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Investigating Dietary Patterns with Stable Isotope Ratios of Collagen and Starch Grain Analysis of Dental Calculus at the Iron Age Cemetery Site of Heigouliang, Xinjiang, China
Author(s) -
Wang T. T.,
Fuller B. T.,
Wei D.,
Chang X. E.,
Hu Y. W.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal of osteoarchaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1099-1212
pISSN - 1047-482X
DOI - 10.1002/oa.2467
Subject(s) - panicum miliaceum , setaria , foxtail , hordeum vulgare , population , poaceae , starch , panicum , pastoralism , isotope analysis , triticeae , biology , agronomy , ecology , food science , medicine , livestock , biochemistry , environmental health , genome , gene
Here, we present δ 13 C and δ 15 N results for the dietary reconstruction of nomadic pastoralists from the Iron Age (ca. 1000 bc –8 ad ) site of Heigouliang. The human ( n = 27) δ 13 C values range from −19.6‰ to −17.0‰ with a mean value of −18.5 ± 0.5‰, and the δ 15 N results range from 11.5‰ to 13.8‰ with a mean value of 12.4 ± 0.6‰. The results indicated that animals, like sheep, were part of the predominately C 3 terrestrial diet, but two individuals have values greater than −18‰ that is indicative of some input of C 4 foods in their diets. Because of a lack of faunal samples and to supply complementary information concerning plant consumption, teeth from four individuals were analysed for dental calculus microfossils. Starch grains were found to correspond to Triticeae and Poaceae , possibly including wheat ( Triticum aestivum ), barley ( Hordeum vulgare ), highland barley ( H . vulgare L var . nudum ), foxtail millet ( Setaria italica ) and/or common millet ( Panicum miliaceum ). At the population level, no dietary differences were detected between burial owners and sacrificial victims, but variations were found when specific tombs were analysed. In particular, individuals with bone trauma associated with armed conflict also had distinct isotopic signatures possibly suggesting that some of the sacrificial victims could have been captured warriors that were sacrificed for the burial owners. While limited, the results are some of the first from an Iron Age population from Xinjiang and contribute to our understanding of the dietary patterns of this region. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.