【今日开讲|量化历史讲座】三十年来学界对晚更新世经济活动看法的转变──基于江西仙人洞和湖南玉蟾岩洞史前陶器遗址的观察

【量化历史网上讲座系列】(Quantitative History Webinar Series)由香港大学陈志武教授和马驰骋博士联合发起并举办，旨在介绍前沿量化历史研究成果、促进同仁交流，推广量化方法在历史研究中的应用。本系列讲座由国际量化历史学会、香港大学经济管理学院和亚洲环球研究所全力支持和承办。

Changing Views of Terminal Pleistocene Economies in South China: Tales from Two Caves

主讲人: David J. Cohen, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, National Taiwan University

时间：2021年12月02日 12:00 - 13:30 （北京时间，星期四）

讲座语言：英文

注册链接及二维码：

https://hku.zoom.com.cn/webinar/register/1316381204769/WN_q63VQHJtS6afNU_QBz5nCw

David J. Cohen of National Taiwan University considers changes in interpretations of human behavior and economies at two key Terminal Pleistocene cave sites in South China, Xianrendong (Jiangxi) and Yuchanyan (Hunan), over the past thirty years of research. Both sites are seen as critical in understanding the transition from mobile hunting-gathering to sedentary agricultural production— perhaps the most fundamental change in human prehistory. Excavations in the 1990s revealed pottery and rice remains that at the time were thought to date between 10,000-15,000 years ago. 

Although revealing cobble tool industries typical of the Late Paleolithic in South China and Southeast Asia, the sites were interpreted as “Early Neolithic” habitats of early cultivators of rice. This equating of pottery to the Neolithic stems from biases in models derived from other world areas. Collaborative excavations in the 2000s (in which David J. Cohen took part) employed systematic radiocarbon dating combined with soil micromorphology and other behaviorally-oriented, multidisciplinary research methodologies and theoretical orientations. 

These have led to shifts in interpretation where we now see the caves as likely seasonal sites of mobile hunter-gatherers with broad-spectrum economies who were using these caves in new ways, including producing the world’s earliest pottery, dating 20,000 and 18,000 years ago.

In this Quantitative History Webinar, David J. Cohen will present the evidence of food resource intensification and new, intensive forms of pyrotechnology, providing new insights into the functions of these caves, potential connections with pottery making, and the nature of behavioral modernity in South China, which was previously obscured by traditional typological approaches.

More about our speaker David J. Cohen:  

Dr. David J. Cohen (PhD, Harvard) is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department at National Taiwan University. He is an archaeologist specializing in the Paleolithic to Neolithic transition, with collaborative projects in North and South China investigating hunter-gatherer adaptations from the Last Glacial Maximum through Early Holocene and the origins of agriculture. These have included excavations of Early Neolithic village sites of the Pengtoushan 彭頭山 Culture in Hunan, the Early Pottery sites of Xianrendong 仙人洞 Cave (Jiangxi) and Yuchanyan 玉蟾岩 Cave (Hunan), and studies of early microblade production at the Late Paleolithic Shizitan 柿子滩 site (Shanxi). Dr. Cohen has also carried out research on the early Bronze Age, including recent work on the geoarchaeology of a massive, earthquake-induced outburst flood of the Yellow River and its potential relationship with China’s 「Great Flood」 myth and the founding of the Xia Dynasty.

“量化历史研究”公众号由陈志武（香港大学冯氏基金讲席教授、原耶鲁大学教授）及其团队——林展（中国人民大学）、熊金武（中国政法大学）、何石军（武汉大学）、蒋勤（上海交通大学）、彭雪梅（中山大学）等人负责。向学界和业界朋友，定期推送量化历史研究经典、前沿文献。同时作为“量化历史讲习班”信息交流平台。喜欢我们的朋友请搜寻公众号：QuantitativeHistory，或扫描下面二维码关注。

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