Although the remains of the millet species known as Job's tears (Coix lacryma-jobi) have been recovered from various locations within Han Dynasty (202 B.C.E. – C.E. 220) tombs, the intentions behind their presence in Han funerary practices are not well understood. Analyses of the archaeological context of Job's tears in Han tombs and references to the millet in ancient written records reveal that this plant species was likely endowed with diverse functions in funerary rituals, including as a grain food for the deceased in the afterlife, sacrificial offering during the burial ritual, or medicine plant used for other specific ritual purposes. The study thus attempts to reconstruct the motivation behind the presence of Job's tears in different spatial contexts inside tombs, elucidate the potential roles of Job's tears and its significance in funerary rituals, and deepen the understanding of funerary plant use and complexity of funerary practices of the Han Dynasty.

This study investigates conceptions of life and death during the culturally integrative period at Northern Wei Pingcheng by combining stable isotope and mortuary analyses. For the broader population at Qilicun, the enduring importance of kinship is reflected in both shared diets in life and joint interment after death, demonstrating a tangible continuity between life and death. For Xianbei elites, as seen in tomb M29, the constructed mortuary narrative selectively integrates agrarian, nomadic, and external cultural elements, strategically reworking life history into a legitimized posthumous identity. This study reveals how life and death were materially expressed through mortuary practices across different social strata during a culturally transformative era.

The Liangzhu culture (5300-4300 BP) in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River has entered the stage of an early state. Previous archaeobotanical studies mainly focused on its core area, and relatively limited archaeobotanical studies were conducted in the non-core areas including the eastern Jianghuai region, where the Jiangzhuang site is located. In this study, a starch granule analysis was conducted on Liangzhu-period human dental calculus from the Jiangzhuang site. The results revealed diverse plant-based consumption by Jiangzhuang inhabitants, including rice, millets, Triticeae, Coix sp., Fabaceae, acorns, and tubers/roots. Significantly, some newly recognized edible species expanded understanding of plant food spectrum during the Liangzhu period at the Jiangzhuang site. This study reveals broad-spectrum plant consumption in a large-scale settlement in the non-core area of the Liangzhu culture, and provides new evidences for comprehensive understanding of subsistence patterns in different regions of the Liangzhu culture distribution area.

The Liangzhu culture (5,300-4,300 BP) is an important archaeological culture in late Neolithic period in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, which has entered the stage of an early state. To better understand ancient societies of the Liangzhu culture, the comprehensive studies on the subsistence of the Liangzhu culture is necessary. Until date, many multidisciplinary studies have been conducted on the Liangzhu culture, including archaeobotanical research, which mainly focused on the core area of the Liangzhu culture, and relatively limited archaeobotanical studies were conducted in the non-core area of the Liangzhu culture including the eastern Jianghuai region, where the Jiangzhuang site is located. In this study, a starch grain analysis was conducted on human dental calculus samples belonging to the Liangzhu period from the Jiangzhuang site. A variety of starch grains were extracted from these dental calculus samples, including crops of rice (Oryza sativa) and millets, and wild plants such as Triticeae, Coix sp., Fabaceae, acorns, and roots/tubers, which revealed diverse plant-based consumption by Jiangzhuang inhabitants. Significantly, some newly recognized edible plant species revealed by the starch residue entrapped in the human dental calculus broaden the understanding of plant food spectrum during the Liangzhu period at the Jiangzhuang site. This research reveals broad-spectrum plant consumption in a large settlement located in the non-core area of the Liangzhu culture, and provides new evidence for comprehensive understanding of subsistence patterns in different regions of the Liangzhu culturedistribution area.

Agricultural yield fluctuations caused by environmental and social factors in ancient China have been well recorded in extensive ancient documents; however, comparatively little is known archaeologically. This study revealed the consumption and utilization of staple cereal and possible famine food by Han Dynasty inhabitants in the Guanzhong area based on archeobotanical evidence, including plant macro-remains and phytoliths uncovered from pottery granaries and isotopic evidence from human bone collagen from Miaojiazhai cemetery. This preliminary multidisciplinary research with clear archaeological contexts provides archaeological evidence to reveal the food diversification and indicate that the possible occurrence and coping strategies to mitigate fluctuations in agricultural yields in Han Dynasty Guanzhong and broaden the understanding of the Han Dynasty agricultural economies and society.

Based on a preliminary investigation of archaeological remains from a mural tomb at the Qilicun cemetery, this study revealed the foodways, burial customs, and social status of a nomadic Tuoba Xianbei elite in the diverse economic and cultural context of Pingcheng city in the Northern Wei Dynasty.

The turbulent stage before the unification of China under the first Empire, the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC), witnessed remarkable changes in economic livelihood and social conditions. This study aims to investigate the subsistence strategies of humans living in the Guanzhong Plain during the Late Qin State (350-221 BC) by using carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on animal and human bone collagen, as well as starch grain analysis of human dental calculus, from Podi cemetery, Shannxi Province, China. We argue that Podi humans likely relied on a mixed subsistence strategy based on animal husbandry practices and diverse crop agricultural pattern which consist of millet, soybean, wheat, and probably supplemented by hunting and gathering (Job's tears, nuts and tubers) economy. Combined with bioarcheological studies on Qin humans, we infer that previously traditional animal husbandry economy was still being practiced in the Qin period along with the inclusion of a newly introduced agricultural economy.

Agriculture constitutes the economic foundation for social complexity and civilization process in ancient China. Agricultural practices of ordinary settlements as the basic unit of society could reflect the overall agricultural production and technology and also a basic guarantee for the sustained development and stable operation of the society. The Central Plains of China witnessed the social transition, the onset and development of state-level societies, urbanization process, and the boom of bronze civilization during the Longshan period to Eastern Zhou (ca. 2600BC-221BC). This study primarily aimed to assess the coping strategies of non-urban settlements and the nature of agriculture in Central Plains during this social transformation and development period. It examined the era's agricultural strategies by reporting the archeaobotanical remains and stable isotopic data of charred grains and legume seeds from the Huqiugang site, a long-lived settlement lasting from Longshan to Eastern Zhou in this area.Findings show that Huqiugang inhabitants adopted active agricultural strategies to confront the social changes and climate fluctuations during Longshan to Eastern Zhou, including effective adjustment of the crop structure, improved crop management and expansion of the agrarian field to cultivate multiple crops. Combined with archaeobotanical remains and stable isotope values of charred plant remains from ordinary contemporaneous sites in the Central Plains, the characteristics of agriculture in non-urban settlements during Longshan to Eastern Zhou in the Central Plains are revealed, including stability of diversified crop patterns, innovation of agricultural technology, and flexibility of agricultural practices, which all contributed to the sustainability of agriculture in this area. Sustainable agriculture provided the economic guarantee of social resilience in the period of social transformation and development in the Central Plains, and was the important driving force for the emergence and development of state-level society, urbanization, and the prosperity of bronze civilization in the Central Plains during Longshan to Eastern Zhou.

Reconstructing diet can offer an improved understanding toward the origin and evolution of modern humans. However, the diet of early modern humans in East Asia is poorly understood. Starch analysis of dental calculus is harmless to precious fossil hominins and provides the most direct evidence of plant food sources in early modern human dietary records. In this paper, we examined the starch grains in dental calculus from Fuyan Cave hominins in Daoxian (South China), which were the earliest modern humans in East Asia. Our results reveal the earliest direct evidence of a hominin diet made of acorns, roots, tubers, grass seeds, and other yet-unidentified plants in marine isotope stage 5 between 120 and 80 ka. Our study also provides the earliest evidence that acorns may have played an important role in subsistence strategies. There may have been a long-lasting tradition of using these plants during the Late Pleistocene in China. Plant foods would have been a plentiful source of carbohydrates that greatly increased energy availability to human tissues with high glucose demands. Our study provides the earliest direct consumption of carbohydrates-rich plant resources from modern humans in China for the first time. In addition, it also helps elucidate the evolutionary advantages of early modern humans in the late Middle and early Upper Pleistocene.

南阳盆地,作为地理过渡地带和文化交汇区,其考古学文化面貌呈现出南北交融的典型特征.文坎沟东地点是南阳盆地淅川县龙山时代晚期和西周时期的重要遗存,本文综合运用大植物和植硅体分析的方法,结合已有的植物考古证据和最新的测年结果,全面探讨了文坎先民先秦时期的种植模式和特点.研究结果显示,龙山时代晚期,文坎先民是以粟、黍为主的旱作农业为生,兼种少量水稻和小麦,小麦和水稻在先民生活中的作用比较微弱;西周时期,延续了旱作农业为主的生产模式,种植规模略有扩大,未见炭化水稻的踪迹,但植硅体分析显示仍有水稻种植的现象;受中原宗周势力的影响和版图扩张的需求,小麦逐渐开始在先民生活中占据一席之地.文坎沟东地点植物遗存的发现与研究,为揭示豫西南先秦时期的文化面貌和与中原地区的文化交流提供了新的材料.

Understanding the interplay between subsistence strategies and settlement patterns is fundamental for under-standing past social-economic and cultural changes. Around the third millennium BC in the Zhengluo region of China, settlement hierarchies with two or three-tiered settlements were established. However, the detailed economic dynamics of settlement stratification in this area have not yet been clearly illustrated. In this paper, we report the new human isotopic data and archaeobotanical evidences with radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites of different scales in the Zhengluo region. The primary objective is to further assess the manner in which human populations among different scales of settlements in the Zhengluo region organized their subsistence strategies during the late Yangshao period (around 3500BC-2600BCE) by combining these new data with pre-vious archaeological studies.Mixed crop cultivation including millet crops and non-millet crops (rice and/or soybean) was a stable agri-cultural pattern in center settlements, and pure millet agricultural only appeared in ordinary settlements. Meanwhile, human dietary patterns from center settlements were more diversified compared with the homog-enous diets among inhabitants of the ordinary settlements. The distinct human dietary patterns at these two different types of sites results from and reflect their different responses of subsistence strategies to social dy-namics. As settlements expanded and populations increased, stable millet cultivation guaranteed the essential food supply, and that the popularization of rice (a crop from the South) and the adoption of a new crop, soy-beans, could diversify the agricultural patterns, expand the food supply and reduce the risks associated with food production in center settlements. Meanwhile, ordinary settlements still persisted with a more conservative subsistence strategy focused on millet agriculture. The different and successful coping strategies by late Yangshao inhabitants in Zhengluo region were the driving force in the emergence of the episode of peak social development in this area and likely important for populations and settlements in the following revolutionary periods "Longshan-Erlitou" in the same area.

鹿台遗址出土了丰富的炭化植物遗存,作物组合显示仰韶时期农业经济是单纯的种植粟黍的旱作农业,龙山时期农作物新品种开始出现,作物种植结构趋于多样化.基于龙山时期成熟粟类作物和不成熟粟类作物的量化分析,鹿台遗址龙山时期聚落很可能存在作物加工活动,不同阶段的加工活动可能是在聚落内不同区域,以小规模的核心家庭为基础开展.综合相关研究,豫北地区仰韶时期仍是单一的种植小米的旱作农业经济,稻作农业并未影响到这一区域,龙山时期水稻、大豆和小麦等新农作物开始出现,农业多样化逐渐显现.与此同时,豫北地区龙山时期不同遗址在农作物种植结构方面存在些许差异,这一差异很可能与遗址微观地貌、聚落和特定人群的主观选择有关.鹿台遗址炭化植物遗存研究深化了对中原地区新石器时代晚期环境、生业与社会关系的认识.

Millet-dominant agriculture built a solid material base for cultural expansion and social development in prehistoric northern China. Around the middle-late Yangshao period (around 4000 BCE-2600 BCE), especially during the late Yangshao period (around 3500 BCE-2600 BCE), with the establishment of settlement hierarchies and population growth in the middle Yellow River area, response patterns of settlements in this area mainly focused on strategies to increase crop yields and food supplies. Response patterns included agricultural intensification (increasing inputs of labor and resources) and agricultural extensification (significant expansion of the land under cultivation). To date, the detailed farming strategies in the different regions of this area have not yet been clearly illustrated. Our study reports on the new isotopic data of charred seeds (crops and weeds) from archaeological sites in the Zhengzhou region, and investigates the crop management practices based on elevated nitrogen isotope values (e.g., delta 15N) in crops to elucidate agricultural strategies during the late Yangshao period (around 3500 BCE-2600 BCE) in the middle Yellow River area by combining the new data with previous interdisciplinary studies.Elevated nitrogen isotope values of cereal grains relative to local vegetation indicates that crops were likely manured in Zhengzhou region. Manuring practices possibly prevailed in the middle Yellow River area during the late Yangshao period, although the amount of manuring varied likely due to topographical conditions. A combined agricultural strategy of intensification (mixed crop cultivation/manuring) and extensification (expansion of the land under cultivation) was likely employed in the center settlement of Dahecun to feed the inhabitants and ensure the development of the settlement. Due to limited available land for cultivation and pure millet cultivation, increasing crop yields with manuring formed an essential part of the agricultural strategy in the Baishui River area. This indicates that agricultural intensification was likely the most effective avenue to support growing populations and land demand in the regional center Xiahe and other sites in Baishui River area. Faced with societal development and different environmental conditions, settlements in the different regions in the middle Yellow River area likely adopted their own agricultural strategies in response to internal and external conditions, indicating late Yangshao settlement resilience in this area.

本文从生物考古视角探讨官庄聚落两周时期的人群与社会状况.官庄聚落农业经济较为发达,农田管理和农业生产水平较高,手工业经济较为兴盛,存在多种类的手工业作坊.聚落内社会等级分化明显,人群构成较为复杂,这些社会状况都在人群食物结构上有所反映.贵族阶层具有最高的δ15N值,食用较多的肉食资源;平民阶层δ15N值都偏低,显示较低的动物蛋白摄取.不同葬俗的群体在饮食结构方面差异明显:直肢葬群体主要以C4类食物为主,与同样采用直肢葬的贵族阶层较为一致,官庄墓葬以直肢葬为主,这一群体应是官庄聚落土著居民;相较于直肢葬群体,屈肢葬群体食用了更多的C3类植物,从个别屈肢葬个体食用水稻这一官庄聚落并未种植的C3类作物来看,屈肢葬群体流动性较大,有可能为外来群体.官庄聚落人群构成复杂的状况,应与区域内西周晚期到春秋早期较为动荡的社会政治环境有一定关系.

The region of Yiluo in North China witnessed the development of social complexity in the Neolithic period and the emergence of the first Chinese state society in the early Bronze Age. However, the agricultural economies in the Neolithic–Bronze Age periods of this region and its influence on the social complexity in this area have not been adequately understood, owing to the relative lack of evidence from archeobotany, chronology, and stable isotope analysis in this region. Archeobotanical and isotopic evidence, together with chronological data from the Tumen site, reveals that the complexity of the agricultural economy composed of millet and rice appeared during the late Yangshao period in the Yiluo region and became more intensified in the following Longshan and Bronze Age periods. During the Yangshao and Longshan periods, environmental factors such as landform and hydrology were likely important factors for the diverse agricultural patterns. The complexity of the agricultural economy has an influence on settlement hierarchy and population growth, suggesting that the rise and intensification of the complex agricultural economy was an important driving force in societal development in the Yiluo region.

残留物分析是石器功能研究的重要组成部分,主要包含微体植物化石、血红蛋白、古DNA、血液蛋白质和沉积物DNA等研究对象.对这些对象开展残留物分析的结果,与微痕分析、模拟实验相结合,可以通过分析作用对象和作用方式,对石器功用进行较全面的阐释.关于石器残留物分析国内学术界已开展了一系列研究,初步构建起了一套学术话语体系.本文将从植物及动物残留物两方面,来回顾石器残留物研究的发展历程;尝试归纳石器残留物研究发展的阶段性特征,并从研究对象、研究方法和研究技术三方面对国内已开展石器残留物研究进行思考,进而提出若干展望.

The introduction and spread of wheat contributed to the transformation of the tradition millets agriculture in North China. However, when and how wheat came to be a staple crop in China is still unclear. Stable isotope data from some archaeological sites suggested that the dietary change from C-4 based diet to C-3/C-4 mixed diet occurred during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-221 BC) on the Central Plains of China. However, the role of each C-3 crop (wheat, rice and soybean) in human diet is not well understood in this key period. Some scholars have argued that wheat made the biggest contribution to human diet among the C-3 crops. To further investigate the dietary role of wheat and agricultural economy in the Eastern Zhou on the Central Plains of China, combined methods of stable isotope analysis on human bones and starch grain analysis on human dental calculus were conducted at Laodaojing cemetery during the Warring States period. The mean delta C-13 values (-14.7 +/- 2 parts per thousand, n = 24) and mean delta N-15 values (9.1 +/- 0.9 parts per thousand, n = 24) of individuals from Laodaojing cemetery suggest that Laodaojing humans had a reliance on the mixture of C-3/C-4 foods and a certain proportion of animal protein was consumed. Given that the small elevation of delta N-15 values (<3 parts per thousand) of Laodaojing humans, the contribution of domesticated animals to the mixed C-3/C-4 diet of Laodaojing population is relatively limited. Combined with starch grains extracted from human dental calculus, we argue that C-3 and C-4 foods at Laodaojing were mainly derived from wheat and millets respectively. Temporal investigations of stable isotope data and archaeobotanical evidences from the late Longshan period to Eastern Zhou Dynasty show the importance of wheat increased in agricultural economy slowly since its introduction into the Central Plains of China. Until the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, wheat as a C-3 crop played an important dietary role in human diet of the Central Plains. A transformation from millet-based to millets/wheat-based agricultural economy occurred along with the shift of dietary pattern during this period.

A multicrop agricultural system, including millet, wheat, rice, and soybeans, first emerged in China in the Late Longhang period and is considered to be one of the most important basic foundations underpinning the origin and development of early states in China. However, there is still a lack of studies on the specific subsistence strategies of humans from the Bronze Age, specifically addressing how widespread the multicrop agricultural system was. To explore these questions above, carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on human bones from the Nanwa site (ca 1720-256 BC & 960-1279 AD) was undertaken to investigate the palaeodiet and subsistence strategies of the Nanwa humans. This paper also reviews the existing stable isotope data of Bronze Age humans on the Central Plains of China. The Nanwa humans from the Erlitou and Yinxu periods have a mean delta C-13 value of -9.4 +/- 0.7 parts per thousand and -9.1 +/- 0.9 parts per thousand, suggesting a predominantly C-4 diet, probably derived from millet agriculture or domesticated animals fed on millet. Nanwa humans of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty have a relatively low mean delta C-13 value of -10.5 +/- 2.4 parts per thousand, indicating a consumption of much more C-3 foods, likely derived from rice, wheat, soybean, or animals that fed on those plants. A temporal stable isotopic comparison from the Erlitou period to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty on the Central Plains of China shows the majority of the Bronze Age humans have high mean delta C-13 value (-9.5 +/- 1.8 parts per thousand), suggesting a predominantly C-4-based diet. We infer that millet agriculture was still the primary economy for humans during the Bronze Age. However, there is a relatively large proportion of humans from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty that have decreased delta C-13 values, indicating a much more C-3 foods consumption and diversity diet, presumably derived from a multicrop agricultural system of millet, wheat, rice, and soybean. It is possible that the trend moved from a narrowly focused, mainly millet-based diet, to a more diverse agricultural system and was triggered by a combination of factors such as climate change, agricultural reform, social stratification, wars, migration, and so on.

Reconstructing the diet of extinct species is a fundamental goal in vertebrate paleobiology. Dental calculus is the calcium phosphate deposits on teeth, which captures a large number of food particles and contains the food information of ancient animal. It is possible to explore ancient animal dietary and investigate the environmental information from dental calculus. A large number of starch granules were found in dental calculus of Dicros gansuensis excavated from the earliest Late Miocene Guonigou fauna of the Linxia Basin, Gansu Province. It is the first time that starch granules from Late Miocene were found. We classified the ancient starch granules by its morphological characteristics and also analyzed the starch granules of leaves of modern plants around the living environment of D. gansuensis to find modern starch granules and compare them with ancient ones. The results indicate that D. gansuensis may eat not only shrubs leaves, such as the plant from Caprifoliaceae, but also some tree leaves from Juglandaceae (walnut), and maybe some herbs from Ranunculaceae and Polygonaceae. It is consistent with the results of previous morphological studies, and it also provides more information. Our study extends the range of time and object for dental calculus research, and offers more possibilities for research on feeding habits of ancient mammals.