Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Long-term Chronology of Subsistence and the Role of Intensive Rice Agriculture in the Central Part of the Prehistoric Korean Peninsula

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

Subsistence self-sufficiency -- the ability of individuals in small traditional communities to feed themselves -- constitutes a major issue in many parts of the world today. In many regions where the potential for outside help is limited, malnutrition and starvation are recurring problems. This project utilizes an archaeological context, which can trace change over time and over climatic fluxuation, to examine the processes at work in one specific situation. Under the guidance of Dr. Benjamin Marwick, Seungki Kwak will analyze pottery collections from three major inland habitation sites in the central part of the Korean Peninsula: Sosa-Dong, Songguk-Ri, and Eupha-Ri. Low hills with gentle slopes embracing meandering rivers in this region were continuously occupied for as much as 4,000 years, and large inland habitation sites developed in this condition provide multiple lines of subsistence data that are required for this study. Mr. Kwak's research will investigate the subsistence strategy in the central part of the prehistoric Korean peninsula using organic geochemical analysis and luminescence dating on potsherds. The transition from foragers to farmers and the role of intensive rice agriculture have been among the most controversial subjects in Korean archaeology. However, the relatively high acidity of sediment in the Korean peninsula has made it impossible to examine faunal/floral remains directly for tracing the subsistence change. For this reason, many of the studies on the transition heavily relied on the shell middens in the coastal areas, which reflect only a small portion of the overall subsistence. The subsistence behaviors recorded in numerous large-scale inland habitation sites have been blurred by the strict dichotomy between hunter-gatherer and intensive rice farmer. The central hypothesis of this research is that there was a wide range of resource utilization along with rice farming around 3,400-2,000 BP. This hypothesis contrasts with prevailing rice-based models, where climatically driven intensive rice agriculture from 3,400 BP is thought to be the dominant subsistence strategy. The research will provide a unique opportunity to understand the subsistence in major inland sites through the direct examination of potteries: the most wide-spread material culture in the prehistoric Korea. Organic geochemical analyses will give information for identifying what was stored and cooked in the pots, and luminescence dating will be able to provide reliable dates that will directly indicate when the potteries were made. The combination of these methods will allow us to obtain a critical clue to understanding the complexity and variety of the subsistence over time and the role of the intensive rice farming. This research will seek to have a broader impact beyond the research topics presented. It will assist with building educational infrastructure about the ancient subsistence at the institutional level for both the general public and young generations (K -12). Public lectures related to the project will be provided on the archaeology day at the Burke Museum, University of Washington. Its data and results will be shared with the public through online archives. Through collaboration with the institutions in Korea, data will be shared with Korean scholars. The results will be published in Korean for the general public, and readers of young generations will be targeted. All of these efforts will promote international dissemination of the data and results. Lastly, this project will reinforce collaboration between archaeology and chemistry and help train the young scientists from those two different backgrounds who will be able to create a robust, innovative research program in archaeological organic geochemistry.