Carbon And Nitrogen Stable Isotope Of The Human And Animal Bones From The Hengshui Cemetery

Hengshui cemetery,located in Hengbei Village,Jiangxian,Yuncheng,Shanxi,China,is a cemetery of Country Peng and belongs to Western Zhou.It is characterized by its complete preservation and distinct classification,as well as a large number of unearthed burial objects.There are many important archaeological discoveries in the cemetery,which have attracted great attention from the academic community and are of great academic significance.In order to explore the diet structure of human and animals from Hengshui cemetery and outline more details about the living subsistence of the ancient people there,this dissertation selected 82 human bones and 7 attendant dog bones unearthed from this cemetery for carbon and nitrogen stable isotope experiments,and obtained experimental data and made relevant analysis.The value range of ?¹³C of attendant dogs?n=7?is-9.0‰^-7.1‰,average value is-8.2‰±0.8‰,range of ?¹⁵N is 6.3‰⁸.7‰,average value is 7.5‰±0.8‰.Results of the C and N stable isotope show that there were two different diet structures of dogs in Hengshui cemetery,namely herbivory and omnivory.Both two feeding habits were based on millet,the latter may additionally reflect in the consumption of human leftovers.?¹³C range of human?n=82?is-13.0‰^-6.7‰,with average value as-8.3‰±1.2‰.As for the value of ?¹⁵N,it got a wide range from 7.2‰ to 11.9‰ with average value as 9.0‰±1.0‰.That means there were two nutritional levels in the population.The results also show that people from this cemetery relied primarily on C4 foods coming from millet and meat provided by domestic animal,but also consumed some C3 foods coming from located wild vegetation and animals consuming them.Based on the analysis of isotopic results and related studies,we can learn that the living subsistence of human there included millet-farming,livestock raising,hunting and fishing.The former two especially millet-farming is of exceptional importance.What more is that there were significant differences in the distribution of meat resources among the ancestors,which can be explained more specifically as tomb occupants,aristocrats and the human sacrifices belong to Pengbo generally have higher nutritional levels.The correlation between animal protein intake and rank was one manifestation,which suggests that the level of meat intake was symbolic in society at that time.Identity and the change of age were also the reasons that influences the difference of eating habits,while the difference of sex,age and tomb orientation were not the main factor that influences the difference of eating habits.