Starch Remains from Human Teeth Reveal the Bronze and Early Iron Ages Vegetal Diet of Xinjiang, Northwest China

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has long been a vital link between Europe and eastern Asia. In the past, understanding prehistoric diets in Xinjiang was based mainly on carbonized plant remains unearthed from archaeological sites and isotopic analyses of excavated human bones. Here, we report on our analysis of human dental residues preserved on the teeth of occupants of the Jiayi Cemetery, a Late Bronze to Early Iron Age site in the Turpan Basin, in order to explore the region’s ancient vegetal dietary composition. Morphological analysis of starch granules and comparative data indicate that crops of Triticeae tribe and subfamily Panicoideae comprised a large portion of the diet, while common legumes, nuts, root, and tuber were also present, although in relatively smaller proportions. With supporting evidence drawn from zooarchaeological, archaeobotanical, and paleo-isotopic studies of Bronze Age sites in Xinjiang, we conclude that the people interred in the Jiayi Cemetery practiced cereal crop cultivation and animal husbandry in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, which may be the result of a combination of natural environmental and social factors. The species of cereal crops represented suggest meaningful economic communication between Central and West Asia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36480.0