culture (Yan 1978). Mixed assemblages of central Asian and Siba affinity then spread into Xinjiang (Li 2009), a situation also visible in cranial analyses that reveal a mixed Xinjiang population of southern Siberian and northwest Chinese affinity (K. X. Han 1993). Here, in Xinjiang, early Neolithic farmers from northern China finally encountered the contem-porary agricultural populations of Siberia and central Asia (see chapters 22 and 23).

Figure 26.3 The expansion of farming from its Yellow-Yangzi origins c.4500–2500 bce. Yang-shao and Hougang phase I populations (A) expanded westwards to Xinjiang, with descendants in (B) Hetao of Inner Mongolia, northern Shanxi, Gansu and eastern Qinghai, E) Siba and (F) Xinjiang Neolithic. Expansion with millet agriculture southwards from Hetao gave rise to (G) Yingpanshan, I) Baodun (Sichuan Plain), (R) Yunnan Neolithic and (J) Karuo in Tibet. Neolithic cultures of northeastern China include C) Hongshan and (D) Dawenkou. The Yangzi rice farming cultures include (H) Qujialing-Shijiahe, (K) Fanchengdui and (L) Liangzhu. Movement southwards from the Yangzi gave rise to (M) Tanshishan, (N) late Dabenkeng and middle Neo-lithic of Taiwan, and (O) earliest farming cultures in the northern Philippines. In Guangxi, x(Q) Xiaojin phase 2 and Dingsishan phase 4 were related to (S) the earliest farming cultures in Main-land Southeast Asia (Zhang and Hung 2010). Base mapping copyright Australian National University, College of Asia and the Pacific.

To Koreaand

Japan

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To northeast India/Burma

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6 eastern asia: archaeology

The southwestward expansion of the Majiayao population, of Yangshao origin in Gansu and Qinghai, led to the formation of the Yingpanshan culture in northwest Sichuan (CCICRA et al. 2002) and northwest Yunnan. At the same time, the Qujialing-Shijiahe farmers of the middle Yangzi Valley migrated up the river into eastern Sichuan. By 2500–2000 bce, a population with both rice and millet farming from northern Sichuan developed the Baodun culture of the Sichuan Basin (Wang & Sun 1999), leading to the first proto-urban settlements (e.g. Baodun itself) in southwest China. In Tibet, carbonized grains of foxtail millet (Setaria italica) from Karuo in Changdu County are dated to c.3500–2500 bce (CRT 1985: 168). Because millet is so far the only reported crop in Neolithic Tibet, we suppose that the earliest farmers here were migrants from northwest China, probably from Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan provinces.

The strongest evidence for large scale migration by Neolithic farming populations in southern China occurred around 3000–2500 bce. The earliest agricultural societies in Guangdong and Fujian developed during the Tanshishan phase, c.3000 bce, as well as in Taiwan at about the same time. The appearance of rice agriculture in these regions was related with southwards agriculturalist migration from the middle and late phases of the Liangzhu and Fanchengdui cultures of the lower Yangzi Valley. By c.2000 bce, populations were increasing in numbers rapidly in the coastal regions of southern China and Taiwan, and southwards migration occurred from Middle Neolithic Taiwan into the northern Philippines, and perhaps also to Hainan Island. Archaeological evi-dence suggests that the earliest Neolithic settlements on Ludao and Lanyu Islands off southeastern Taiwan date to c.2500 bce. These people migrated from southeastern Taiwan, like those of the Batanes Island between Taiwan and Luzon, where the first human populations arrived c.2500–2000 bce. This was the beginning of the long journey by ancient Austronesian-speaking populations into island Southeast Asia and Oceania (see chapters 35 and 36).

Finally, in southwestern China, the earliest evidence for rice farming comes from Xiaojin phase 2 in northwestern Guangxi, dated after 2500 bce. It is believed that the Xiaojin culture developed directly from the Shijiahe culture in the southern middle Yangzi valley. Subsequently, the culture of Dingsishan phase 4 (separate from the earlier Holocene hunter-gatherer phases at Dingsishan discussed above) appeared with rice farming in western Guangxi, c.2000 bce. Our recent study with Hirofumi Matsumura (Matsumura et al. 2011; see chapter 27, this volume) suggests that these newcomers had different morphometrics from the indigenous hunter-gatherers. In Yunnan, the earliest rice farming did not commence until 2000 bce and its origin can probably be traced to Sichuan. Some of these agricultural populations, especially from Guangdong and Guangxi, then migrated southwards to establish Neolithic econ-omies in northern Vietnam and other regions of mainland Southeast Asia (Zhang & Hung 2010). Importantly, such archaeological evidence is coincident with studies of human skeletal remains from northern Vietnam (Matsumura et al. 2008, 2011) (chapter 27).

SEE ALSO: 4 Early Old World migrations of Homo sapiens: human biology; 25 Eastern Asia: Sino-Tibetan linguistic history; 27 Eastern Asia and Japan: human biology; 35 Southeast Asian islands and Oceania: Austronesian linguistic history

eastern asia: archaeology 7

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