Haimenkou
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| Haimenkou | |
|---|---|
| 海门口遗址 | |
| Location | |
| Country | China |
| Province/State | Yunnan |
| County | Jianchuan County |
| Coordinates | 26.47, 99.92 |
| Elevation | 2,190 m |
| Growing region | Yunnan |
| Site | |
| Type | Settlement |
| Period | Neolithic to Bronze Age |
| In use | c. 1600–400 BCE, in three phases[1] |
| Excavated | 1957, 1978, 2008; yearly since 2016[1] |
| Excavated by | Yunnan Province Institute for Cultural Relics and Archaeology (2008); Sichuan University (from 2016) |
| Cannabis finds | |
| Found | Seeds |
| Over 800 charred seeds, more than 700 of them from one context | |
| Dated | c. 1600–1100 BCE |
| Dating | Radiocarbon, Stratigraphy |
| Identified by | Morphology, Microscopy |
Haimenkou (海门口) is a prehistoric settlement of pile dwellings in Jianchuan County, in the north-west of Yunnan, China, occupied from about 1600 to 400 BCE. Its excavation of 2008 recovered more than 800 charred cannabis seeds, over 700 of them from a single context of about 1400 to 1100 BCE.[2]
Site and excavation
The site lies at 2,190 metres above sea level in the basin of the Jinsha River, in the Yangtze system, in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture. The climate has a rainy season from May to October and a dry season from November to April. It covers about 5 hectares, and Dal Martello and colleagues call it the largest prehistoric site discovered so far in Yunnan. It was built in or beside wetland on the Heihui River where the river flows into Jianhu Lake. Most of its features are rectangular pile dwellings, whose wooden posts, mostly of pine, have survived through waterlogging. Finds include small bronze objects, stone, bone and wooden tools, and pottery.[2][1]
The site was found in 1957 and dug in that year and again in 1978. Its bronze finds started a long debate over its nature and date. To settle the chronology, the Yunnan Province Institute for Cultural Relics and Archaeology excavated 1,395 square metres in 27 trenches between January and May 2008 and distinguished ten cultural layers. No metal came from the earliest layers, 10 to 8; bronze appears in layers 6 to 4 and iron in layer 3. Sichuan University has excavated at the site every year since 2016. Xue and colleagues note that no detailed report of any season had yet been published.[1]
Cannabis finds
In 2008 samples for flotation were taken from a column through the whole sequence, layers 3 to 10, in trenches DT1003, DT1004 and DT1005, and by hand from other contexts rich in plant remains across the site.[1] More than 800 cannabis seeds were recovered. The samples from the column held 16 seeds from the first phase and 31 from the second. A single sample collected by hand from layer 6 of trench DT1204, of the second phase, held more than 700. No cannabis came from the third phase.[1][2]
The seeds were preserved by charring. They are slightly elongated, with a smooth surface and no pronounced basal caruncle. A textile fragment and a bundle of rope also came from the 2008 excavation, from a hand-collected sample from layer 6 of trench AT2003. Xue and colleagues list both as unidentified, and Dal Martello and colleagues note that the fibres of the textile have not been analysed.[1][2]
The other crops of the site were rice and foxtail millet in the first phase, joined by wheat from about 1400 BCE, which became more important in the last phase while rice and millet declined. Charred seeds of Chenopodium were found in large numbers with the rice and millet, and may also have been grown as a crop. Perilla, buckwheat, soybean and fruits such as peaches, apricots and grapes were also present.[2][1]
Dating
The 2008 excavators dated the sequence by accelerator mass spectrometry on charred remains of annual plants. They set out three phases: phase I, Neolithic, about 1600 to 1400 BCE (layers 10 to 8); phase II, the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, about 1400 to 1100 BCE (layers 7 and 6); and phase III, Bronze Age, about 800 to 400 BCE (layers 5 to 3). Charred wood sampled in 1972 had been dated to 3115 ± 90 radiocarbon years before present, and samples taken in 1990 gave 2595 ± 75 and 2520 ± 75 years for the later levels.[1] The cannabis seeds themselves were not dated directly. They come from the first two phases, and the context that held most of them belongs to phase II.[1][2]
Analyses
Rita Dal Martello and colleagues measured thirty of the seeds and imaged one, with its hilum, under a scanning electron microscope. In their text the seeds average 3.39 millimetres long, 2.2 wide and 1.2 thick; their table of archaeological measurements gives the mean width as 2.64 millimetres. They set these against measurements of modern cannabis seeds from the published literature, reduced by a tenth for the shrinkage caused by charring. In their scheme a width between 2.4 and 3.1 millimetres is the range in which fibre and drug cannabis overlap, a narrower seed is typical of drug cannabis and a wider one of fibre and oilseed cannabis.[2]
Most of the Haimenkou seeds fell within the overlap, and most within the range of drug cannabis. Just over half fell within the sizes of wild and feral cannabis, but the authors argue that the absence of a caruncle, the protruding base of wild fruits, speaks against this. About half fell within the fibre and oilseed range, and a few were of a size found only in fibre types.[2]
Interpretations
In their report on the plant remains, Yining Xue and colleagues read the quantity of cannabis seed as a sign that the plant was grown at Haimenkou as an edible oilseed, without ruling out other uses.[1] Dal Martello and colleagues also read the find as stored food. They argue that a single sample of more than 700 seeds is best explained as a charred cluster from part of a store rather than a mixed deposit, like other samples from the site made up almost wholly of clean grains of foxtail millet, or of rice with Chenopodium.[2]
From the measurements, they suggest that the seeds represent an early form of chinensis, the broadleaf hemp grown in East Asia for textiles and oilseed, or of subspecies indica, before larger-seeded oilseed forms had been selected or reached the region. They take the assemblage to show "a crop beginning to undergo evolution from its early domesticated form towards a diversified crop with multiple uses, including larger oilseed/ fibre adapted varieties". They place Haimenkou with Hetapatti in India and Gaocheng Taixi in China among the larger-seeded finds that imply selection for fibre and oilseed before 1500 BCE.[2]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Xue, Yining; Dal Martello, Rita; Qin, Ling; Stevens, Chris J.; Min, Rui; Fuller, Dorian Q. (2022). "Post-Neolithic broadening of agriculture in Yunnan, China: Archaeobotanical evidence from Haimenkou". Archaeological Research in Asia. 30 100364. doi:10.1016/j.ara.2022.100364.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 Dal Martello, Rita; Min, Rui; Stevens, Chris J.; Qin, Ling; Fuller, Dorian Q. (2024). "Morphometric approaches to Cannabis evolution and differentiation from archaeological sites: interpreting the archaeobotanical evidence from bronze age Haimenkou, Yunnan". Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. 33 (4): 503–518. doi:10.1007/s00334-023-00966-6.