Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong

The transition from mobile foraging societies to settled agricultural communities is a critical period in human history. In this talk, I try to examine abundant archaeological evidence and demonstrate the long process of emergence of early village life in North China. I argue that several material traits including grinding stones, microliths and pottery appeared in the Terminal Pleistocene and they supported the economic subsistence of resource intensification. These new traits were entangled with hearths and houses and generated the rapid movement towards sedentism. However, the domestication of plants and animals were gradual rather than rapid events. The well-planned villages also emerged rapidly in the early Holocene and fundamental changes in economic strategies, social interaction and ideology took place. In order to integrate the community as a whole, various strategies were carried out. I use the Chahai site as an example and indicate that public ritual activities played an important role.