Human Cultural Adaptation In Jiaodong Peninsula During Mid-Holocene

The development of human culture is highly correlative with the environment and social settings. How to understand the relationship between the culture and the environment is the main topic of environmental archaeology. The theory of cultural ecology considers that "Culture is adaptive". It advocates to study human cultures from the ecological point of view, to study how the human create special culture in a given environment. What are the differences and similarities between the cultures in different region. This point of view is helpful to understand some cultural phenomenon.Jiaodong Peninsula is a relatively independent geographical unit and the archaeological culture is also special in mid-Holocene. The goal of this thesis is to investigate the features of the archaeological cultural and the environment, then to discuss the relationship between them. The main methods applied in the study include settlement archaeology, environmental archaeology, map analysis, cultural factor analysis and GIS (Geographical Information System). First to build the archaeological GIS of the study area. Then add the map data as different layers to show the environmental factors such as the distribution of the mineral sources. In addition, the archaeological remains are analyzed to investigate its relationship with the environment.The architecture technology and commodity are discussed. In Jiaodong Peninsula, the particularity of architecture is the long-term use of very deep post and half-crypt house. The article investigated the weather condition of the study area and argued that the above phenomenon is related to the frequent big wind. In order to prevent the house to be destroyed by the big wind, people used of deep post and half-crypt house. Among the cooking potteries, the amount of Yan gradually increased and Ding decreased correspondently with the transition of the period. The arcticle analyzed the function of the two kinds of cooking potteries and concluded that it was because of the development of agriculture that resulted in the situation.The distance between the settlements and the rivers was investigated. Most of the interval between them is 100-600 meters. But in the lower reaches plain and broad valley located the middle reaches of the big rivers, there are very few settlements. The article investigated the landform and hydrology of the study area and found that there were frequent waterlog. So people had to avoid such places to build their settlements. It reflects the human's adaptation to the environment.The article investigated the relationship between the distribution of the settlements and the type of the soil. First the 42 types of soil were divided into five ranks according to the yield of crop. The Rank 1 is the best types for the growth of crop. The Rank 5 is the worst types. Then the area of every type of soil within 2 kilometers around every settlement were calculated. The data were gathered and analyzed for every period in order to find the rules of change. The result show that the area of the best types soil of the earlier periods (Qiujiazhuang Type and Beizhuang Type )were more than that of the late periods (Longshan Culture and Yueshi Culture). This indicates the development of the agriculture in Lonshan Culuture and Yueshi Culture. Other proofs, such as the amount of the agriculture tools and the more discovered crop, also suggest that the technology of agriculture were more advanced in Longshan and Yueshi Period. When people found that different types of soil had different ability to yield crop, they preferred to build their settlement near places of more good quality soil types. This is a good example to show human cultural adaptation to the environment.The distance between the settlements and all kinds of mineral resources were investigated. The result show that the distance from several kilometers to dozens of kilometers. This result shows that there are few relativity between them. Mineral resources were not the important factor when people decided where to build their settlement. Since that most of the mineral resources were far away from the settlements, special routes may formed to get the resources. In the northern part of the peninsula, the route maybe is within the 15 kilometers near the sea, because for most of the settlements people, they could get the resources within this district instead of suffering from going into the mountainous inland. But the culture exchange route between e northern part and the southern part of the peninsula may cross the narrow district between the Aishan Mountain and the Yashan Mountain.The culture exchange route between the peninsula and the inland of Shandong province were also discussed. The Jiaolai plain, which connected the two parts, were very low and full of rivers, hence there maybe a lot of waterlog. The waterlog compelled the mid-Holocene people to avoid to living or going through the area. So there were two routes to connect the peninsula and the inland area. One is along the northern part of the Jiaolai plain and the other one is along the southern part of the plain. Both of them are coastal routes. In Beixin Period and the early Dawenkou Period, the north route maybe more important than the south one. The two routes were the same important in Lonshan and Yueshi Period.In this article, the SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) data were first applied in Chinese archaeological research. So it is necessary to discuss the precision of the data. According to the comparison of the data with the topography map, we found the SRTM data has good quality to be used in the analysis of geomorphology and hydrograph. It has many merits, but it seems that the elevation of the data is not so precise. The reason for this is still to be discussed. But generally speaking, the SRTM data has good quality and can fulfill with some archaological tasks.The subsistence economy is one of the important content. There are a lot of shell middens in Jiaodong Peninsula. So the importance of the shell collection was discussed as an economic mode. The result shows that when people built their settlement in the coastal area, they had specific aim and only chose those places where there were abundant shell resources. This indicates that the shell collections played a very important role in people's economy. But with the diffusion of the agriculture technology from Dawenkou Culture, the people in Jiaodong Peninsula gradually abandoned the shell collection and the shell collection was not so important as the earlier periods. This adaptation is different with that of people in Liaodong Peninsula. In Liaodong Peninsula, the shell collection was always important to the economy from the Neolithic Period to the Bronze Age. The differences show us a good example of cultural adaptation when people face the same natural and social environment.