Early irrigation and agropastoralism at Mohuchahangoukou (MGK), Xinjiang, China

Li, Yuqi; Storozum, Michael; Wang, Xin; Guo, Wenbin

doi:10.1016/j.ara.2017.09.005

Cited by 23 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Therefore, we suggest that the best explanation for the differences in water input was provided to wheat by cultivators during its growth period. Obviously, there are many factors that can affect water input and carbon isotope levels, but given that a greater management of water through www.nature.com/scientificreports/ gravity irrigation of mountain melt streams is expected at this period, the isotope data seems to support the archaeology [65][66][67] .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Paleoecologists have proposed that as early as the second millennium BC, salinization of top soils, possibly caused by irrigation, was already occurring at the Xintala site 22 . The irrigation systems found in Mohuchahangoukou 67 and at the Yuansha ancient city (Djoumboulak Koum) (ca. 400-0 BC) 23,24 suggest that people were significantly improving water management technology.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…6 b). Scholars have already suggested that the irrigation technology present in Xinjiang in prehistory may have spread into the region through the mountains of Central Asia from southern Central Asia 67 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prehistoric agriculture and social structure in the southwestern Tarim Basin: multiproxy analyses at Wupaer

Yang

Zhou

Spengler

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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The oasis villages of the Tarim Basin served as hubs along the ancient Silk Road, and they played an important role in facilitating communication between the imperial centers of Asia. These villages were supported by an irrigated form of cereal farming that was specifically adapted to these early oasis settlements. In this manuscript, we present the results from new archaeobotanical analyses, radiocarbon dating, and organic carbon isotopic studies directly from carbonized seeds at the Wupaer site (1500-400 BC) in the Kashgar Oasis of the western Tarim Basin. Our results showed that early farming in the oasis relied on a mixed wheat and barley system, but after 1200 BC was intensified through more elaborate irrigation, the introduction of more water-demanding legumes, and possibly a greater reliance on free-threshing wheat. These crops and the knowledge of irrigated farming likely dispersed into the Tarim Basin through the mountains from southern Central Asia. Improved agricultural productivity in the Tarim Basin may also have led to demographic and socio-political shifts and fed into the increased exchange that is colloquially referred to as the Silk Road. The Tarim Basin is located at the central point of the historic Eurasia trade routes; resting in the rain shadows of the Kunlun and Tianshan mountains, it is one of the driest and least arable areas in Asia. The Taklimakan Desert occupies the middle of the basin, and while receiving almost no rainfall, it evaporates up to 3,000 mm per annum. Glacial-melt streams from the mountains flow into the desert and mostly disappear in its hinterland. This landscape gave birth to the beaded oases that characterized the historic Silk Road. Archaeological and historical evidence attests to the presence of agricultural city-states or politically organized villages in these oases, likely being founded as early as the fifth century BC 1. Archaeologists have suggested that many of these urbanized oases housed populations of thousands to tens of thousands, with some notable examples including Qiuci, Yumi, Yanqi, and Loulan (Fig. 1) 2,3. Historians refer to these pockets of dense human occupation as the "Western Regions" 2,3. Prehistorically, these oases played a prominent role in cultural exchange and diffusion during the early globalization process 4-10. These city-states helped connect the two ends of ancient Eurasia and were the main channel between peoples in the regions of northern China and southwest Asia 11-14. For decades, archaeologists have recognized cultural similarities between ancient peoples in the Tien Shan Mountains, Pamirs Plateau, Ferghana Basin, and those that lived across the oases of Xinjiang 12,15,16. The study of the origin and evolution of these city-states, their cultural adaptations, and their response to climate change has been the focus of global historians, archaeologists, and paleoclimate scholars 9,17. Since the Swedish archaeologists, Bergman, first found the well-preserved mummies of the Xiaohe Cemetery in Lop Nur in 1934 18 , new prehistoric se...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prehistoric agriculture and social structure in the southwestern Tarim Basin: multiproxy analyses at Wupaer

Yang

Zhou

Spengler

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…The possibility that the inhabitants of Chap II used irrigation in the Kochkor valley cannot also be ruled out. It is plausible that irrigation technologies spread together with the first farming communities to the central Tien Shan and further eastwards to China [55]. The occupation of Chap II during the second half of the third millennium BCE coincides with the Subboreal climate period of dry and cold conditions [56,57].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A biodiverse package of southwest Asian grain crops facilitated high-elevation agriculture in the central Tien Shan during the mid-third millennium BCE

Matuzevičiūtė

Hermes

Mir-Makhamad

et al. 2020

Preprint

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We report the earliest and the most abundant archaeobotanical assemblage of southwest Asian grain crops from Early Bronze Age Central Asia, recovered from the Chap II site in Kyrgyzstan. The archaeobotanical remains consist of thousands of cultivated grains dating to the mid-late 3rd millennium BCE. The recovery of cereal chaff, which is rare in archaeobotanical samples from Central Asia, allows for the identification of some crops to species and indicates local cultivation at 2000 m.a.s.l., as crop first spread to the mountains of Central Asia. The site’s inhabitants cultivated two types of free-threshing wheats, glume wheats, and hulled and naked barleys. Highly compact morphotypes of wheat and barley grains represent a special variety of cereals adopted to highland environments. Moreover, glume wheats recovered at Chap II represent their most eastern distribution in Central Asia so far identified. Based on the presence of weed species, we argue that the past environment of Chap II was characterized by an open mountain landscape, where animal grazing likely took place, which may have been further modified by people irrigating agricultural fields. This research suggests that early farmers in the mountains of Central Asia cultivated a high diversity of southwest Asian crops during the initial eastward dispersal of agricultural technologies, which likely played a critical role in shaping montane adaptations and dynamic interaction networks between farming societies across highland and lowland cultivation zones.

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“…Agro-pastoralist sites located in foothill environments offer ample botanical evidence of agriculture such as Chawuhu [35], Yanghai [24], and Duogang [36], yet the remains of fields and farming strategies are not available, making it impossible for us to reconstruct many aspects of ancient farming strategies beyond the grain types themselves. MGK is a unique agro-pastoralist site because of its location on a mountain foothill that contains a well-preserved ancient agricultural landscape [37]. Investigating MGK allows us to explore ancient farming strategies from the perspective of soils.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farming strategies of 1st millennium CE agro-pastoralists on the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains: A geoarchaeological and macrobotanical investigation of the Mohuchahangoukou (MGK) site, Xinjiang, China

Storozum

Tian

et al. 2019

PLoS ONE

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Archaeological evidence emerging over the past decade clearly illustrates that agro-pastoralists living along the foothills of major mountain chains in Central Asia (the so-called “Inner Asian Mountain Corridor” or IAMC) facilitated the spread of domesticated grains through their direct involvement in farming. While the environmental conditions across the northwestern slopes of the IAMC provided adequate resources for incipient farming and herding as early as the mid-3 rd mill. BCE, the development of local agricultural strategies on the extremely arid and eroded foothills on the southeastern, leeward side of the mountains remain comparatively less studied. Our study tackles this problem by combining geoarchaeological analysis with conventional macrobotanical identification in the investigation of a 1 st -mill. CE agro-pastoralist farming site, Mohuchahangoukou (MGK), located on the arid foothills of the Tianshan range. Our results illustrate how ancient agro-pastoralists at MGK innovated irrigation systems both to combat water shortage and, importantly, to trap sediments carried by flood-water for crop cultivation. By synthesizing currently available data, we estimate that they managed to trap about 40 cm of fine-grained sediment within a span of 200 years or even less. These stone-built field systems helped water a diverse stand of crops and create deeper soils in an otherwise deflated landscape with thin desert soils. Since we detected high levels of salt concentration (>2 dSm -1 ) in the lower portions of all three test trenches we analyzed, we conclude that soil salinization might have affected the long-term sustainability of this form of irrigated field management. We also infer that, besides engineering efforts, the ancient agro-pastoralists at MGK had to resolve the scheduling conflicts between irrigated farming and animal herding through labor specialization.

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Early irrigation and agropastoralism at Mohuchahangoukou (MGK), Xinjiang, China

Cited by 23 publications

References 31 publications

Prehistoric agriculture and social structure in the southwestern Tarim Basin: multiproxy analyses at Wupaer

Prehistoric agriculture and social structure in the southwestern Tarim Basin: multiproxy analyses at Wupaer

A biodiverse package of southwest Asian grain crops facilitated high-elevation agriculture in the central Tien Shan during the mid-third millennium BCE

Farming strategies of 1st millennium CE agro-pastoralists on the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains: A geoarchaeological and macrobotanical investigation of the Mohuchahangoukou (MGK) site, Xinjiang, China

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