Fishing, farming, and animal husbandry in the early and middle Neolithic of the middle Yellow River valley, China

This thesis explores the process of intensification of foxtail millet agriculture and pig husbandry 9000 to 6000 BP in the middle Yellow River valley, China. The problem is: why were the millets the best crop to have been cultivated independently in this region and how fishing, farming and pig husbandry complemented one another that led to the outcome.; Foxtail (Setaria italica) and broomcorn millets ( Panicum miliaceum), which are C4 plants, grow best in the summer monsoon climate in this region, making millets the best crops to have been invented independently in this region during the early Neolithic: the origin of C4 agriculture. Fishing and pig husbandry were complementary seasonal foods that provided animal protein sources when stored millets were exhausted. Different local topographies and human settlement patterns made dry season collective net fishing more important for the occupants in the Wei River Valley than in the Central Plain before and during the Yangshao culture.; I use archaeology, fauna, and especially, stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes of bone, to investigate this process. The results suggest that fishing had remained very important for Neolithic Chinese in the Wei River valley from early Neolithic culture to the Yangshao culture. Pig domestication might have initially occurred in Jiahu (9000--7800 BP), completed in Baijia culture in the Wei River Valley (8000--7000 BP). Yangshao pigs were fed more on millet fodder and a different pig provisioning method was applied in the Yangshao culture. Millets and pig meat provided most non-protein and protein dietary sources in the Yangshao occupants' diet.; The significance of this research lies in that millet agricultural origin in this region is C4 agricultural origin, and the best analogue to millet agricultural origin in this region is maize production at higher latitude in eastern North America in Late Woodland period. Second, fishing had remained very important in the Wei River Valley before and after millet agriculture and pig husbandry became the dominant mode of subsistence, suggesting a regional difference in subsistence strategies between the Wei River valley and the Central Plain.