DIVERSIFICATION OF RAINFED AGRICULTURE IN THE UPPER YING RIVER DURING THE LATE NEOLITHIC AGE

The objective of this paper is to seek for the relationship between the cereals cultivated in the Late Neolithic age within the area of the upper Ying River and their environmental settings. Various charred cereal grains in the archaeobotanical assemblages from the Wangchenggang site, especially in the proportion of millet, glutinous millet and wheat, have been discovered. The cereal assemblages are studied regarding their site altitude, weather conditions, soil and soil productivity. The most important environmental variable, which influences the choice of a particular crop, seemed to be the altitude which is correlated with other variables such as the length of growing season, mean annual temperature, soil quality etc. Although the ecological requirements of cereals cultivated in the late Neolithic ages are not known, they presumably thrived under similar conditions to present species/varieties, and the strategy of past crop husbandry was based on similar principles as it today, e.g. flexible adaptation to local environmental conditions, in an effort to achieve optimal yields and maintain social sustainability.