Understanding Household Subsistence Activities in Neolithic Inner Mongolia, China: Functional Analyses of Stone Tools.

This study attempts to reconstruct household subsistence activities in order to understand the socioeconomic strategies adapted by the earliest Neolithic populations in south-central Inner Mongolia during the fifth millennium bc. These people are likely to have originated in the Yangshao culture in the Central Plain, where millet-based agriculture was already established. We conducted residue and use-wear analyses on the most recurrent tool types found in residential areas, including grinding stones, spades, and knives. The results suggest that the Yangshao culture migrants adapted to a local foraging tradition, involving hunting large animals and collecting/cultivating diverse plant foods, mainly tubers and roots. They also maintained their Neolithic technology and probably social organization and household structure, as indicated by the presence of Neolithic toolkits, pottery, domesticates, and house structures. Contrary to previous assumptions, domesticated cereals, such as millets and Job's tears, account for very small proportions of the plant foods used. The local huntinggathering populations, likely represented by the microlithic tradition in the archaeological record, may have integrated with the Neolithic migrants and played an important role in the formation of the new subsistence strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]