Resource Production 10000-6000 Years Ago In The Yangtze River Delta And Qiantang River Basin: Phytoarchaeology And Human Ecology

This thesis attempts to analyze the process of early agricultural emergence in the Yangzi Delta and Qiantang Drainage during 10000-6000 BP in terms of human ecology. The research combines palaeoecological and anthropogenic implications based on palaeoethnobatany, palaeoclimate, and settlement patterns of Shangshan, Kuahuqiao, Hemudu, and Majiabang cultures. The human niche construction effort is seen on a broad scale from study area. It on one hand provides a theoretical framework of understanding the character and level of agricultural development of Yangzi Delta and Qiantang Drainage in the early and middle Holocene and, on another hand, leads to substantial reconsideration from a East Asian perspective of new theories concerning agricultural origin suggested by American scholars.The results indicate that the subsistence pattern of the Yangzi Delta and Qiantang Drainage during 10000-6000 can be attributed to "resource production". Agricultural forms or agroecology has been extraordinarily developed. Human intervenes in life cycles of other species and their habitats are the vital force resulting in domestication and agricultural origin. On this base, the macro-evolutionary causal explanations such as external stress, internal socio-economic forces, and social agency can be evaluated.