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Rethinking pig domestication in China: regional trajectories in central China and the Lower Yangtze Valley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2020

Ningning Dong  and
Jing Yuan
Ningning Dong*
Affiliation:
Department of Cultural Relics and Museology, Fudan University, P.R. China Institute of Archaeological Science, Fudan University, P.R. China
Jing Yuan
Affiliation:
Department of Cultural Relics and Museology, Fudan University, P.R. China Institute of Archaeological Science, Fudan University, P.R. China
*
*Author for correspondence: ✉ dongningning@fudan.edu.cn
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Abstract

Animal domestication represents one of the most important advances in human history. Pigs (Sus scrofa) were domesticated multiple times in prehistory and are therefore ideal for examining how geography and culture shape the domestication process. The authors integrate zooarchaeological and isotopic data from Neolithic (c. 10 000–2000 BP) pigs from central China and the Lower Yangtze Valley to demonstrate two dominant domestication trajectories. In central China, pig husbandry intensified following domestication, corresponding with population growth and a shift in socio-economic organisation. In the Lower Yangtze Valley, however, increasing urbanism was associated with a preference for wild resources supplemented by the limited exploitation of domestic pigs.

Keywords

ChinaNeolithicLiangzhuanimal husbandrypig domestication
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 94 , Issue 376 , August 2020 , pp. 864 - 879
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2020

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