The Karuo culture (3300 to 2000 BC ) was a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

culture in

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

. The culture cultivated

foxtail millet Foxtail millet, scientific name ''Setaria italica'' (synonym ''Panicum italicum'' L.), is an annual grass grown for human food. It is the second-most widely planted species of millet, and the most grown millet species in Asia. The oldest eviden ...

Karuo type site

The type site at Karuo was discovered in 1977 at

Chamdo County Karuo District (other spellings: Karub District, Kharro District (after THL transliteration of Tibetan)) is a district in Qamdo, the district is synonymous referred to as Chamdo, Qamdo, or Chengguan in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, and ...

Chamdo Prefecture Chamdo, officially Qamdo () and also known in Chinese as Changdu, is a prefecture-level city in the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Its seat is the town of Chengguan in Karuo District. Chamdo is Tibet's third largest cit ...

, Tibet and excavated from 1978 to 1979. Located at about above sea level, the site covered an area of 10,000 m². Over 7,000 artifacts have been discovered at Karuo, including 1,060 stone artifacts, 1,284 pottery shards and 4,755 bone objects. It is one of only a few archaeological sites on the Tibetan Plateau dating back so far, and it is in good enough condition for the foundations of houses to still be found, along with roads, walls, and stone altars in addition to the individual artifacts.Chinaculture.org
Appearance-wise, the pottery at Karuo shows many similarities with pottery found at

Majiayao The Majiayao culture was a group of neolithic communities who lived primarily in the upper Yellow River region in eastern Gansu, eastern Qinghai and northern Sichuan, China. The culture existed from 3300 to 2000 BC. The Majiayao culture represent ...

sites, primarily the later phases, Machang and Banshan; however, the Karuo pottery was made using different methods and appears to be merely imitative. The tool assemblage at Karuo also shows similarities with those found at sites in western Sichuan. The remains of 34 houses were found at the site. During the earlier stages, the houses at Karuo were round and semi-subterranean. During the later stages, the houses at Karuo were rectangular and subterranean. The later houses were more solidly built and represents a shift to more permanent habitation at Karuo. Karuo is the site of the oldest permanent settlement in Tibet and represents the earliest evidence for agriculture on the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the Ti ...

. Agriculturally, the people at Karuo relied primarily on

, while some evidence for

broomcorn millet ''Panicum miliaceum'' is a grain crop with many common names, including proso millet, broomcorn millet, common millet, hog millet, Kashfi millet, red millet, and white millet. Archaeobotanical evidence suggests millet was first domesticated abou ...

was also discovered. The oldest evidence for foxtail millet at Karuo dates to around 3000 BC. The people of Karuo also supplemented their diet with hunting. The residents of Karuo suddenly abandoned the settlement around 1750 BC. This is likely due to a change in climate, as Karuo likely required optimal conditions (higher temperatures) for foxtail millet to be grown successfully; Karuo coincided with a period of warmer temperatures in the region, and a return to cooler temperatures likely made foxtail millet cultivation at the site untenable. Broomcorn millet requires even higher temperatures for cultivation, so the broomcorn millet found at Karuo must have been obtained from trade with lower elevation sites.

References

Citations

Sources

* * Gruschke, Andreas (2004): ''The Karo culture'' in: ''The Cultural Monuments of Tibet’s Outer Provinces: Kham - vol. 1. The TAR part of Kham'', White Lotus Press, Bangkok 2004, S. 166-170. * * Sagart, Laurent, Roger Blench and Alicia Sanchez-Mazas (eds., 2005), ''The Peopling of East Asia'' * * ''7,000 articles discovered at Tibetan cultural site.'' Asia Africa Intelligence Wire (June 1, 2004) Neolithic cultures of China Tibetan archaeology 1977 archaeological discoveries 4th-millennium BC establishments {{Tibet-stub