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The Millet of the Matter: Archeobotanical Evidence for Farming Strategies of Western Han Dynasty Core Area Inhabitants
Despite decades of investigation, consensus has yet to be reached on when and where wheat replaced millet as the primary crop in the core regions of early Imperial China. Previous studies have suggested that wheat cultivation likely became widespread prior to or during the Han Dynasty (202 BC–AD 220...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9280989/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35845634 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.929047 |
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author | Liao, Jingwen Li, Ming Allen, Edward Luo, Wuhong Sheng, Pengfei |
author_facet | Liao, Jingwen Li, Ming Allen, Edward Luo, Wuhong Sheng, Pengfei |
author_sort | Liao, Jingwen |
collection | PubMed |
description | Despite decades of investigation, consensus has yet to be reached on when and where wheat replaced millet as the primary crop in the core regions of early Imperial China. Previous studies have suggested that wheat cultivation likely became widespread prior to or during the Han Dynasty (202 BC–AD 220). Here, we tested this hypothesis by applying archeobotanical tools to plant remains found in five pottery model granaries (cang) entombed in a newly excavated late Western Han burial at the Longzaocun cemetery in the Guanzhong Basin. This analysis allowed us to explore the extent of wheat expansion and agricultural strategies in the heartland of early dynastic China. Macro- and micro-botanical evidence shows that the Longzaocun residents consumed two kinds of crops: foxtail and common millet. Combining these findings with previous studies, we argue that millet-based multi-crop farming dominated the regional agricultural system during the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-AD 8) and analyze the political and cultural motivations for the Han people’s usage on millet crops from the burial concepts and fiscal systems. Echoing previous studies, we argue that millets remained the most valuable subsistence food for inhabitants of the Loess Basins in the Han core, and that wheat was not cultivated on a large scale in this area during the Western Han Dynasty. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9280989 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-92809892022-07-15 The Millet of the Matter: Archeobotanical Evidence for Farming Strategies of Western Han Dynasty Core Area Inhabitants Liao, Jingwen Li, Ming Allen, Edward Luo, Wuhong Sheng, Pengfei Front Plant Sci Plant Science Despite decades of investigation, consensus has yet to be reached on when and where wheat replaced millet as the primary crop in the core regions of early Imperial China. Previous studies have suggested that wheat cultivation likely became widespread prior to or during the Han Dynasty (202 BC–AD 220). Here, we tested this hypothesis by applying archeobotanical tools to plant remains found in five pottery model granaries (cang) entombed in a newly excavated late Western Han burial at the Longzaocun cemetery in the Guanzhong Basin. This analysis allowed us to explore the extent of wheat expansion and agricultural strategies in the heartland of early dynastic China. Macro- and micro-botanical evidence shows that the Longzaocun residents consumed two kinds of crops: foxtail and common millet. Combining these findings with previous studies, we argue that millet-based multi-crop farming dominated the regional agricultural system during the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-AD 8) and analyze the political and cultural motivations for the Han people’s usage on millet crops from the burial concepts and fiscal systems. Echoing previous studies, we argue that millets remained the most valuable subsistence food for inhabitants of the Loess Basins in the Han core, and that wheat was not cultivated on a large scale in this area during the Western Han Dynasty. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-06-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9280989/ /pubmed/35845634 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.929047 Text en Copyright © 2022 Liao, Li, Allen, Luo and Sheng. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Plant Science Liao, Jingwen Li, Ming Allen, Edward Luo, Wuhong Sheng, Pengfei The Millet of the Matter: Archeobotanical Evidence for Farming Strategies of Western Han Dynasty Core Area Inhabitants |
title | The Millet of the Matter: Archeobotanical Evidence for Farming Strategies of Western Han Dynasty Core Area Inhabitants |
title_full | The Millet of the Matter: Archeobotanical Evidence for Farming Strategies of Western Han Dynasty Core Area Inhabitants |
title_fullStr | The Millet of the Matter: Archeobotanical Evidence for Farming Strategies of Western Han Dynasty Core Area Inhabitants |
title_full_unstemmed | The Millet of the Matter: Archeobotanical Evidence for Farming Strategies of Western Han Dynasty Core Area Inhabitants |
title_short | The Millet of the Matter: Archeobotanical Evidence for Farming Strategies of Western Han Dynasty Core Area Inhabitants |
title_sort | millet of the matter: archeobotanical evidence for farming strategies of western han dynasty core area inhabitants |
topic | Plant Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9280989/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35845634 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.929047 |
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