2019

Exploring early Central Tibetan Agro-pastoralist Lifeways through Animal Bones

With an average elevation of over 5000 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l.), the Tibetan Plateau’s extreme climate poses specific challenges for human beings including hypoxia and the difficulty of attaining a reliable year-round food supply. Anthropological research has contributed significantly to our understanding of the development of high-altitude adaptations on the Tibetan Plateau, but archaeologists’ understanding of when and how humans initially began to settle the high altitude (>3000 m.a.s.l.) parts of the Tibetan Plateau has been constrained by the reality of sparse field work on the plateau for decades. 

(Snow mountains and glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau. Photos by Z.Zhang)

Fortunately, in the past decade, the expansion of archaeological investigations and new archaeobotanical and radiocarbon analyses have shed light on the timing of settlement and extent to which early people relied on domestic crops on the Tibetan Plateau. Recent archaeological studies have further revealed the significant role of agro-pastoralism (people living by a mixture of both animal herding and plant cultivation), in the process of settling the Tibetan Plateau by around 3500 to 2000 years ago.

(Landscapes and modern herd animals on different regions of Tibet. Considering the differences among environmental conditions and archaeological discoveries of sites at different regions of the Tibetan Plateau, archaeologists suggested that processes leading to permanent settlement on the plateau may have varied regionally. Photos by Z.Zhang)

Pastoralist burials dated to the same time period have been discovered all over the plateau, but pastoral settlement sites and detailed research regarding how early settlers attained, used, and managed both domestic and wild animals are still rather scarce. For my dissertation research, I am working to fill this gap in our knowledge, by looking at how pastoralism/agro-pastoralism facilitated early settlement in central Tibet. 

(Broad flat river valleys just like this one in central tibet are idea places for human to inhabit. Photo by Z.Zhang)

I will explore this inquiry by using the faunal assemblage (or the animal bones) from the archaeological site of Bangga. As one of the few sites excavated from this region, Bangga has been a key site for understanding the prehistoric colonization of central Tibet and the origination of the Tibetan Empire in the later historical period. Recently dated to between 3000 and 2000 years ago, Bangga is currently the earliest known settlement in this part of the Tibetan Plateau!

(Location and landscape of Bangga, central Tibet.)

Previous archaeological studies at Bangga suggested that the site was occupied by agro-pastoralists and thousands of well-preserved animal bones were retrieved during previous excavations. This offers me the opportunity to reveal the roles that herd animals (and perhaps other animals as well) played in the lives of likely the earliest central Tibetan agro-pastoralists. 

I will use zooarchaeological data to examine how specialized (using only one or a limited number of animals almost exclusively) or generalized (using different kinds of animals) these early settlers were. This will tell me what these ancient herds looked like. I will also use stable carbon and oxygen isotopes to look at how these herds were managed within this challenging landscape. These data will help me answer questions such as: Were herds moved seasonally? and Were different animal herds used different ways? 

In my later blogs, I will introduce my site with more details, and as my research progresses, I will also share information of my other field and lab results relevant to this research.

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