Wood Utilization During the Late Bronze to Early Iron Age in the Turpan Basin of Xinjiang, China, With Special Emphasis on Betula (Betulaceae)

Hongen Jiang, Cheng-Sen Li, Hongyong Cao, Palidanmu Shading and Ye-Ming Cheng

SAGE Open, 2021, vol. 11, issue 3, 21582440211046950

Abstract: As a very important plant resource, wood played varied and important roles in the lives of ancient people. In the present study, wood was discovered in the Yanghai cemetery of the Turpan Basin, which belonged to the Subeixi culture (~1300BC–200AD). By using traditional classification techniques of wood anatomy, four taxa of wood, viz. Populus sp., Salix sp., Picea sp., as well as Betula sp., were identified. Woods of Populus, Salix , and Picea were mainly used for tomb construction, with Poplus sp. also used for tub and plate-making. Furthermore, the wood of Betula sp. was selected for dipper-making. Previous studies have shown that the ancient Yanghai people once led an agro-pastoral lifestyle, engaging in both agricultural activities in the local oasis and animal husbandry practices in the Tianshan Mountains. As trees adapted to the cold, wood of Picea sp. and Betula sp. could have been cut in the Tianshan Mountains during transhumance. Conversely, wood of Populus sp. and Salix sp. could have been cut either locally in the oasis of the Turpan Basin or in the river valleys of the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains far from Yanghai settlements.

Keywords: Subeixi culture; wood anatomy; Yanghai cemetery; wood utility; transhumance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440211046950 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:11:y:2021:i:3:p:21582440211046950

DOI: 10.1177/21582440211046950

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().