13-Dec-2005
Ancient humans brought bottle gourds to the Americas from Asia
Plants widely used as containers arrived, already domesticated, some 10,000 years ago

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 13, 2005 -- Thick-skinned bottle gourds widely used as containers by prehistoric peoples were likely brought to the Americas some 10,000 years ago by individuals who arrived from Asia, according to a new genetic comparison of modern bottle gourds with gourds found at archaeological sites in the Western Hemisphere. The finding solves a longstanding archaeological enigma by explaining how a domesticated variant of a species native to Africa ended up millennia ago in places as far removed as modern-day Florida, Kentucky, Mexico and Peru.

The work, by a team of anthropologists and biologists from Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, Massey University in New Zealand and the University of Maine, appears this week on the web site of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Integrating genetics and archaeology, the researchers assembled a collection of ancient remnants of bottle gourds from across the Americas. They then identified key genetic markers from the DNA of both the ancient gourds and their modern counterparts in Asia and Africa before comparing the plants' genetic make-up to determine the origins of the New World gourds.

"For 150 years, the dominant theory has been that bottle gourds, which are quite buoyant and have no known wild progenitors in the Americas, floated across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa and were picked up and used as containers by people here," says Noreen Tuross, the Landon T. Clay Professor of Scientific Archaeology in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. "Much to our surprise, we found that in every case the gourds found in the Americas were a genetic match with modern gourds found in Asia, not Africa. This suggests quite strongly that the gourds that were used as containers in the Americas for thousands of years before the advent of pottery were brought over from Asia."

The researchers say it's possible the domesticated gourds -- differentiated from wild bottle gourds by a much thicker rind -- were conveyed to North America by people who arrived from Asia in boats or who walked across an ancient land bridge between the continents, or that the gourds floated across the Bering Strait after being transported by humans from their native Africa to far northeastern Asia.

"This finding paints a new picture of the founding of the Americas," says co-author Bruce Smith of the Smithsonian Institution. "These people did not arrive here empty-handed; they brought a domesticated plant and dogs with them. They arrived with important tools necessary to survive and thrive on a new continent, including some knowledge of and experience with plant domestication."

Thought to have originated in Africa, bottle gourds (Lagenaria sicereria) have been grown worldwide for thousands of years. The gourds have little food value but their strong, hard-shelled fruits were long prized as containers, musical instruments and fishing floats. This lightweight "container crop" would have been particularly useful to human societies before the advent of pottery and settled village life, and was apparently domesticated thousands of years before any plant was domesticated for food purposes.

Radiocarbon dating indicates that bottle gourds were present in the Americas by 10,000 years ago and widespread by 8,000 years ago. Some of the specimens studied by the team were not only the oldest bottle gourds ever found but also quite possibly the oldest plant DNA ever analyzed. The newest of their archaeological samples, a specimen found in Kentucky, was just 1,000 years old -- suggesting the gourds were used in the New World as containers for at least 9,000 years.

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Tuross and Smith's co-authors on the PNAS paper are David L. Erickson of the National Museum of Natural History, Andrew C. Clarke of Massey University and Daniel H. Sandweiss of the University of Maine. Their work was supported by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of Natural History and by Harvard's Department of Anthropology and Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-12/hu-ahb121305.php

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Xinhua, December 12, 2005
Gold, Silver-Plating Porcelains in Liao Dynasty Discovered in E China

Chinese archeologists recently discovered a batch of gold and silver-plating porcelains made in the Liao Dynasty (916 to 1125) which demonstrate skillful gold and silver plating techniques.

This is the first time China has found such ritual vessels of the Liao Dynasty, experts say, and they are of high value for collection as well as artistic and historical studies.

The technology to produce gold and silver-plating porcelains can be dated back to Tang Dynasty (618-907) in China. The patterns are specially designed for each vessel.

The vessels are decorated with dragon and phoenix patterns and with styles popular in the ancient Tang and Liao dynasties. They have been carved so vividly that no parallel can be found today, according to archeologist Han Wei, who went to the exhibition house several times to study these vessels.

Those vessels have been collected in Bogu house, a nongovernmental antique collection place in Wenzhou City, east China's Zhejiang Province.

Complex arts and crafts were employed when making those vessels, like cutting, enchasing, gold-plating and mould pressing, bringing shining decorative effects to the vessels.

"Such a large amount of vessels of high class and quality couldn't be produced by private workshops", Han said. "The royal workshops for gold and silver plates should be large in scale in the middle and late Liao Dynasty."

According to Han, in the 1990s, about 400 ritual vessels of the Liao Dynasty were found and traded to Europe privately, which were made from pure gold and silver.

But in middle and late Liao Dynasty, the government couldn't afford the high cost of such ritual vessels. Instead, they plated porcelain with gold and silver by various crafts to make ritual vessels for fetes. This explained the appearance of the plated ritual vessels, said Han.

Han concluded that those vessels were buried underground after fetes. Some of such vessels were found in recent years. But they were traded privately in or out of China without being reported to the government. That is the main reason why gold and silver-plating vessels were barely found before.

Han's study suggests that such vessels were probably buried in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/Archaeology/151615.htm

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Xinhua, December 6, 2005
Site of Grand Gate of 1,300-year-old Palace Discovered

Chinese archaeologists have found a grand gate of the 1,300-year-old Daming Palace, the largest imperial architectural complex of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Archaeologists have recently discovered that the Danfeng Gate, or Vermillion Phoenix Gate, of the Daming Palace, had five doorways, which means it was the largest-scale imperial palace gate in the Chinese history, said Chinese archaeologist An Jiayao on Friday.

An, a researcher with the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the gates of ancient Chinese palaces usually had one or three doorways. Palace gate with five doorways was very rare.

The famous Tian'anmen in Beijing, a gate outside the palace of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, also has five doorways. But archaeologists do not classify it as a palace gate, according to An.

Historical documents show that the Danfeng Gate, the southern gate of the Daming Palace, was built in 662 AD, and was the main gate for Tang emperors to exit and enter the palace. An arch with a high tower was built over the gate, which was a site for emperors to hold important ceremonies.

The palace was abandoned after the capital of Tang was moved to Luoyang, in today's central China's Henan Province, in 904 AD.

After more than one thousand years, the remains of the grand palace was covered by houses of residents, who don't know the mound, about 60 meters long, 49 meters wide, and three meters high, was once a palace gate where many important historical events took place.

A cultural relics protection project was launched this year by the government of Xi'an to clear the modern buildings around the remains of the ancient palace and relocate the residents. And archaeologists began to excavate the Dangfeng Gate in September.

http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/Archaeology/151046.htm

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www.chinaview.cn 2005-12-13
China to strengthen int'l co-op in archaeology

CHANGSHA, Dec. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- China will offer more chances to foreign experts to take part in archaeological research in China and encourage domestic scholars to conduct research abroad, said acultural heritage official.

At a national conference on archaeology held recently in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province, Zhang Bai, vice director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH), said the administration will send archaeological teams to Pakistan, Kenya, Mongolia, Vietnam and other countries to conduct archaeological research.

He said that SACH and the State Council have approved 37 Sino-foreign joint archaeological research projects, involving seven foreign countries.

The subjects of the joint research projects include the origin of agriculture, the origin of civilization, city relics archaeology, religion archaeology and protection of cultural relics.

Important discoveries made in international archaeological research projects include Yuzhanyan Ruins in Daoxian County of Hunan Province, and in Anyang, central China's Henan Province.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/13/content_3917421.htm

 

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Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

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