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Prehistoric firewood gathering on the northeast Tibetan plateau: environmental and cultural determinism

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Abstract

The history of forager subsistence strategies on the Tibetan plateau during the middle Holocene has been studied extensively, with valuable results from archaeozoology and archaeobotany being produced in recent years. However, changes to the resources collected by the foragers and the factors that influence them have rarely been discussed. Here we examine the differences and factors influencing charcoal identification and analysis results from both hand picking and flotation recovery methods at the Zongri site, revealing more accurately the use of firewood by the foragers and its relationship with climate change and the agricultural population. Our results show that there is a clear deficiency in tree taxa arising from hand picking, perhaps related to the quantity of charcoal collected and identified. The Zongri people mainly used nearby trees and shrubs, including Picea (spruce), Populus (poplar) and Hippophae (sea buckthorn). The material collected was dominated by green (living) wood, which might have been influenced by the farming culture in the adjacent area. The increasing use of Picea may be attributed to the selective collection of wood by the Zongri foragers, and not caused by climate change.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) (Grant No. 2019QZKK0601), Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Pan-Third Pole Environment Study for a Green Silk Road (Plan-TPE) (Grant No. XDA2004010101), the Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41820104008, 419912251), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41901089).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Ecological Research and Pollution Control of Plateau Lakes, School of Ecology and Environment Science, Yunnan University, Yunnan, 650504, China

    Fengwen Liu, Wei Peng & Hucai Zhang

  2. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental System, College of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Fengwen Liu, Minmin Ma & Gang Li

  3. Institute of Dunhuang Studies, School of History & Culture, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 73000, Gansu, China

    Lele Ren

  4. Qinghai Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Xining, 810000, Qinghai, China

    Jiyuan Li

  5. Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Lanzhou, 730000, Gansu, China

    Yishi Yang

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Liu, F., Ma, M., Li, G. et al. Prehistoric firewood gathering on the northeast Tibetan plateau: environmental and cultural determinism. Veget Hist Archaeobot 31, 431–441 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-021-00860-z

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