Research Of Carbonized Plant Remains At The Beiqian Site, Jimo, Shandong Province

My dissertation demonstrates the human subsistence strategy of Beiqian site in Dawenkou and Zhou period, using various archaeobotany methods. It discusses several agriculture issues, as well as contributes important primary paleobotany data and study methods to the agriculture research of Dawenkou, Zhou and even pre-Qin period.Species, quantities, occurrence ratios and seeds density of plant remains are obtained using the main methods of plant-macrofossil studies in archaeobotany research, which include sampling, flotation, identification and statistic methods. Subsequently, plant utility, the importance of agriculture in human subsistence, and crops farming of Dawenkou and Zhou periods in Beiqian site are studied.Based on the flotation results, there are very few species and small amounts of plant remains from the site in Dawenkou period, which includes only two kinds of crops (foxtail millet and broomcorn millet) and various wild grasses dominated by subfamilies of broomcorn millet and Leguminosea. Further analysis shows that agriculture didn't dominate in the human life, but hunter-gathering played a very important role.The species and amount of plant remains in Zhou period significantly increase in Beiqian site. Crops are dominated by foxtail millet and wheat. In addition, broomcorn millet, barely, bean and rice are also found. Wild grasses consist of subfamilies of broomcorn millet, leguminosea, Polygonaccea and Cucurbitaceae. The large amount of wheat remains may indicate that wheat is widely planted in Zhou dynasty, which could be a big challenge of the traditional idea that wheat was not widely planted in China until the West Han dynasty. It might also imply that an alternative-planting system, which involves wheat, millet and bean, was already established at that period. The remains of Polygonaccea, Cucurbitaceae and other plants probably suggest that a special garden farming was developed. All these show that agriculture dominated in the social economy of Beiqian site in Zhou dynasty.The flotation results of Beiqian site from Dawenkou and Zhou period, not only help us to understand the human subsistence of these two periods, but also contribute in the accumulation of primary data for agriculture archaeology in Haidai region. Since 1998 when agriculture archaeology research started in Haidai region, many achievements have been gained, especially on rice agriculture studies. However, most of the previous work has only concentrated in Longshan period. Researches in other periods are still remaining in the stage of collecting basic materials. Thus plant remains in Beiqian site provide very important evidence for Chinese agriculture archaeological studies on both temporal and spatial scales. Additionally, analysis of the wheat grain morphology variation shows that wheat might be transmitted from western Asia into China. Alternatively, the analysis here may indicate two wheat origin centers in China, if it can be proved that wheat originated in China.My dissertation is constituted of six chapters.The first chapter is introduction. It reviews the agriculture archaeology research of Dawenkou and Zhou periods and the importance of archaeobotany study to agriculture archaeology. The motivation and the aim of my research are also explained in this chapter.The second chapter is comprised of the background and archaeological cultures in study region, including location, climate, landform, vegetation and agriculture.The third chapter talks about Samples and methods, involving sample sources, sampling methods, floatation methods, laboratory identification and data organization methods.The forth chapter discusses the plant remains of Beiqian site from floatation. It talks about the species, amounts and morphological characteristics of the plant remains in Dawenkou and Zhou periods, emphasizing on introduction of three important Zhou features which produced significant floatation results.The fifth chapter talks about the agriculture in Dawenkou and Zhou periods separately, the composition of foxtail millet and broomcorn millet in agriculture and its variation, the wheat remains in pre-Qin period, the three important floatation features in Zhou period, and some other related questions.The sixth chapter is conclusion, which discusses the production of this research, plan for future research and the remaining problems.