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Cultivation strategies at the ancient Luanzagangzi settlement on the easternmost Eurasian steppe during the late Bronze Age

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Abstract

A significant body of recent research shows that the first east–west transmission of cereal crops, Triticum spp. (wheat) and Hordeum spp. (barley) from the west and millets (Setaria italica, foxtail millet, and Panicum miliaceum, common millet) from the east, took place sometime around the start of the 5th millennium bp, with part of the most likely route lying along the Tianshan mountains in northern **), Triticum spp., Hordeum spp., Setaria italica and Panicum miliaceum. Pooideae, Paniceae woody plants, Phragmites (reed) and Cyperaceae (sedges) were presumably also exploited for subsistence purposes in this area. We speculate that the strategy of growing a range of crops, wheat/barley, common millet and foxtail millet was adopted by the Bronze Age population in this region as a supplement to herding. The findings of this study help us to understand the dispersal of cultivation strategies across the Eurasian steppe via the **njiang region, and the communication between China and the West in the late Bronze Age.

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Acknowledgements

This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41472154, 41230104 and 41430103), 973 Program (Grant No. 2015CB953801), Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (No. 2017096), and a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100029, China

    Jian** Zhang, Houyuan Lu & Naiqin Wu

  2. Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100101, China

    Jian** Zhang & Houyuan Lu

  3. Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, USA

    Jian** Zhang & Rowan Flad

  4. Department of Archaeology, CCANESA, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Peter Weiming Jia & Alison Betts

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Zhang, J., Lu, H., Jia, P.W. et al. Cultivation strategies at the ancient Luanzagangzi settlement on the easternmost Eurasian steppe during the late Bronze Age. Veget Hist Archaeobot 26, 505–512 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-017-0608-0

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