Faunal Evidence for a Big Feast Event within a Bronze Age City Site in China

Summary

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

The Zhenghan Gucheng (郑韩故城) site is a well-preserved ancient capital city of Zheng and Han states during Eastern Zhou. It is located at the joining of River Shuangji (Ancient river Wei) and the Yellow River (Ancient river Qin), lying beneath modern Xinzheng city, Henan province, China. Within this city site, well-developed area division and function distribution reveal the appearance of status hierarchy and labor division. In 1996, from the Redianchang excavation point, 501 pieces of disarticulated faunal samples were excavated from a large faunal midden pit, among which 472 pieces belonged to at least six cattle (Bos taurus) individuals. Based on the observation of epiphysis fusion and teeth eruption, we were surprised to find that these cattle individuals were all about 18 months old, indicating they were killed at the same time. Good preservation also indicates this set of debris was discarded and covered rapidly after consumption. This evidence of considerable meat consumption suggests a big feast event occurred in this location.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37480.0