The emergence of specialized mobile herding is long been thought to have taken place in Northeast China during the Late Bronze Age (1200 to 600 BCE). It is theorized that the interaction between specialized herders and sedentary farmers was the catalyst for increased social complexity in the region. However, in Northeast China there is little direct settlement and subsistence evidence which appears to indicate the emergence of mobile pastoralism. Therefore, theories based on the interaction between herders and farmers remain tenuous. This research is designed to answer two questions. udDid reliance on grazing animals and residential mobility increase in some Late Bronze Age communities located in areas where such subsistence strategies would have been attractive alternatives to grain cultivation under warming and drying conditions?udDoes such a subsistence shift, if documented, show the artifactual evidence and settlement patterning consistent with economic complementarity?udThis dissertation outlines the changes in settlement patterns of 173 square kilometer region from 4500 BCE to 1200 CE. The Early and Late Bronze Age (2000 to 1200 BCE and 1200 to 600 BCE) is given special attention because this is when this substantial economic change is thought to have taken place. During the Bronze Age locational evidence and use-wear evidence is taken in concert to evaluate the notion of Late Bronze Age specialized mobile herders either dominating the landscape or part of a settlement system which includes sedentary farmers. udResults from this study call into question the emergence of specialized herders during the Late Bronze Age. Despite environmental conditions that would be conducive to herding economies and a warmer and dryer climate from the Early to Late Bronze Age, this dissertation finds evidence that local communities favored a mixed economy throughout the Bronze Age. The local environmental conditions tempered the degree to which communities carried out certain economic practices. However, economic specialization, which was previously thought to have characterized the region, does not appear to be at all consistent with the evidence.
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