Subsistence, Environment, and Society in the Taihu Lake Area during the Neolithic Era from a Dietary Perspective

The Taihu Lake region is an important area where China’s rice agriculture originated and where early Chinese civilisation formed. Knowing how this ecologically sensitive area’s Neolithic residents adapted to environmental changes and utilised natural resources is key to understanding the origins of their agricultural practices and civilisation. Focusing on food resources, we systematically organised data from archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological research, human bone stable isotopic analyses, and fatty acid and proteome residue analyses on the Taihu Lake area’s Neolithic findings to explore the interrelationships between subsistence, the environment, and society through qualitative and quantitative analysis supported by paleoenvironmental and archaeological evidence. The results showed that during the Neolithic era (7.0–4.3 ka BP), under a suitable climate with stable freshwater wetland environments, 38 varieties of edible animals and plants were available to humans in the Taihu Lake area. Despite agriculture being an important food source, rice cultivation and husbandry developed at different paces. Paddy rice cultivation began in wetlands and had always dominated the subsistence economy, as although gathering was universal and diverse, it produced a relatively low volume of food. In contrast, husbandry did not provide sufficient meat throughout the 2000 years of the Majiabang and Songze Cultures. Thus, fishing for freshwater organisms and hunting for wild mammals were the main meat sources before the domestication of pigs became the primary source of meat during the Liangzhu Cultural period. With the available wetland ecological resources and paddy rice farming (the sole crop), the Taihu Lake area transformed into an agricultural society in which rice cultivation dominated the Songze Culture’s subsistence economy, which was also the first to exhibit social complexity. Then, finally, early civilisation developed in the Liangzhu Cultural period. This study contributes to understanding the unique evolutionary path of early Chinese civilisation and has important implications on sustainable resource utilisation for constructing ecological civilisations in present-day societies.