For a long time,the academic community has known very little about hunter-gatherers in the steppe area of northern China in the mid-Holocene.This article reports on the Ula Usu West site in Siziwangqi Banner,Inner Mon...For a long time,the academic community has known very little about hunter-gatherers in the steppe area of northern China in the mid-Holocene.This article reports on the Ula Usu West site in Siziwangqi Banner,Inner Mongolia,including basic information about the site,animal bones,lithic artifacts and the environmental background.The age of the site is 4.8–4.4 cal.kyr BP,placing it in the Late Neolithic period.Considering integrated evidence from flotation,zooarchaeology,ZooMS analysis and lithic artifacts,the preliminary inference is that the population lived in a hunting-gathering economy.They used lithic tools represented by arrowheads to hunt mainly Antilopinae animals(e.g.,Procapra gutturosa).Pollen analysis suggests that the climate was relatively humid,providing advantageous living conditions for the population.The climate evidence is consistent with a warm event at approximately 4.7 kyr BP.A dry-cold event(4.5–4.0 kyr BP)and the gradual expansion of agriculture and breeding might have resulted in the final decline of the population.This article provides new materials for research on the“last”hunter-gatherers in the steppe area of northern China.展开更多
基金supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant No.XDB26000000)the National Basic Research Program of China(Grant No.2015CB953800)+1 种基金the National Social Science Fund of China(Grant No.18ZDA218)the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS(Grant No.2018099)。
文摘For a long time,the academic community has known very little about hunter-gatherers in the steppe area of northern China in the mid-Holocene.This article reports on the Ula Usu West site in Siziwangqi Banner,Inner Mongolia,including basic information about the site,animal bones,lithic artifacts and the environmental background.The age of the site is 4.8–4.4 cal.kyr BP,placing it in the Late Neolithic period.Considering integrated evidence from flotation,zooarchaeology,ZooMS analysis and lithic artifacts,the preliminary inference is that the population lived in a hunting-gathering economy.They used lithic tools represented by arrowheads to hunt mainly Antilopinae animals(e.g.,Procapra gutturosa).Pollen analysis suggests that the climate was relatively humid,providing advantageous living conditions for the population.The climate evidence is consistent with a warm event at approximately 4.7 kyr BP.A dry-cold event(4.5–4.0 kyr BP)and the gradual expansion of agriculture and breeding might have resulted in the final decline of the population.This article provides new materials for research on the“last”hunter-gatherers in the steppe area of northern China.