| NSF Org: |
BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | March 15, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | March 15, 2016 |
| Award Number: | 1614330 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
John Yellen
jyellen@nsf.gov (703)292-8759 BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | May 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | October 31, 2018 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $18,995.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $18,995.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1 BROOKINGS DR SAINT LOUIS MO US 63130-4862 (314)747-4134 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
Saint Louis MO US 63130-4899 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Archaeology DDRI |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
Over the last 10,000 years, agriculture has gradually replaced hunting and gathering, and became the globally dominant food resource. Agricultural productivity provides a solid foundation for population growth, social complexity and the emergence of cities and states. However, there is a huge intellectual gap between our understanding of the earliest domestication and cultivation of limited crops and intensive agriculture practiced by early states. How was agriculture intensified over time? What resources were required to intensify food production? What is the driving force behind the processes of agricultural intensification? Questions concerning agricultural intensification have attracted but also puzzled scholars in various fields for a long time. Within this broader context, Dr. Tristram R. Kidder and Mr. Zhen Qin, of Washington University in St. Louis, will undertake research in the Central Plain of China to explore the process of agricultural intensification, defined as an increase in the productive output per unit of land, and its relationship with environmental change. This project will provide first-hand field data on buried agricultural fields and therefore be helpful for both testing ideas about agriculture put forth in historical written documents and gaining new comprehension of agricultural intensification; it will also make theoretical contribution to agricultural intensification from an site-specific, bottom-up perspective by use of well-preserved archaeological datasets. Beyond academia, this project also has broader impacts. Firstly, it will contribute to the local community by recruiting local people to do fieldwork, including coring, test excavation, and sampling. Through their participation, a deeper understanding of their history and identity will be gained. Secondly, this project will be carried out in collaboration with the local institute and this collaboration will promote mutual understanding and trust through the team working and reciprocal learning between U.S. and Chinese researchers who are from different cultural traditions.
To obtain a further understanding of how agricultural intensification was achieved and why agriculture was intensified, Dr. Kidder, Mr. Qin and their collaborators in China will conduct a large-scale excavation of ancient fields, a systematic collection of soil samples, and a comprehensive analysis of geoarchaeological results. The excavation will be carried out at Sanyangzhuang site, Neihuang County, Henan Province in central China. In this site, three strata of ancient agricultural field with ridge-and-furrow features, have been found. Based on these unique relics well preserved by the Yellow River flood sediments, the research team will explore the question of "how" by examining the field management techniques, including plowing, manuring, and irrigation, as an implementation path of agricultural intensification; micromophology and elemental analysis also will be deployed. For the question of "why", local paleoenvironment will be reconstructed and environment-induced risks, such as climate changes and the Yellow River floods, will be investigated as one of major driving forces of agricultural intensification by means of isotopic analysis and conventional geoarchaeological analysis.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Overview
This project explores the processes and causes of agricultural intensification in the Central Plain of China through archaeological investigation of Sanyangzhuang site, Anshang site, and multiple locations and profiles in the north of Henan Province, China. The main research questions are: how was agriculture intensified in the Central Plain from the Late Neolithic Age (c.a. 3000 B.C.) to the Western Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 9) and why did people invest labor, energy and technology to intensify agriculture. To answer these questions, a large-scale excavation of ancient fields, a systematic collection of soil samples, and a comprehensive analysis of geoarchaeological results, have been carried out.
Intellectual Merit
This project provided first-hand field data on agricultural fields and their contexts at Sanyangzhuang and Anshang site. Most of our present understanding of agriculture in early China, particularly in the period of intensification from the late Neolithic to the Han dynasty, comes from historical writings. However, many assumptions about agricultural production, the organization of fields, and processes of intensification have never been tested or explored archaeologically. According to the field data from this project, we argue for a multi-linear, interactive model to explicate the processes of intensification, and an environment-induced multi-cause model to explain the driving forces of agricultural intensification.
This project is of importance methodologically, especially to Chinese archaeology. Geoarchaeological methods, though having been broadly applied by Western archaeologists, are still relatively new for Chinese archaeology. This project provided new experience for Chinese archaeologists who are interested in these methods. In addition, this project also provided a case study for archaeologists who is conducting or will conduct field projects in a similar depositional condition where cultural relics are deeply buried below present land surfaces.
More importantly, this project provided new understanding of a hotly debated theoretical issue in anthropology and archaeology: agricultural intensification. For half a century, Boserup’s model and various models beyond Boserup, have provided a number of explanations of mechanism and cause of agricultural intensification, and most models have adopted a top-down analysis that is built on the basis of macroscopic theories of anthropology, economy and demography. This project made theoretical contribution to agricultural intensification from an alternative, bottom-up perspective by use of well-preserved archaeological datasets.
Broader Impacts
This project contributed to the local community by recruiting local people to do fieldwork. In the several field seasons of this project, local people participated in almost every step of fieldwork, including coring, test excavation, and sampling. Through their participation and our sharing the knowledge of this site, a deeper understanding of their history and identity were gained. In addition, this project were carried out in collaboration with the local institute — Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. This collaboration was actually a mutual learning process about archaeological practice, methods and theories between U.S. and Chinese archaeologists who are from different intellectual traditions. Beyond academia, this collaboration promoted understanding and trust between United States and China, the first and second largest economies in the world.
Key outcomes
Key outcomes of this project include a Ph. D. dissertation entitled "Agricultural Intensification and Environmental Changes in the Central Plain of China (5500 B.P.—2000 B.P.): A Case Study at Sanyangzhuang and Anshang, Henan Province"，a book chapter entitled "Skies, climate and atmosphere: East Asia" in the book volume "A Cultural History of Environment", and several peer-reviewed journal papers as below.
Qin, Zhen, Michael Storozum, Hao Zhao, Kui Fu, Haiwang Liu and Tristram Kidder. Under Review. Cereal, Soil, and Iron: A Multi-dimensional Investigation of Agricultural Production at Central Plain of China in the Western Han Dynasty – A Case Study at the Sanyangzhuang Site. Antiquity.
Storozum, Michael, Zhen Qin*(corresponding author), Haiwang Liu, Kui Fu and Tristram Kidder. 2017. Micromorphological studies of landscape clearance: a case study from Sanyangzhuang, China. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Available online (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.08.004).
Storozum, Michael, Haiwang Liu, Zhen Qin, Hui Wang, Kui Fu, Deming Kong and Tristram Kidder. 2017. Early Evidence of Irrigation Technology in the North China Plain: Geoarchaeological Investigations at the Anshang site, Neihuang County, Henan Province, China. Geoarchaeology, 2017: 1-20 (https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21634).
Last Modified: 12/01/2018
Modified by: Zhen Qin
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