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Prosperity and complexity without farming: the South China Coast, c. 5000–3000 BC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2019

Hsiao-chun Hung
Hsiao-chun Hung*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia (Email: [email protected])
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Abstract

Around 5000 BC, affluent village communities emerged along the South China Coast. Although traditionally regarded as ancestors of Austronesian migrants, whose farming economies expanded into the Asia-Pacific region, the new synthesis presented here shows that these coastal groups actually lived as hunter-gatherers and fishers, with evidence of socio-cultural complexity. Around c. 3000–2500 BC, this ‘first layer’ of hunter-gatherers witnessed the arrival of a ‘second layer’, associated with rice farming and Austronesian assemblages. This new synthesis positions global coastlines as centres of socio-economic and political complexity, long-distance contact and technological advancement.

Keywords

South ChinaVietnamNeolithichunter-gathererscoastal adaptation
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 93 , Issue 368 , April 2019 , pp. 325 - 341
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2019 

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