부산대학교 도서관

China is known as one of the early centres of pig (Sus scrofa) domestication, dating from c. 8500 years BP. Domestication is however a long-term process and less is known about how domestic pigs became central, in a process of intensification, to Neolithic lifeways in China. This thesis explores the nature of pig management practices to better understand how pig husbandry developed in the middle Yellow River region of China from the Yangshao Cultural Period (7000 to 5000 years BP). This region seems to have been particularly successful in integrating pig husbandry with an increasing concentration on millet agriculture. A combination of multi-isotope and geometric morphometric approaches is used to address questions about the pattern of pig husbandry practices, focused on the archaeological sites of Xipo, Yuhuazhai and Yangguanzhai. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in bone collagen are used to explore patterns of pig diets and confinement, oxygen and carbon isotopes in tooth enamel to refine the isotopic records of these practices on seasonal scales and to infer birth seasonality. A geometric morphometrics approach is taken to detect the differences and similarities in shape and size of Sus molars in distinct sub-regions and phases. All of these approaches are compared, where appropriate, with similar analyses of wild boar. The results show that the sites' inhabitants had developed an intensive strategy of pig management with strong human control over diet, movement, birthing and breeding from c. 6000 years BP, along with little entanglement with indigenous wild boar. Humans had established a close relationship with domestic pigs through provision of millet fodder and household waste and tight confinement of pigs within or around settlements all year round, thereby integrating pigs into the local agricultural cycle. Based on a literature comparison, incorporation of millets in pig and human diets followed very similar increasing trajectories throughout the Neolithic, but this particular agricultural system showed inter-regional distinctions that are visible in pig diets and morphologies. As a result of locally isolated breeding and diverse selective pressures, different 'landraces' of domestic pigs had already appeared at these three sites across the middle Yellow River region by at least c. 5500 years BP.