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Sustainable intensification of millet–pig agriculture in Neolithic North China

Nature Sustainability volume 5, pages 780–786 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The emergence of complex societies represents one of the major developments of human prehistory. Diverse agricultural strategies were implemented to produce the increased grain surplus necessary to allow the development of complex societies across the world. Little is known, however, about the millet–pig system that developed in Neolithic North China and ultimately underpinned the more complex societies, such as cities and states, in this region. Our data from studies of phytoliths and starches from pig dental residues and stable isotopes of millet grains excavated from the Dadiwan site demonstrate that an intensive crop–livestock system was in practice by at least 5,500 years ago. This novel system, characterized by the feeding of millet crop residues to pigs and the fertilization of millet fields with pig and/or human dung, enabled sustainable intensification in agriculture and fed the early complex societies in North China.

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Fig. 1: Distribution of the mentioned sites and Late Neolithic sites with millet–pig-based agriculture along the Yellow River valley.
Fig. 2: Diagram showing the percentage of millet husk phytoliths and the number of starch grains from pig dental residues at Dadiwan.
Fig. 3: Comparison of δ15N values of herbivore forage, millet grains, pigs and human at Dadiwan during the Yangshao period.
Fig. 4: Schematic drawing of the intensive millet–pig system in Neolithic North China.

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All the data used in this study are available in the Article, Extended Data and Supplementary Information.

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Acknowledgements

Our sincere thanks go to the millet farmer P. Feng in Wuxiang county, Shanxi province, for permission to access his fields and plant samples and for providing cultivation histories. We thank D. R. Piperno and L. Putterman for their helpful comments for an earlier version of this paper. We thank G. Dong, M. Yi, Y. Cui, W. Fan for collecting charred millet grains analysed in this paper. We are grateful to the support of Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology for our samples collection. This work is supported by the Basic Science Center for Tibetan Plateau Earth System project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (41988101 granted to F.C. and X.Y.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41790421 granted to F.C., 41771225 granted to D.Z. and 41930323 granted to X.Y.), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (lzujbky-2021-ct03 granted to D.Z. and X.Y.) and National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFA0606402 granted to F.C. and D.Z.).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Jishuai Yang, Dongju Zhang, Xiaoyan Yang

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

    Jishuai Yang, Dongju Zhang, Xiaoyan Yang, Jian Wang, Lele Ren, Huan Xia, Xuke Shen, Juanting Yao & Fahu Chen

  2. Group of Alpine Paleoecology and Human Adaptation (ALPHA), State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Resources and Environment (TPESRE), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jishuai Yang, Dongju Zhang, Xiaoyan Yang, Yu Gao & Fahu Chen

  3. Department of Archaeology and Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Weiwei Wang

  4. The Foundation for Archaeobotanical Research in Microfossils, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Linda Perry

  5. Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Linda Perry

  6. Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK

    Dorian Q. Fuller

  7. School of Cultural Heritage, Northwest University, Xi’an, China

    Dorian Q. Fuller

  8. College of Humanities & Social Development, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

    Haiming Li

  9. Institution of Chinese Agricultural Civilization, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

    Haiming Li

  10. School of Earth Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

    Jian Wang

  11. History and Culture School, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

    Lele Ren

  12. Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology & Institute of Archaeological Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Hui Wang

  13. Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Lanzhou, China

    Hui Wang & Yishi Yang

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  1. Jishuai Yang
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Contributions

D.Z., F.C. and X.Y. designed the project; J. Yang, W.W., H.W., Y.Y., D.Z., H.L., J.W., L.R., X.S. and J. Yao collected dental residue samples and charred millet samples; J. Yang, X.Y. and W.W. performed microfossil analysis; J. Yang, D.Z., X.Y., F.C., L.P., W.W., D.Q.F. and Y.G. analysed data; J.W. and L.R. identified the faunal remains; H.L. identified the millet grains; J. Yang, D.Z. and J. Yao carried out stable isotope analysis; H.X., H.L. and J. Yang processed dating samples; J. Yang performed modern field survey and sampling; J. Yang, D.Z., X.Y., F.C., D.Q.F. and L.P. wrote the paper with contributions of all authors.

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Correspondence to Dongju Zhang or Xiaoyan Yang.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 The summed probability distribution of calibrated radiocarbon dates at Dadiwan.

Yellow and light green horizontal bars represent the chronological range of pig jawbones and millet grains in this study, respectively.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Phytolith morphotypes extracted from the pig dental residues at Dadiwan.

a-d, η/Ω type phytoliths from millet husks. e, Bilobate. f, Cross. g, Cylindrical polylobate. h, Short saddle. i, Long saddle. j, Bulliform. k, Reed bulliform. l, Wavy-trapezoid. m, Wavy-narrow-trapezoid. n, Hat. o, Tower. p, Smooth elongate. q, Sinuate elongate. r, Square. s, Rectangle. t, Point. Scale bars: 20 μm.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Starch grain morphotypes extracted from the pig dental residues at Dadiwan.

a, Millets (Panicum miliaceum and/or Setaria italica). b, Triticeae. c-f, Underground storage organs (USOs). g and h, Unidentified types. Scale bars: 20 μm.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Comparison of the relative abundance of millet husk phytoliths between pig dental residues and control samples.

‘PYS’ is the abbreviation of ‘Pre-Yangshao’. ‘LYS’ is the abbreviation of ‘Late Yangshao.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Location and photo of modern sampling plot.

a, Map showing locations of sampling plot and the Dadiwan site. Annual precipitation data is from the Resource and Environment Science and Data Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences (http://www.resdc.cn/DOI)61. The remote sensing base map was prepared from the ArcGIS ‘World Imagery’. b, Foxtail millet plot manured by pig dung in Wuxiang county, Shanxi province. There are many weeds growing outside the field. Photograph by J. Yang.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Comparison of δ15N values of millet grains from Dadiwan, modern foxtail millet grains and C4 weeds from manured plot and C3 and C4 weeds outside of the plot.

The box-plot elements are defined as: white square, mean; center line, median; box limits, upper and lower quartiles; whiskers, minimum and maximum.

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Yang, J., Zhang, D., Yang, X. et al. Sustainable intensification of millet–pig agriculture in Neolithic North China. Nat Sustain 5, 780–786 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00905-9

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