HUMAN DIETARY COMPLEXITY IN TIANSHAN REGION AND THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON HUMAN PALEODIET. Issue 5 (22nd October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhao, Haiyan; Zhou, Weijian; Du, Hua; Cheng, Peng; Jia, Peter Weiming; Gong, Wei
• Is Part Of: Radiocarbon. Volume 62:Issue 5(2020)
• Page Start: 1489
• Page End: 1502
• Publication Date: 2020-10-22
• Subjects: climate, -- human diet, -- Tianshan region, -- δ13C, -- δ15N; Radiocarbon dating -- Periodicals; 930.1028505
• DOI: 10.1017/RDC.2020.45
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0033-8222

Abstract

ABSTRACT: With the popularization of carbon and nitrogen stable-isotope analysis methods used on archaeological samples from Xinjiang, the ancient paleodiet there has been revealed. However, research about isotopic analysis combined with environmental factors is rare, especially in such a variable and complex climate as that of the Tianshan region. We systematically analyzed the δ 13 C and δ 15 N results from animals and humans for dietary reconstruction of nomadic pastoralists from the Tianshan region during 3900–1200 cal BP. The δ 13 C and δ 15 N values for animals (sheep/goat, horse and cattle; n = 57) have a wide range from –20.8‰ to –14.7‰ for δ 13 C (–19.2 ± 1.0‰) and 3.2‰ to 9.9‰ for δ 15 N (7.0 ± 1.2‰). The δ 13 C and δ 15 N values from humans range from –19.6 to –12.3‰ (–16.0 ± 1.5‰) and 7.1 to 16.7‰ (–13.6 ± 1.5‰), respectively. The animal δ 15 N results indicate that the dry environment in the Tianshan region may result in elevated δ 15 N values. Synthesizing animal and human isotope results suggests that the inhabitants engaged in mobile herding economies subsidized with crops and wild animal meat from the Tianshan Mountains. In conclusion, we found that the regional environment closely relates to crop types, and temporal climate change has an effect on human dietary structure. Therefore, climate condition cannot be ignored when studying human paleodiet.