New evidence for supplementary crop production, foddering and fuel use by Bronze Age transhumant pastoralists in the Tianshan Mountains

The nature of economies and the movement of agricultural crops across Eurasia in the Bronze Age have been the subject of significant research interest in recent years. This study presents and discusses new results of flotation, radiocarbon and carbon stable isotope analyses from the seed assemblage...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2021-07, Vol.11 (1), p.13718-13, Article 13718
Main Authors: Tian, Duo, Festa, Marcella, Cong, Dexin, Zhao, Zhijun, Jia, Peter Weiming, Betts, Alison
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/181/19
631/181/27
Bronze Age
Crop production
Crops
Dispersal
Flotation
Humanities and Social Sciences
Millet
Mountains
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Stable isotopes
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Summary:The nature of economies and the movement of agricultural crops across Eurasia in the Bronze Age have been the subject of significant research interest in recent years. This study presents and discusses new results of flotation, radiocarbon and carbon stable isotope analyses from the seed assemblage at the Adunqiaolu site (northwestern Xinjiang), in combination with archaeological evidence. Archaeobotanical evidence, including carbonized foxtail millet, broomcorn millet, and naked barley, documents the diversity of local cereal consumption during the mid-second millennium BC. Our results suggest that crops were not grown locally, however, but in the lower Boertala Valley, supporting the argument that Adunqiaolu was a winter camp. These new sets of data constitute an important contribution to the discussion on cereal dispersal across the Tianshan Mountains in the Bronze Age.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-021-93090-2