Quaternary International xxx (2016) 1e8

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Quaternary International
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What do we know about domestication in eastern Asia?

John Dodson a, *, Guanghui Dong b
a
State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710052, China
b
Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University,
Lanzhou, Gansu, 730000, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The body of data based on new work on genetics and DNA, plus a growing number of radiocarbon ages
Available online xxx which are independent of dates based on cultural associations has broadened our knowledge of
domestication in eastern Asia. Here we review the situation for several plant and animal species that
Keywords: were domesticated locally or imported to east Asia. Major centres of plant domestication in China have
Plant domestication been in the Yellow and Yangtze river basins, and in Yunnan. For animals it appears that the Yellow River
Animal domestication
region, the area around Xi'an and the south-east have been important centres. Many adopted domes-
Patterns of domestication
ticates have entered China through the north-west and later through ports such as Canton (Guangzhou).
China
East Asia
It appears that while there are outliers to extended ranges of wild plants and animals, sometimes not
securely dated, widespread deliberate movement of plants and animals outside their natural ranges
coincided with reduced hunting and gathering around 5e4 kyr in the Longshan cultural period. The
adoption of agriculture has resulted in large scale landscape transformation; forests and woodlands have
been replaced by crop and grazing lands and this is evident in many late Holocene sedimentary records.
This transformation continues and the patterns are changing as diets are shifting and much grain is now
used to feed chicken and beef, and in addition this has placed increased pressure on water resources.
2016 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction rooted in the development of domestication and agricultural

The purpose of this paper is to provide a starting point of the
current general status of what is known about domestication and
landscape transformation by humans across eastern Asia. The
following provides analysis of new material which expands on
previous reviews and aims to broaden our understanding of the
topic. A key element in the development of modern societies was
the domestication of plants and animals. This led to a shift of
hunter-gatherer groups to settled communities. Hunter-gatherer
groups were mobile, necessarily small bands and generally un-
able to accumulate large quantities of material goods. It can be
argued that settled communities had crops and animals to tend
which led to predictable and hence reliable food supplies and land
ownership. Also shorter breeding cycles meant that population
growth was more rapid and a greater diversication of tasks was
possible. The latter most likely fostered greater complexity of cul-
tural, religious and political systems, and more rapid technological
advancements. Indeed the makings of many modern societies was
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: john@ieecas.cn (J. Dodson).
systems.
The development of domestication apparently began in several
distinct places, and the Levant and Eastern Asia were amongst the
earliest of these. Diamond (2002) asked why this occurred so late in
the history of modern humans. Of course we don't know the
answer to this but it may have been related to the onset of milder
and more steady climates as the Holocene period opened a little
over 10,000 years ago (Richerson et al., 2001). Presumably under
more stable climate exploitable species ranges and the living
environment for humans became predictable over many
generations.
The early phases of domestication were based on local species,
and hence differed in detail from place to place. A few widespread
species, such as pigs (Sus sp.) may have been independently
domesticated in several centres. When more extensive trading and
technological exchanges were developed useful domesticates and
technologies were transported to new areas.
The process of domestication is generally one where selection of
species characteristics is made on the basis of their usefulness to
humans. This results in a simplication of the gene pool in the
domesticated species. A simplied gene pool makes for a more

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.04.005
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Please cite this article in press as: Dodson, J., Dong, G., What do we know about domestication in eastern Asia?, Quaternary International (2016),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.04.005
2 J. Dodson, G. Dong / Quaternary International xxx (2016) 1e8
vulnerable population, and as agricultural societies often rely on
fewer species compared to hunter gatherers it is important that the
largest possible gene pool is preserved as insurance against loss of a
domesticate. The process of domestication is continuing and
indeed has speeded up through application of new gene
technology.
There have been several excellent reviews on domestication
over the last few decades (e.g. Crawford, 1992; Zohary and Hopf,
2000; Gupta, 2004; Ucko and Dimbelby, 2007; Larson et al., 2014)
which have established the broad patterns we continue to recog-
nise today. In the last few year's greater availability of evidence
from archaeological excavations and a gradual shift from dating by
archaeological context to more objective AMS radiocarbon analyses
on seeds, residues and bones has provided new and more rened
insights into data. In addition there has been a rapid expansion of
genetic data and the application of stable isotopes which has
greatly broadened our understanding for several key species; and
bringing all this together it is now possible to offer more rened
discussions on the impacts of domestication on people, cultures,
landscapes and ecosystems.
In this paper focus is on eastern Asia, where the evidence often
predates modern states such as China. A summary account of
selected early domesticated plants and animals is given here and
some of the mid to late Holocene imports of domesticates into and
from eastern Asia is presented. The gaps in knowledge remain
large; however it is clear that bridging these will help dene the
challenges of sustainability for the well-being of societies today.
2. Environmental background
The late Pleistocene environment of eastern Asia was like most
parts of the temperate world emerging from the Last Glacial
Maximum. Temperate areas were several degrees cooler than
today, with stronger seasonality, and a punctuation of high
magnitude events known variously as Heinrich Events with the
youngest of these known as the Younger Dryas. These probably
originated from events in the North Atlantic and lasted decades to
centuries and their scales were such that major redistributions of
biomes and species ranges occurred. In the tropics the scale of
change was dampened but lower sea levels greatly increased land
area in some places and while temperatures were only a little
milder the redistribution of continentality and monsoon driven
rainfall was great in some regions (see for example An, 2000 and An
et al., 2000). In contrast, globally, Holocene climate variability was
subdued compared to the late Pleistocene. With small but some-
times signicant differences the distribution of biomes settled into
their present conguration by the early Holocene (see for example
Zhao et al., 2009). That is, until human impacts of various kinds led
to the next major changes in species distributions.
3. Plant domestications in China
3.1. Millets
Two main species of millet are cultivated in China: Panicum
miliaceum (common or broom corn millet) and Setaria italic ssp.
italic (foxtail millet). These are indigenous to northern China and
thus their cultivation is thought to have originated there. The
timing of domestication and routes of dispersal are unknown (Lu
et al., 2009) but the earliest claimed site, which remains conten-
tious, is at Cishan in northern China (CPAM Hebei Province, 1981,
and conrmed by Lu et al., 2009) where husk phytoliths and hy-
drocarbons and ethers from common millet have been found in
material from grain storage pits. The dates from charcoals in these
are between ca. 10,300 and ca 8700 cal yr BP, but these do not relate
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.04.005
directly to millet. A small amount of foxtail millet appears after this
time. Sites further west in Gansu (Gansu, 2006) and in Liaoning
(Barton et al., 2009) have dates around 7500e8000 cal yr BP. It is
clear that more precise and targeted dates from more locations are
needed to lock in the age and place of domestication. Zhao (2011)
quotes unpublished dates on millet seed from Xinglonggou (Inner
Mongolia) at 7670e7610 cal BP. These are secure ages, the site is
regarded as a millet farming site where the society was in transition
from hunter-gathering to agriculture. It is the most reliable early
millet site for China at present. Common millet can tolerate poorer
soils and drought, and the drier climates in the early Holocene (e.g.
Feng et al., 2006a,b) may have been crucial in the adoption of
common millet before foxtail millet.
Millet may have been introduced into Korea at about
8000 cal BP and is associated with the Middle Jeulmun pottery
period (Crawford and Lee, 2003). It is not indigenous to Japan and
its spread there was probably as a cultigen (Crawford, 1992). Millets
are C4 plants and where they are the main foods of humans and
animals the 13C values of animal protein provide evidence of this.
The v13C values can thus provide a direct link between humans and
the use of millets in the food chain.
3.2. Rice
Oryza is a genus of about 24 species in Africa, Asia, Southeast
Asia, New Guinea and Australia. Most grow as tall wetland grasses.
Oryza glaberrima is from Africa and was cultivated from about 2 to
3000 years ago (Linares, 2002). Several rice species are indigenous
to China and about ve distinct groups occur in O. sativa (Garris
et al., 2005). The earliest dated rice grains at about 12,000 years
ago come from Hunan Province (Zhang and Jiarong, 1998) but there
is uncertainty over whether these were in fact domestic rice. Many
argue that rice was rst domesticated in the mid to lower Yangtze,
and the earliest known archaeological evidence tends to support
this (see Gross and Zhao, 2014). Rice remains have been found in
many early Neolithic sites including Shangshan and Xiaohuangshan
with ages of 11,400e9600 cal yr BP and the Pengtoushan site with
ages of 9500e8100 cal yr BP (Wang et al., 2010; Zhao, 2010). A key
site is at Hemudu near Ningbo where storage pits containing rice
dated at around 7000e5000 cal year BP is present. Huang et al.
(2012) examined a large set of genome sequences from a large
geographical spread of O. rupogon plants and concluded that all
domesticated rice came from one wild species found in the Pearl
River basin of Guangdong. Clearly this is a key area to look for
archaeological evidence that might be associated with that occur-
rence. Rice has several distinctive phytoliths and these, along with
rice seeds, have been identied in many cases. Rice occurs in north
China from the early Holocene in places where it would not grow
naturally. It is also known from Gansu in the mid to early Holocene
(Li et al., 2007a,b). This suggests it was quickly adopted as a major
crop. By the mid-Holocene climate in some of those areas led to
dryness and the unsuitability of rice for many Neolithic centres and
its use was lessened or discontinued. Its cultivation spread to
southeast China, southern Asia, Japan and Korea over the next
several millennia (Gross and Zhao, 2014). Rice in the Ganges Delta
area could have been harvested without domestication in the late
Pleistocene (Fuller, 2011) and become domesticated on the Ganges
Plains and could thus have been an independent centre of
domestication (Saxena et al., 2006).
3.3. Buckwheat
Fagopyrum esculentum ssp. ancestrale is regarded as the ancestor
of cultivated buckwheat in Asia. Ohnishi (1998) suggested the use
as a crop began around 6000 years ago. Since the main ancestors
 J. Dodson, G. Dong / Quaternary International xxx (2016) 1e8
are found in Yunnan this may have been the area of original
domestication. Fagopyrum seeds are recorded perhaps as early as
6000 yr BP in Japan in the Jomon Culture of Hokkaido (Crawford
et al., 1976), although Fagopyrum is not native to the region (see
Iwata et al., 2005). Strong evidence for its cultivation in China at
5400 cal yr BP comes from the Western Liaohe River Basin in Inner
Mongolia where pollen, charcoal and evidence of clearing and
associated weeds occur (Li et al., 2007a,b). At this site buckwheat
cultivation around 4500 and 1000 cal yr BP, based on all these
proxies, is particularly evident. The earliest charred seeds of buck-
wheat were unearthed at the Dingjiawa site of the Spring and
Autumn Period (770e476 BC) in Beijing, China (Zhao, 2008).
3.4. Soy bean
It is commonly assumed that soybeans (Glycine max) were rst
cultivated in China, but the ancestor species (Glycine soja) is
widespread across northern China, adjacent Russia and the Korean
Peninsula and Japan. It receives much mention in China in Zhou
Dynasty times (about 3000 years ago) and recent archaeological
research (Lee et al., 2011) places soy bean use perhaps as far back as
5500 years ago in all of northern China, Korea and Japan. The ge-
netics has G. soja/G. max as a complex, with the ancestor species
having a much greater degree of genotypic diversity (Li et al.,
2010a,b; Kim et al., 2012; Chung et al. 2014). An analysis of ge-
netic diversity of domestic soybean across China is consistent with
an origin of domestication along the Yellow River (Li et al., 2010a,b).
Clearly more research is needed to identify the origin and key steps
in the spread of domesticated soybean. Recent work suggests
humans have utilized wild soybeans since 9000 BP in north China,
and soybean was domesticated before the main Zhou periods
(1046e221 BC) (Wu et al., 2013).
3.5. Tea
Camellia sinensis is a native of east, south and south east Asia,
use as tea possibly began in Yunnan Province and legend has it that
its use started as a medicinal drink, possibly in the Shang Dynasty
around 2700 BC (Lu Yu in Yang, 2007; Lu et al., 2016). It was at the
time of the Sui Dynasty (581e617 AD) that tea became more widely
used as a popular beverage and this evolved into an art form in the
Tang Dynasty (618e907 AD). Tea has been found in Shaanxi and
Tibet with an age of about 2100 BC (Lu et al., 2016). It was after
790 AD that tea was introduced into Japan where drinking it also
became an art form. The tea plant is also native to Assam and may
have been used as early as 750 BC but the details of this are
apparently lost in history. The Indian tea industry began in earnest
after the British brought in Chinese varieties in the early 19th
Century (Bennett and Bealer, 2001).
3.6. Citrus
The wild progenitor species and hybrids of domesticated citrus
are controversial (Wu et al., 2014). Cultivated citrus fruits have a
narrow genetic diversity, and the range of edible types probably
began several thousand years ago from South East Asia (Wu et al.,
2014). Gmitter and Hu (1990) thought the original domesticate
was from a hybrid of Citrus reticulata and C. maxima from Yunnan in
southern China. A presumed wild mandarin from Mangshan in
China is distinct from both these species, and from pummelos, or-
anges and mandarins and this likely invalidates the earlier
conclusion it is a progenitor of mandarins (Xu et al., 2013; Wu et al.,
2014). The origin of cultivated pummelos, mandarins and oranges
seems to be from a complex and so far unravelled admixture.
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3
3.7. Peaches
Peaches were likely rst domesticated from wild Prunus persica.
The oldest known remains from an archaeological context come
from Zhejiang Province in China. These date to around 8000 BP, and
earliest peach stones have been recovered along the lower Yangtze
River (Zheng et al., 2014). Zheng et al. (2014) also noted that the
early peach stones seem to have two population types, and stones
similar to modern cultivated forms are found in context with the
Liangzhou culture with an associated age of 5300e4300 BP.
3.8. Pears
Pyrus communis occurs from temperate China to Asia Minor and
Western Asia. Silva et al. (2014) hypothesise that the pear was
probably domesticated in two regions: China and the Caucasus
Mountains, but with a possible third region in Central Asia (Vavilov,
1992, quoted in Silva et al., 2014). The details are difcult to unravel
because of the many hybrids, most especially in eastern Asia where
species diversity is concentrated (Silva et al., 2014). Cultivation of
pears began over 2500 years ago and there are historical records of
its use in China extending from at least 1500 years ago (Shen, 1980).
China remains the centre of production of pears in both quantity
and area under cultivation (FAO, 2013).
4. Animal domestication
4.1. Dogs
Dogs may have been the rst domesticated animals, and DNA
analysis suggests that the ancestor was the European grey wolf
which shares 99.9% of its DNA with domestic dogs (Thalmann et al.,
2013). In 1977 a puppy from a grave in Israel caused great interest
when an age of about 12,000 years was published (see Clutton-
Brock, 1995). Later dog remains of about 16,000 years ago were
reported from Russia and Germany (Larson et al., 2012; Grimm,
2015). An age of 32,000 years on a skull from Belgium was also
published (Germonpre et al., 2009) and there is speculation about
whether this was a dog or from an unusual wolf skull (Morey, 2014;
Germonpre et al., 2015). The story became more complex when
DNA analyses found that the greatest genetic diversity occurred in
dogs south of the Yangtze in China (Savolainen et al., 2002;
Shannon et al., 2015). This date is at odds with an ancestor prob-
ably coming from Europe.
So it is an open question on when and where dogs were rst
domesticated from wolves. The process is also controversial. Some
argue it was a rapid process as wolves scavenged carcasses around
camp sites. Others argue it was a drawn out process with dogs and
humans going from a commensal relationship to full domesticity
through selective breeding, thus allowing for an early stage of self-
dependence and domestication by dogs.
Recently Nagasawa et al. (2015) have shown that dogs and
humans are able to stimulate the hormone oxytocin-gaz in each
other. Domestic dogs are the only animals known to have this
relationship with humans, and this may be a key factor in their
mutual trusting relationship.
4.2. Cats
The place and time for the origin of domestic cats are also open
questions, but the timing is certainly later than for dogs as the
evidence cited below demonstrates. It can be argued that the full
domestication process is incomplete because of the generally aloof
nature of cats, and perhaps humans were domesticated by cats! The
genetic evidence is insufcient to come to clear conclusions but
4 J. Dodson, G. Dong / Quaternary International xxx (2016) 1e8
that which is available points to the ancestor being Felix sylvestris,
the near eastern wild cat (Vigne et al., 2011). The earliest inde-
pendent evidence comes from dates on two cat jaw bones from
Quanhucun in Shaanxi Province of China. These cats are outside the
known natural range of Felix sylvestris. This opens the question of
whether the cats were present in a village setting in a purely
commensal way or whether they had been imported as already
domesticated from further west.
The cat bones at Quanhucun were dated between 5560 and
5280 years and the stable isotope analysis suggests the diet was
underpinned by millet (Hu et al., 2014). The argument goes that
cats were attracted by rodents that were living in millet storage
areas, and hence both farmers and cats would have enjoyed mutual
benet from this. Isotope differences between rats and cat samples
(Bar-Oz et al., 2014) can possibly be explained by cats having a diet
which included sh, reptiles, insects and birds, and this is broader
than for rodents (Hu et al., 2014). The Quanhucun evidence is thus
the oldest currently know and is at least a commensal one and
possibly a domestic one that was established over 5000 years ago.
4.3. Pigs
Much conjecture surrounds the origins of domestication of pigs.
Archaeological evidence shows that domestic pigs might be traced
back to 9000 B.P. in Jiahu site of north China (IA, CASS, 2010), and
were present in both northern and southern China by 8000 B.P.
(Yuan and Flad, 2002; Luo and Zhang, 2008). It is not known if
domestication took place independently in the two regions. Mito-
chondrial DNA in wild boars and domestic pigs suggest there were
multiple domestication events (Tanaka et al., 2008) in the Mekong
and at Bhutan-Myanmar-Vietnam area. Larson et al. (2010) inter-
pret a moderately large data base and infer that there was inde-
pendent domestication in India, peninsula South-east Asia and
from a small island SE of Taiwan (Wu et al., 2007). The latter in-
terpretations so far have no corroborating archaeological evidence.
Current views have domestication of pigs after sedentary or
seasonally mobile societies practicing millet cultivation in China.
Krause-Kyore et al. (2013) have reported on domesticated or
possibly domesticated pigs by hunter-gatherer societies in north-
ern Germany at about 5000 cal BP. They possibly obtained domestic
pigs from Neolithic farmers while they continued to hunt wild boar.
Frantz et al. (2015) show that there has been considerable gene ow
between wild boars and domestic pigs across Eurasia and this has
ramications for understanding the process of domestication, at
least for pigs.
4.4. Chickens
Recent work suggests that the domestic chicken originated from
the red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus gallus) and the grey jungle fowl
(Gallus sonneratii). Chickens were one of the earliest domesticated
poultry species with the oldest bones in the archaeological setting
coming from Nanzhuangtou in Hebei Province of Northern China.
This region is not currently suited to either of these species as it is
semi-arid lightly shrubby grassland. The area however was more
humid and forested in the early Holocene (Li et al., 2010a,b).
Farming was probably well established in the region at 8000 cal BP.
There is evidence of millet cultivation, domestic dog and pottery
dating to about 10,000 cal BP (Yang et al., 2012) also at the site.
Mitochondrial DNA sequences from 39 presumed chicken bones
indicate that chicken domestication may have been as early as
10,000 in the region (Xiang et al., 2014). Peters et al. (2015) ques-
tioned this conclusion on several grounds. Other DNA databases
suggest that chickens were domesticated several times in different
parts of Asia including South Asia, and Southwest and Southeast
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Asia. The timing and origin of these will only come from certainly
identied chicken bones in archaeological context. According to
zooarchaeological analysis, domesticated chickens were denitely
present in the Shang Dynasty site of Yinsu in Henan Province of
north China around 3300 B.P. (Yuan, 2015).
4.5. Silk worms
Silkworms are native to north China. They are larvae of the moth
Bombyx mori and feed exclusively on Morus alba, which is also
endemic to China. It was probably rst used for making cloth in the
Longshan period (2600e2000 BC). Early fragments are known from
tombs. The oldest date comes from a cocoon and has an age of
2600e2300 BC (Kuhn, 1982). Genetic studies suggest silkworms
were domesticated around 2100 BC (Sun et al., 2012), and this
corresponds well with the archaeological evidence.
The raw fabric was created in China and exported along the Silk
Road to Syria, Palestine and Egypt by the second century AD, and
Persia from the 4th Century AD. Production methods along with
larvae were apparently smuggled by Nestorian monks to Byzantine
about 550 AD (Norwich, 1988).
4.6. Buffalo
Recent genetic analysis has modern domesticated buffalo
(Bubalus bubalis) originating in one of Asia's south, southeast or
China (Yan et al., 2008). Bone samples from the Wei River region
near Xi'an in Shaanxi province yielded good DNA sequences from
samples dated between 8000 and 3600 BP (Yang et al., 2008). This
data shows the ancient samples were not direct descendants from
modern domesticated water buffalo but never-the-less were more
closely related to these than other bovid species. While not proven
modern buffalo were descended from an extinct indigenous water
buffalo (probably B. mephitopheles) and thus suggests water buffalo
were not rst domesticated in China (see Liu et al., 2004).
5. Introduced domesticates
5.1. Wheat, barley
Barley and wheat were rst domesticated after the Younger
Dryas in western Asia (Haldorsen et al., 2011), and are now known
from charred remains from Kazakhstan from about 2800e2300 BC
(Spengler et al., 2014). The oldest dates in China are from Shandong,
charred wheat seeds were directly dated to 2500 BC in Zhao-
jiazhuang site of Longshan culture (Jin et al., 2011). By 1700 BC
remains become more widespread in China (e.g. Flad et al., 2010;
Dodson et al., 2013). The route to China was over some high Cen-
tral Asian mountain passes on a route similar to variations of the
later Silk Road. While the above dates are consistent with a journey
into China via Mongolia more work with earlier dates may reveal
other routes into China (Barton and An, 2014; Betts et al., 2014). The
rst wheat was introduced into areas where millet was cultivated,
and the proportion of wheat to millet was low for several centuries.
Barley may have just predated wheat in China (Li et al., 2007a,b)
and is more productive than wheat or millet at high elevations
where the growing season is shorter. Barley was probably the key
crop that made settlement of the high plateau environments of
Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang possible (Chen et al., 2015), and it is
widely planted there today.
5.2. Maize, potatoes
The earliest known domesticated maize (and squash) is known
from Mexico (Piperno et al., 2009; Ranere et al., 2009), and this is
 J. Dodson, G. Dong / Quaternary International xxx (2016) 1e8
about 9000 cal BP. It was transported to the rest of the world after
the rst or second Columbus voyages. A case has been made for
pre-Columbian maize in China a little before this (Uchibayashi,
2005) but the route to introduction is unclear. Zea mays was
domesticated from Z. mays spp. parviglumis and today these differ
greatly. Maize is a very important crop in China and now outstrips
rice production (Hu and Zimmer, 2013). In the 1940s the majority
was used as food for humans but now the vast majority is used to
feed pigs, chickens and cows, plus some industrial uses, and while
farmed areas and production rates have increased China is a net
importer of maize (Hu and Zimmer, 2013).
Potatoes came late to China but are included here as China
produces about 25% of the world annual potato crop and now ob-
tains more nutrition from them than rice. Potatoes originated in
South America but they do not preserve well in archaeological
settings. A date of about 2500 BC has been obtained from Peru
(Urgent et al., 1982) and it is assumed they were cultivated much
earlier than this (Harris and Hillman, 2014). Spooner et al. (2005)
suggest that there was a single point of domestication. Potatoes
were probably introduced into China by Portuguese traders in the
17th Century.
5.3. Sheep, cattle, horses
While horses are known from Palaeolithic art from about 30,000
years ago these are probably depictions of hunted animals. The rst
horses were probably domesticated somewhere between the Urals
and Kazakhstan, about 6000 years ago (Anthony, 2007; Warmuth
et al., 2012). There may have been several domestications and a
case can be made for the Iberian Peninsula and northern Africa
(Luis et al., 2006). The overall case for domestication is based on
evidence of bitting, changes in sex ratios of horse remains and the
appearance of horses in graves with humans (Anthony, 2007).
The domestication of horses marked a pivotal time for human
societies. This was a time when workloads for agriculture, trans-
portation and warfare changed (Norwich, 1988). Competitive so-
cieties of the times needed to adopt domesticated horses relatively
quickly. Horses appeared in great numbers for the rst time around
3000 BP in Shang Dynasty sites (Cai et al., 2009) and this suggests
they arrived as already domesticated. Mitochondrial DNA analyses
on 35 samples from northern China suggest the ancestor of
domesticated Chinese horses came from Mongolia (Cai et al., 2009).
The domestication of cattle probably rst occurred in the Fertile
Crescent about 10,500 years ago (Clutton-Brock, 1999; Ajmone-
Marsan et al., 2010) but may have taken place on 2e3 separate
occasions (McTavish et al., 2013). Domesticated cattle in China
appear to be present by about 3000e2000 BC (Yuan, 2015) and mt-
DNA analysis indicates these originated from taurine cattle. Zhang
et al. (2013) have recently made a case for early Holocene domes-
tication of cattle at about 10,500 years ago in northeastern China,
This case rests principally on a radiocarbon date and wear analysis
on teeth in a jawbone from Heilongjiang Province.
Sheep are thought to have been domesticated in the Fertile
Crescent region of Western Asia at about 10,500 years ago (e.g.
Peters et al., 2005; Zeder, 2008), and arrived in East Asia a few
millennia later. They were initially treated as valuable sources of
meat, milk and milk products, and the hides were useful for leather.
It was probably several thousand years later that selective breeding
added bre as an additional product.
The earliest claimed domesticated sheep in China are based on
archaeological associations with ages between 5 and 7000 years
from Banpo village near Xi'an (Li and Han, 1959), Baoji (Zhou, 1983),
Shizhaocun (Zhou, 1999) and Hetaozhuang (Sang, 1979). Yuan
(2015) believed sheep were rst widespread across Gansu-
Qinghai somewhere between 5600 and 5000 BP, and on the
Please cite this article in press as: Dodson, J., Dong, G., What do we know about domestication in eastern Asia?, Quaternary International (2016),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.04.005
5
central Plains of China by 4500e4000 BP. These data suggest
domesticated sheep come to China in the Neolithic and became
widespread during the Bronze Age when societies became seden-
tary. Radiocarbon dates directly on sheep bone from northern
Shaanxi Province have ages of 5700 BP (3700 cal yr BCE), and these
are the oldest known from eastern Asia (Dodson et al., 2014).
5.4. Carp
Carp is probably the earliest domesticated sh (Balon, 2004). As
a group they have probably been used for food for thousands of
years. Cyprinus carpio came from ancesters found in the Black,
Caspian and Aral seas. They became common in the Danube and
were kept by Romans over 2000 years ago (Balon, 1995). From there
they were exported to most continents and indeed are a major
environmental pest in many regions. They were cultivated in China
from about 960 AD into goldsh forms. The most expensive forms,
koi, were developed in Japan. Recent work suggests the Japanese
sh may have originated in China (Mabuchi and Song, 2014).
6. Impact of domestication
Domestication was a key process that enabled many societies to
move from a hunter-gather lifestyle to a more settled one. The early
phases of this were probably a combination of gathering productive
wild foods and selecting off-spring for improved qualities for
replanting and breeding of animals for human utility. The invest-
ment in these activities led to ownership of outcomes and settled
societies would have had a desire to care for the outcomes. Managed
areas may have gradually led to land ownership. The rst settled
societies were now in place and they were rewarded by having more
reliable food resources. Diamond (2002) suggested that the
biogeographic luck of peoples living where domesticates developed
gave them great advantage over others, followed by population
expansion; and this may well account for the spread of a relatively
few language groups across much of the world; as well as the genes
of the same people (see also Bellwood, 2005). The earliest evidence
of many domesticates seems to be close to their natural occurrence.
While there are outliers of movement of crops and animals in early
Holocene times, as outlined in the cases described above, it appears
that it is not until the Longshan cultural expansion do we see many
domesticated plants and animals signicantly beyond their natural
ranges. The Longshan people developed a wide range of pottery
types, seed grinding technology and farming implements, generally
after 4e5000 years ago (Sun, 2013; Zhao, 2013).
Selection of crop and domestic animal offspring for improving
outcomes for societies required some insight, and the expanding
lands they occupied fostered innovation in how to manage these
areas. Development and evolution of metal technologies was a key
process in allowing further expansion of agriculture. Large settle-
ments would have led to some stratication of societies and
diversication of human occupations into innovators, rapid evo-
lution of cultural activities and politics. However, the process of
domestication is ongoing. It is now bolstered by gene technology
which enables selection for disease resistance and coping with
factors such as salinity and ever greater productivity. In some cases
this raises ethical issues.
While the history of agriculture is a key part of the history of
mankind it is accompanied by several signicant side stories. The
expansion of agricultural land takes place at the expense of natural
systems, and the species that depend on them (e.g. Lyons et al.,
2016). Many sedimentary records from China reveal a series of
changes which include loss of tree cover and conversion to grass-
land and cropland (e.g. Dodson et al., 2006; Feng et al., 2006a,b),
increased rates of sedimentation as erosion follows (e.g. Zhou et al.,
6 J. Dodson, G. Dong / Quaternary International xxx (2016) 1e8
2002) and these are often accompanied by episodes of re as
woody vegetation is burned (e.g. Dodson et al., 2006; Zhang et al.,
2007; Xue and Li, 2010) to make way for cropland. The timing of
these varied from place to place as agriculture developed and
spread, and this alone is evidence that many of these changes are
not driven by regional climate change. The scale of the changes in
China is extensive, to the point that few pristine areas remain.
Ecosystem services have been greatly degraded. This is a serious
concern and now national priorities have turned to questions of
land rehabilitation for sustainability, and China has many programs
for greening cities and agricultural production areas. Changing di-
etary preferences are bringing new pressures on China's landscape.
There has been a shift toward beef and chicken consumption in
recent times and this is accelerating. This has led to diversion of
some grain from human consumption to animal consumption. For
maize less than 40% is used for human consumption in China and
the rest for products and animal feed. Local production is insuf-
cient to meet these demands, despite more land going into maize
production, and China is a net importer of maize (Hu and Zimmer,
2013). Beef also requires more land and water than pork produc-
tion, and this places increasing demands on natural resources.
Changing diets thus come with land-use and water-use
consequences.
There have been implications of domestication on human
health. Larger groups of humans make contagious disease likely to
spread and thus mortality rates rise (e.g. Bentley et al., 1993 sug-
gested mortality rates went up from 0.01 to about 0.10 per cent in
early agricultural societies). It is now documented in some cases
and suspected in others that huge mortality has occurred with vi-
ruses jumping species such as from chickens to humans (e.g. Peiris
et al., 2007).
Agriculturally-based societies had a more reliable source of food
but they generally ate a narrower range of food than hunter/gath-
erer societies. In mid-Holocene settlements in northern and
western China stable isotope measurements show a large depen-
dence of humans on millet, and on some animal products that were
fed on millet (Barton et al., 2009). Close domesticates including
dogs and pigs, and the rats that lived with them also show millet at
the heart of their food chains. Proximal herds such as sheep and
cattle consumed some millet but included a wide range of wild
plants obtained on the periphery of settlements, wild animals such
as deer had little millet in their diet.
While stable isotopes have opened the window on diets of
humans in northern China not much is known about other impacts
on human health from agricultural and settled life styles. A hint of
this comes from analysis of two female skeletons found at
Huoshiliang in Gansu Province (Dodson et al., 2012). These women
were 35e45 years old and were members of a bronze age agri-
cultural settlement, growing mainly millet and with some
domesticated animals such as sheep, dogs and pigs. The skulls
showed advanced tooth and jaw disease, and the bone had evi-
dence of iron and zinc deciency, presumably from eating a mainly
vegetarian diet. Ion beam analysis conrmed the low Fe and Zn
content and also revealed elevated As and Cu, the latter probably
due to involvement in smelting bronze, although it is not impos-
sible to rule out its presence in local groundwater. A sample of two
is very small and forensic analysis of larger population size samples
may help understand how degenerative disease patterns may have
become more pronounced in settled societies than for hunter-
gatherer societies.
7. Conclusion
Eastern Asia was one of the main centres of domestication of
many plant and animal species. It has also imported many species
Please cite this article in press as: Dodson, J., Dong, G., What do we know about domestication in eastern Asia?, Quaternary International (2016),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.04.005
from elsewhere and in return exported some of the most important
crops and fruit to other parts of the world. While the framework for
these changes is understood much detail awaits further research.
Domestication is a work in progress and modern genetic tools
promise a greatly quickening pace in engineering this. Degradation
of environmental systems due to agriculture is evident in most
parts of China. Changing dietary preferences and the way modern
agriculture is practiced will result in many new and expanding
impacts being placed on environmental systems.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the thoughtful comments of two
reviewers.
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