Diet Transition or Human Migration in the Chinese Neolithic? Dietary and Migration Evidence from the Stable Isotope Analysis of Humans and Animals from the Qinglongquan Site, China

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4622280
AutoresYi Guo (0000-0001-8622-2314, State Administration of Cultural Heritage, autor de correspondencia), Yupeng Fan (0000-0002-7827-113X, State Administration of Cultural Heritage), Yibo Hu (0000-0003-3409-3164, Chinese Academy of Sciences), J Zhu (0000-0001-8729-511X, Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology Wuhan China), Michael Richards (0000-0001-5274-8887, University of British Columbia), M P Richard, M P Richards (Department of Human Evolution Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig Germany)
Año2018
Volumen28
Número2
Páginas85-94
Fecha de publicación2018-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal of Osteoarchaeology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1047-482X • E-ISSN: 1099-1212
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/oa.2465
OpenAlexW2162134954
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas48

The Qinglongquan site, China, includes materials from the Neolithic Qujialing (3000-2600 bc) and Shijiahe (2600-2200 bc) periods, and lies within the Sui-Zao Corridor that connects the Nanyang Basin in the north and the Hanjiang River Plain in the south. Previous research suggested a dietary shift from rice-based to millet-based agriculture between the Qujialing and Shijiehe periods at this site. The reason for this dietary shift is still unclear, and it is possible because of immigration into the region by people who already had a mainly C4-millet-based diet (i.e. from Northern China). In this study, we examine the carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) results and present sulfur (δ34S) isotope analyses of human (n = 27) and animal (n = 36) samples to test the hypothesis of whether this dietary shift was due to migration. The δ34S values of the Qujialing humans ranged from 5.5‰ to 8.1‰ [average 6.5‰ ± 1.0 (n = 7)], and the δ34S values of the Shijiahe humans ranged from 4.1‰ to 7.4‰ [average 5.8‰ ± 0.9 (n = 18)]. Because these values overlapped and were similar to the animal δ34S results [4.3‰ to 8.8‰, average of 6.6 ± 1.3‰ (n = 31)], no evidence of migration was found for the humans with the different diets at the Qinglongquan site. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Agriculture · Animal science · Archaeology · Biology · China · Geography · Immigration · Isotope analysis · Mass migration · Stable isotope ratio · δ13C · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Isotope Analysis in Ecology · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Ecology