@article {2782,
	title = {Farming strategies of 1st millennium CE agro-pastoralists on the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains: A geoarchaeological and macrobotanical investigation of the Mohuchahangoukou (MGK) site, Xinjiang, China},
	journal = {PLOS ONE},
	volume = {14},
	year = {2019},
	month = {May-06-2019},
	pages = {e0217171},
	abstract = {Archaeological evidence emerging over the past decade clearly illustrates that agro-pastoralists living along the foothills of major mountain chains in Central Asia (the so-called {\textquotedblleft}Inner Asian Mountain Corridor{\textquotedblright} or IAMC) facilitated the spread of domesticated grains through their direct involvement in farming. While the environmental conditions across the northwestern slopes of the IAMC provided adequate resources for incipient farming and herding as early as the mid-3rd mill. BCE, the development of local agricultural strategies on the extremely arid and eroded foothills on the southeastern, leeward side of the mountains remain comparatively less studied. Our study tackles this problem by combining geoarchaeological analysis with conventional macrobotanical identification in the investigation of a 1st-mill. CE agro-pastoralist farming site, Mohuchahangoukou (MGK), located on the arid foothills of the Tianshan range. Our results illustrate how ancient agro-pastoralists at MGK innovated irrigation systems both to combat water shortage and, importantly, to trap sediments carried by flood-water for crop cultivation. By synthesizing currently available data, we estimate that they managed to trap about 40 cm of fine-grained sediment within a span of 200 years or even less. These stone-built field systems helped water a diverse stand of crops and create deeper soils in an otherwise deflated landscape with thin desert soils. Since we detected high levels of salt concentration (>2 dSm-1) in the lower portions of all three test trenches we analyzed, we conclude that soil salinization might have affected the long-term sustainability of this form of irrigated field management. We also infer that, besides engineering efforts, the ancient agro-pastoralists at MGK had to resolve the scheduling conflicts between irrigated farming and animal herding through labor specialization.},
	keywords = {Agricultural irrigation, Agricultural soil science, agriculture, Archaeology, Crops, Geochemistry, Paleopedology, Sediment},
	doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0217171},
	url = {https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217171},
	author = {Li, Yuqi and Storozum, Michael and Tian, Duo and Frachetti, Michael and Su, Kai and Wang, Xin},
	editor = {Islam, Rafiq}
}
@article {2890,
	title = {Investigating environmental changes as the driving force of agricultural intensification in the lower reaches of the Yellow River: A case study at the Sanyangzhuang site},
	journal = {Quaternary International},
	volume = {521},
	year = {2019},
	month = {Jan-06-2019},
	pages = {25 - 34},
	abstract = {In many different societies around the world, people transitioned from slash-and-burn agriculture to an intensive mode of agricultural production. However, why agriculture was increasingly intensified by early farmers remains less understood. This study investigates the driving forces of agricultural intensification from an environmental perspective. Based on our fieldwork at the Sanyangzhuang site and previous paleoclimatic studies, we reconstruct the depositional processes and climatic changes at Sanyangzhuang and its surrounding area between 5000 yr BP and 2000 yr BP. Data suggest that farmers in the lower reaches of the Yellow River were confronted with increasingly severe Yellow River flooding and drier and colder climate during this time period. The environmental changes increase risks of crop failure and famine, disrupt the equilibrium of the social system and induce a process that brings about initial agricultural intensification. This environmental pressure is aggravated by social/political factors and results in the further development of agricultural intensification.},
	keywords = {Agricultural intensification, Environmental changes, Sanyangzhuang, The Yellow River},
	issn = {10406182},
	doi = {10.1016/j.quaint.2019.06.033},
	url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1040618219300655},
	author = {Qin, Zhen and Storozum, Michael and Liu, Haiwang and Zhang, Xiaohu and Kidder, Tristram R.}
}
