The Research Of Plant Remains In Longshan Period From Dalaidian Site In Henan

The Central Plains have been the core of archaeological field area. As a component of the Central Plains, North Henan had contributed to the origin of civilization and social complexity in prehistory times. With the introduction of the flotation method in the ninety’s of 21th Century, a large number of important charred plant remains were obtained. At present, we have a preliminary understanding of the agricultural economy in most parts of the Central Plains but North Henan in the Neolithic Age.Dalaidian site is located in Hebi City of North Henan and was uncovered by Mr. Guo Baojun during the excavation of Xincun Graveyard in the early of 1932, subsequently being excavated for the first time by Mr. Yinda in May. They found the continuous cultural layers from Yangshao, Longshan to Shang Dynasty again after Hougang site, but the work was interrupted due to Yinxu site’s excavation. Dalaidian site was under formal excavation for the second time from winter of 2013 to summer of 2014, being predominated by Longshan Culture and Western Zhou Culture. According to the flotation of soil samples, I try to analyze and explain the agricultural production of Longshan period in Dalaidian. Associated with archaeobotanical researches of other sites in the same period in Central Plains, hackling the agricultural development and exploring the role it played in the transition from Longshan to Erlitou.First of all, foxtail millet and broomcorn millet are the top two crops in Dalaidian site during Longshan culture, as well as soybeans, wheat and rice. Comparing the soybean size between Dalaidian and Wadian site, we confirm that soybeans in Dalaidian are cultivated varieties. A small amount of wheat and rice may play a negligible role in people’s life at that time. Besides, the inhabitants of Dalaidian also gathered edible plants like Leguminosae and Chenopodiaceae as a supplement intentionally after farming. What’s more, agricultural structures in the Central Plains are different from the different geographic positions, climates and the influences of the archaeological culture. North Henan, Zhengzhou and Luoyang area andupper reaches of the Yinghe River are mainly millet planting farming area. While rice-farming appeared and even occupied a large fraction in many sites in the middle reaches of the Yinghe River and Southwestern Henan and this structure changed in the late Longshan Culture. It is exactly complex and varied crop structure making the Central Plains a continuous develop and the first state when faced with a sudden environment change.The dissertation consists of five parts.Chapter 1:The introduction. This part introduces the topic background and archeobotanical work of Longshan Culture in the Central plains, summarizes the related researches on social complexity at home and abroad and then comes up with my research approaches.Chapter 2:Background of North Henan. This part introduces space-time scope, environment and archaeological cultures in researched area. The latter includes archaeological cultures’ sequences in both North Henan and Central Plains.Chapter 3:Research methods and materials. There are three parts in this chapter, including collection and floatation of soil samples, identification in the laboratory and statistical analysis method of data respectively.Chapter 4:Identification results and analysis. This chapter describes all kinds of carbonized remains in detail.Chapter 5:Discussion. First the agriculture in Dalaidian site, then comparison of other sites in Central Plains and reasons of their different crop structure, followed by primary analysis on relationship between agriculture and social complexity in the Central Plains.