Jing Cheng

JING CHENG, then a graduate student at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, was approved funding in September 2023 to aid research on “Collective Activities of Affluent Foragers in Southern China (c. 7000-5000 B.P.),” supervised by Dr. Anne Underhill. This research examines collective activities among hunter gatherer communities at the site of Xiajiaoshan in southern China during the Xiantouling cultural period, approximately 7000 to 5000 years ago. The study focuses on how social connections were maintained beyond small local groups and how collective practices were expressed through pottery production, use, and deposition. Field and laboratory work supported by the grant included ceramic petrography, clay sourcing, neutron activation analysis, radiocarbon dating, and residue analysis. Results show that pottery was produced using two main clay sources located on the east and west coasts of the Pearl River Delta. Earlier contexts, dating to about 7400 to 6800 years ago, include pottery made from a wider range of clay sources, suggesting greater mobility or broader social interaction networks. In later contexts, dating to about 6200 to 5800 years ago, pottery production appears to rely on more localized clay sources, indicating reduced mobility over time. Despite these changes, artifact distributions suggest that similar communal activities repeatedly took place at the same location across generations. These findings highlight how hunter gatherer groups adapted their social practices in response to environmental and landscape change while maintaining long standing traditions of collective activity.