Localized management of non-indigenous animal domesticates in Northwestern China during the Bronze Age

Petra Vaiglova,Shuicheng Li,Rachel E B Reid,Hui Wang,Guoke Chen,Xinyi Liu,Suzanne E Pilaar Birch,Martin Jones,Emma Lightfoot

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-95233-x

Abstract

The movements of ancient crop and animal domesticates across prehistoric Eurasia are well-documented in the archaeological record. What is less well understood are the precise mechanisms that farmers and herders employed to incorporate newly introduced domesticates into their long-standing husbandry and culinary traditions. This paper presents stable isotope values (δ13C, δ15N) of humans, animals, and a small number of plants from the Hexi Corridor, a key region that facilitated the movement of ancient crops between Central and East Asia. The data show that the role of animal products in human diets was more significant than previously thought. In addition, the diets of domestic herbivores (sheep/goat, and cattle) suggest that these two groups of domesticates were managed in distinct ways in the two main ecozones of the Hexi Corridor: the drier Northwestern region and the wetter Southeastern region. Whereas sheep and goat diets are consistent with consumption of naturally available vegetation, cattle exhibit a higher input of C4 plants in places where these plants contributed little to the natural vegetation. This suggests that cattle consumed diets that were more influenced by human provisioning, and may therefore have been reared closer to the human settlements, than sheep and goats.

Highlights

Between the 6th and the 2nd millennium BCE, crops and animals that were first domesticated on opposite ends of Eurasia were transported across long distances and adopted by communities in markedly different environments across the continent[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
This study aims to assess animal husbandry strategies and the role of these animals in human diets at nine archaeological sites from the Hexi Corridor in NW China, a region that is key to understanding trans-Eurasian movements of cereals and animals
Mean pig δ13C values are less negative than mean human δ13C values (MOG-C: pigs − 12.5 ± 1.5‰, humans − 14.3 ± 1.7‰; ZHQ: pigs − 14.0 ± 0.4‰, humans − 15.3 ± 1.0‰)

Summary

Introduction

Between the 6th and the 2nd millennium BCE, crops and animals that were first domesticated on opposite ends of Eurasia were transported across long distances and adopted by communities in markedly different environments across the continent[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. The data enable an assessment of the varied management strategies that communities in distinct climatic zones within the Hexi Corridor developed for integrating the non-indigenous domesticates from Southwestern Asia into their agrarian spheres. The East Asian Summer Monsoon brings water from the Pacific Ocean into Eastern and Southern China and increases water availability in the arid regions of the Continental Interior situated north of the Tibetan Plateau[24]. One of these areas is Gansu Province, which lies within and just beyond the reach of the summer monsoon. The SE region of the Hexi Corridor hosts a wetter climate, while the NW region, which borders the desert, is characterised by more arid terrains

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