The Tao River Archaeology Project (TRAP), the result of a collaborative effort between the Gansu Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Peking University, and Harvard University, and led by ASPR director Rowan Flad, began in 2011 and continued until 2019. During its first two years, TRAP investigated 531 Neolithic and Bronze-Age sites in the Tao River valley, within the modern-day provinces of Gansu and Qinghai in the People’s Republic of China. Using visual inspection and satellite imagery, they determined the best candidates for future work, and in 2015, they began excavating. TRAP is concerned with the late prehistoric period in the Tao River valley, and specific cultural groups of interest include Yangshao, Xindian, Siwa, Majiayao, Banshan, Machang, and Qijia. Communities associated with these cultural traditions lived about 6,000 to 3,000 years ago in this region, a time period during which important technological transformations took place. Bronze metallurgy was introduced and then became more widespread, and ceramic vessels, plant and animal use, and religion all underwent changes, many of which set the foundation for subsequent polities that formed the core of early Chinese civilization. TRAP seeks to understand these transformations by systematically studying the Tao River valley.
The analysis of the findings is ongoing, and already it has brought new knowledge to light. From their initial survey of 531 sites, for example, the project was able to gain new information about settlement patterns in the late prehistoric period (Flad et al., 2021). A subsequent study published in 2023 (Womack et al., 2023) used ceramic pastes as a window into a web of relationships and communities of practice in the Majiayo and Qija cultural periods and ultimately interpreted the inter-site exchange of pottery vessels as a technique to keep community ties strong (as opposed to a form of competitive gift giving or feasting), which could explain why sites exchanged vessels even if they were able to make them locally. Remains recovered by TRAP have also informed our understanding of a widespread transition from agriculture to pastoralism about 4,000 years ago, and researchers have been able to identify nuances and selectivity in the ways that some groups chose to adopt the new practices that were becoming popular at the time (Jaffee et al., 2022). Furthermore, by analyzing ceramics from a cemetery at the site of Zhanqi, researchers have found that community members created a sophisticated ceramic pot that allowed them to prepare a wider range of dishes than had been imagined from textual sources (Taché et al., 2021). Many findings recovered by TRAP await future analysis and interpretation.
References cited and further reading
- Andrew Womack, Guo Zhiwei, Wang Hui, Zhou Jing, Rowan Flad (2023) From Local to Long-distance: Proto-Silk Road ceramic circulation networks in the Tao River Valley, Gansu, China. Antiquity 97(395):1119-1137. (https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.119)
- Yitzchak Jaffe, Anke Hein, Andrew Womack, Kate Brunson, Jade D’Alpoim Guedes, Rongzhen Guo, Jing Zhou, Jada Ko, Xiaohong Wu, Hui Wang, Shuicheng Li, Rowan K. Flad (2022). Complex pathways towards emergent pastoral settlements – New research on the bronze Age Xindian culture of Northwest China. Journal of World Prehistory34: 595-647 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-021-09160-w)
- Rowan Flad, Jing Zhou, Andrew Womack, Yitzchak Jaffe, Jada Ko, Pochan Chen, Lingyu Hung, Bingbing Liu, Ruilin Mao, Hui Wang, Shuicheng Li (2021). Preliminary Site Prospection Along the Tao River 2011-2013: Testing the Chinese Register of Archaeological Sites. Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 82: 83-134.
- Yitzchak Jaffe, Karin Taché, Rowan K. Flad, Zhou Jing, Wang Hui, Chengrui Zhang, Oliver E. Craig, Alexandre Lucquin, Manon Bondetti, Shinya Shoda (2021). What do “Barbarians” Eat? Integrating ceramic usewear and residue analysis in the study of food and society at the margins of Bronze Age China. PLoS One 16(4): e0250819 (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250819)
- Andrew Womack, Rowan Flad, Jing Zhou, Katherine Brunson, Anke Hein, Fabian Toro, Xin Su, Jade d’Alpoim Guedes, Guiyun Jin, Xiaohong Wu, Hui Wang (2021). The Majiayao to Qijia Transition: Exploring the intersection of technological and social continuity and change. Asian Archaeology n.s., 4: 95-120. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s41826-021-00041-x)
- Kate Brunson, Ren Lele, Zhou Jing, Zhao Xin, Wang Hui, Rowan Flad (2020). Zooarchaeology, Ancient mtDNA, and Radiocarbon Dating Provide New Evidence for the Emergence of Domestic Cattle and Caprines in the Tao River Valley of Gansu Province, Northwest China. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 31: 102262 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102262).
- Womack, Andrew, Timothy Horsley, Hui Wang, Jing Zhou and Rowan Flad (2019). Assessing Site Organization and Development Using Geophysical Prospection at Dayatou, Gansu, China. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 27: 101964 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.101964).
- Womack, Andrew, Hui Wang, Jing Zhou and Rowan Flad (2019). Continuity and Change: A Petrographic Analysis of Clay Recipes in late Neolithic Northwestern China. Antiquity 93(371):1161-1177. (https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.132)
- Andrew Womack, Yitzchak Jaffe, Lingyu Hung, Zhou Jing, Wang Hui, Li Shuicheng, Pochan Chen, Rowan Flad (2017) Mapping Qijiaping: New work on the type site of the Qijia Culture. Journal of Field Archaeology 42(6):488-502. (https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2017.1384669)