North-south patterning of millet agriculture on the Loess Plateau: Late Neolithic adaptations to water stress, NW China

Abstract

Water availability and climatic conditions profoundly control agricultural systems in different spatial-temporal conditions. Using new results of archaeobotanical research on the north Loess Plateau and extant macro-botanical data recovered from the eastern part of the north-south Loess Plateau, we investigated the ancient cropping patterns of different agrarian communities living in the marginal area of the East Asian monsoonal climatic zone. It indicated that the common millet ( Panicum miliaceum)–based cropping pattern was dominant in the north Loess Plateau during around 3000–1800 cal. BC. However, there is a preference for foxtail millet ( Setaria italica)–based farming combined with a certain amount of rice ( Oryza sativa) cultivation by the archaeological humans on the south of the Loess Plateau during the same periods. We infer the diverse ways of crop management selected by late Neolithic human beings adapting to various water stress that probably underpinned different developmental trajectories of ancient civilizations on the Loess Plateau during mid-late Holocene.