Description

Studying how technology and society were co-constructed in prehistory can help us think more clearly about the potential implications of contemporary technological choices. I use an intensive study of earth-working implements from the Hemudu culture (7,000-5,000 BP) in the Lower Yangzi Basin of China to examine the relationship between technology and Neolithic land-use strategies for plant production and sedentary construction. My investigations I involved soil science, replication and analysis of bone and stone artifacts, use-wear analysis, zooarchaeology, and a large number of controlled experiments. Multiple sources of evidence suggest that Hemudu artisans and tool users made technological choices of spades based on easy-to-perceive benefits. Frequency-dependent bias (i.e., the tendency to copy the solutions
employed by the majority) within a household production system helped ensure the persistence of traditional implements even when raw materials became scarce and other artefacts would have provided marginal advantages. The resultant technological tradition imposed significant technical and conceptual constraints on long-term land-use strategies and caused a prolonged process toward intensification of agriculture and sedentary settlement.