Foodways on the Han dynasty’s western frontier: Archeobotanical and isotopic investigations at Shichengzi, Xinjiang, China

Abstract

Recent archeobotanical work has shed light on prehistoric food globalization across the Eurasian landmass; however, much less research has focused on the foodways of the historical cities and settlements found throughout Central Asia on various portions of the ‘Silk Road’. Here, we present archeobotanical and isotopic results from recent excavations at Shichengzi, a Han dynasty (202 BC–AD 220) military garrison. Our archeobotanical results recovered from 11 samples reveal that four types of cereals, naked barley, wheat, common millet, and foxtail millet, were the most common crops at the site. Naked barley, a drought and cold resistant crop, comprised 79% of the crop assemblage recovered from Shichengzi, and the rest of the assemblage is composed of wheat and millet. The reliance on drought resistant crops indicates that people at Shichengzi oriented their agricultural strategy toward mitigating environmental risks. In addition, our isotopic analyses (δ13C and δ15N) of charred cereal grains ( n = 22), animal and human remains ( n = 12) recovered from excavations at Shichengzi suggests that the δ15N values of cereals were enriched by human or livestock dung. Moreover, the δ13C data from Shichengzi suggest that farmers preferentially planted their crops in wide areas that would have received the highest amounts of water available on the northern piedmont of the Tianshan mountains. Our research contributes to the growing understanding of the diversity of agricultural strategies used along the Silk Road.

Multidisciplinary lines of evidence reveal East/Northeast Asian origins of agriculturalist/pastoralist residents at a Han dynasty military outpost in ancient Xinjiang

“…Here, we fuse traditional archeological approaches with C and N isotopes, and ancient DNA data analysis of four individuals at Shichengzi (Figure 1a), previously confirmed as a Han dynasty agricultural garrison (tuntian) (Sheng et al, 2020). Divergent genetic and isotopic profiles, nonetheless, shared similar burial practices at this site.…”

“…M2 was also buried with goat astragalus bones, silk, lacquer, and beads. The burial style and choice of burial goods strongly suggest two different populations, likely a Han population (like M3) and a pastoralist population (like M2), as pointed out in Sheng et al (2020).…”

“…From 2014 to 2019, Shichengzi (43 • 36 59.1 N, 89 • 45 43.2 E, 1,770 m amsl), located in Qitai County, Xinjiang, on the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains, was identified as a major Han dynasty garrison and was scientifically excavated (Figure 1 and Supplementary Figure 1). Laid out over approximately 110,000 m 2 , C-14 dates suggest a site occupation from the first century BC to the third century AD (Sheng et al, 2020). Multiple architectural features were uncovered and dated to the period of the agricultural garrison.…”

“…Burials and a single Han-style kiln were excavated in Area B (Tian et al, 2018(Tian et al, , 2020. Sheng et al (2020) subsequently characterized Shichengzi as a "melting pot" of Han and non-Han culture, using archaeobotanical evidence to demonstrate a local adaptation to the Tianshan Mountain settings against relatively amenable climactic conditions circa 2000-1700 BP (Sheng et al, 2021).…”

Foodways of the Medieval Tibetans on the Silk Road: New evidence from the Miran Site in Xinjiang

“…The quantitative reconstruction of crop ratios permits further insight into the agricultural strategies of human groups (Sheng et al, 2020). We have used, with one minor modification, the quantitative method for intact cereal yield percentages introduced in Zhou et al (2016).…”