Tianluoshan is an Early Neolithic site, located at the edge of the Ningshao plain near Hangzhou Bay in Zhejiang Province, China. The site lies 30-40 km from the coastline and 2-3 meters above present-day sea level, in an open wetland environment. A high water table immediately below the site has preserved many water-logged plant materials in some pit contexts, and the remains of ancient rice paddy fields, dated as early as 7000 years ago.
The site was occupied during the Neolithic period, between ~5000-3000 BC. The Neolithic occupation at the site is associated with the Hemudu culture, and Tianluoshan is very close to the Hemudu type site. Hemudu was excavated in the 1970s, and in comparison, the study of Tianluoshan has benefited from new excavation and laboratory techniques, particularly with respect to methods exploring the anaerobic environment of the below-ground deposits.
Features at Tianluoshan
Tianluoshan is important for understanding the progress of wet rice domestication. Radiocarbon dates on plant remains at Tianluoshan fall between ~6900-6600 years ago, during the long process during which rice grain size increased and plant stalks became non-shattering, so that rice grains stay on the stalks until they are harvested.
Site features include preserved wooden posts, canoe paddles, wooden and bone tools, pottery and ground-stone axes, and animal and fish remains. Two sets of rice fields were identified at Tianluoshan: the earliest at ~2.8 meters below the modern surface was used between ~5000-4500 BC, and the most recent (1.3 meters below the surface), between 4000-2500 BC. Rice paddies covered an area of some 6.3 hectares during the earlier period and over 7.4 ha for the later period. Opal phytoliths and rice spikelets (as shown in the image) were also recovered from these locations.
More than 300 groundstone tools, including adzes, axes and chisels were recovered from Tianluoshan, many of them broken or damaged from heavy use. Stones to make these tools were likely made of andesite, basalt, rhyolite and dacite, from at least 50 kilometers away.
Living at Tianluoshan
The residents of Tianluoshan lived in long houses built on stilts, and lived on the marine resources from nearby Hangzhou Bay. They gathered acorns and aquatic nuts (such as water chestnuts Trapa natans sensu lato and fox nuts Euryale ferox), persimmons, peaches, apricots and other fruits. Animal bone found at the site indicates they also hunted deer and water buffalo, and fished, particularly carp.
Most importantly, the Tianloushan residents relied extensively on cultivated rice. Tightly dated storage pits and middens containing a considerable amount of rice grains illustrate an increasing reliance on rice cultivation, as the people decreased the use of acorns and water chestnuts. Some evidence (reported in Fuller and Qin) suggests that climatic shifts decreased the number of oak trees in the region, leading to a growing dependence on cultivated rice.
Discovered and first excavated in 2004, the core of the site is now preserved as an open-air museum.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to Rice Domestication, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Fuller DQ, Harvey E, and Qin L. 2007. Presumed domestication? Evidence for wild rice cultivation and domestication in the fifth millennium BC of the Lower Yangtze region. Antiquity 81:316–331.
Fuller D, and Qin L. 2010. Declining oaks, increasing artistry, and cultivating rice: the environmental and social context of the emergence of farming in the Lower Yangtze Region. Environmental Archaeology 15:139-159.
Fuller DQ, Qin L, Zheng Y, Zhao Z, Chen X, Hosoya LA, and Sun G-P. 2009. The Domestication Process and Domestication Rate in Rice: Spikelet Bases from the Lower Yangtze. Science 323:1607-1610.
Jiao T, Guo Z, Sun G, Zhang M, and Li X. 2011. Sourcing the interaction networks in Neolithic coastal China: a geochemical study of the Tianluoshan stone adzes. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(6):1360-1370.
Yunfei Z, Guoping S, Ling Q, Chunhai L, Xiaohong W, and Xugao C. 2009. Rice fields and modes of rice cultivation between 5000 and 2500 BC in east China. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(12):2609-2616.
Zheng Y, Sun G, Qin L, Li C, Wu X, and Chen X. 2009. Events of reclaiming marshes for rice fields between 7000BP and 4500 BP in east China. Nature Precedings.
