Gained bioarchaeological insight from the skeletal human remains at Dabaoshan, south central Inner Mongolia, China

Summary

The south central Inner Mongolia, China has been defined as an area where two economically diverse prehistoric cultures interacted: northern nomadic pastoralists and southern sedentary agriculturalists. Earlier archaeological work suggested that cultural exchanges between these two groups occurred prior to the early Iron Age. Dabaoshan cemetery was recently excavated in this area, and contains approximately 44 individuals. Human remains from this site represent one of the earlier settlements in this region, and analysis of this material may potentially illuminate the prehistoric lifeways and relationships of ancient peoples in East Asia. However, little attention has been given to this cemetery by way of archaeological research. This study takes a bioarchaeological approach to provide a better understanding of the ancient inhabitants at Dabaoshan. Three main tasks were set: (1) compare and contrast the morphological traits of Dabaoshan against other archaeological sites in northern China in order to gain insight into population affinities, (2) investigate the living and health conditions of communities residing in the Great Wall area of northern China during the Eastern Zhou period, and (3) clarify the internal relationships between the health, social distribution system, and special geographic environment of this early stratified society.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage