The Neolithic of Mongolia is dated from 8000 to 4500 BP and is best known from sites located in the Gobi desert and the eastern steppe where mixed mi-crolithic assemblages and fragments of low fired, gray and red coarse ware ceramics are found, often with corded and painted decorations. The term Neolithic in the case of Inner Asia is not always defined by the domestication of plants and animals as in most other regions of Eurasia, but instead by the advent of ceramic technology. The initial indication that hunter-gatherer groups began exploiting local environments in novel ways is the appearance of grinding stones at sites having typical Neolithic artifact assemblages, such as Shabarak Us (Bayanzag Culture), in the South Gobi of Mongolia. Shabarak Us is located in an area of playas and stabilized sand dunes subject to wind erosion that exposed 18 sub-sites having microlithic industries, ceramics, polished adzes, bifacial projectile points, and ostrich eggshell artifacts.
The site is described in the Russian literature as an early to middle Neolithic temporary camp, probably inhabited by semi-mobile groups from 6000-5000 BP. Based on the evidence for grinding slabs and pestles, Shabarak Us is thought to represent either incipient agriculture or a greater specialization in the use of wild grains. In either case, the appearance of such artifacts at a number of sites in the Gobi region suggests an important investment in a broader range of subsistence activities.
During the mid to late Neolithic of eastern Mongolia (5200-4500 BP), there is material evidence suggesting simple agricultural production, sedentism, and exploitation of large herbivores such as wild cattle and horse. The site that best characterizes Neolithic agricultural production is Tamsagbulag located in Dornod province on the eastern Mongolian steppe. Broad horizontal exposures at this site revealed a large number of rectangular pit-houses, the largest of which encompassed an area of 42 m2. Small pit burials with interred individuals positioned in crouching or sitting positions and covered with red ochre powder were discovered below the floor levels of these houses, along with composite tools and shell beads. The combined artifact assemblage of both houses and burials provides a unique perspective on a small-scale steppe group employing simple agricultural techniques to grow millet and specialized hunting to obtain large grazing animals.
The artifact inventory from Tamsagbulag consists of wedge-shaped prismatic cores and a wide variety of blade-based implements, an advanced bone industry, and ceramic vessels. Tools related to agriculture are numerous and include grinding stones and pestles, circular quern stones, hoes, and weights for digging sticks. Indications of extensive and specialized use of wild animals are based on the faunal remains recovered from habitation deposits, including evidence for fishing. In addition to human interments beneath pit house floors, excavations also revealed pits containing large numbers of horse and cattle bones, including several conspicuously large bullhorns. Other intentional deposits of cattle bones are known from the eastern Mongolian steppe and have been interpreted as cult practices to ensure agricultural success.
Tamsagbulag provides evidence that simple agriculture was practiced on the northeastern steppe, however, many contemporary areas have no such evidence. One example is Serovo period hunter-gatherer groups (6200-5000 BP) known from late Neolithic cemeteries such as Ust’-Ida, along the shores of Lake Baikal and the Angara river of Siberia. These groups included a specialization in seals as well as a number of ungulate species in their local hunting adaptation. Hunting and gathering subsistence practices also characterized the high Altai Mountain and Gobi-Altai regions of western Inner Asia and seem to have been followed directly by simple herding economies. Southeast of Lake Baikal a pattern more similar to that of the Gobi Neolithic is present. Short-term campsites such as Budulan on the banks of the Onon river were inhabited during the fifth millennium BP by semi-mobile hunter-gatherers using a microlithic tool kit, thin-walled ceramics with rounded bases, grinding stones, stone pestles, and mortars. As in the case of Shabarak Us, archaeologists argue that the occurrence of grain processing stone assemblages at Budulan and other such sites may represent increasingly specialized gathering practices or experimentation with domesticates.
Recent archaeological evidence suggests that Neolithic groups of eastern Inner Mongolia experienced a substantially different subsistence trajectory from those regions described above. The traditional model for the rise of agriculture across China is one of diffusion outward from the Yellow River basin. This explanation for agricultural origins has been challenged by radiocarbon dates from Inner Mongolia and northeastern China where two indigenous agricultural traditions emerged at very early periods, the Xinglongwa (8000-6800BP) and Zhaobaogou (6800-6000 BP) cultures. These cultures relied upon hunting, simple cultivation, and probably domesticated pigs. By the fifth millennium BP, when initial changes in food production are thought to have occurred on the northern steppe, Inner Mongolian groups of the Hongshan/Xiaoheyan (6500-4200 BP) cultures resided in permanent dispersed villages of one to two hectares having pit and surface dwellings along with numerous storage pits for grain. East Inner Mongolian subsistence at this time consisted of animal husbandry, especially of pigs, simple hoe-based agriculture, and deer hunting. Craft production included microlithic and polished stone industries as well as bone, ceramic, and impressive jade object manufacture.
World History
