Stable isotopic analysis and archaeobotany in North China

The East–West Millet Project

Xinyi Liu
PhD candidate, Department of Archaeology

My doctoral research is combining macrofossil and stable isotopic analysis applied to the region of Northeast China where the earliest millet agriculture is known. The value of closely interlinking macrofossil and isotopic analyses has been previously demonstrated in the case of maize in prehistoric Meso-America. I am exploring the usage of combining these methods to the study of millet in the Old World.

Applying stable isotopic analysis (in collaboration with Dr Tamsin O’Connell), I am interested in the millet signature in the early Neolithic human diet in eastern Inner Mongolia, as well as the dietary relations between human and animals. Archaeobotanical research is being integrated with other data to interpret human subsistence, in particular millet processing activities from the sixth to the third millennium BC in Inner Mongolia.

I have conducted fieldwork in the Chifeng region of Inner Mongolia. This includes on-site flotation at the targeted sites, Niuyingzi and Beichengzi (pro-8500 BP), Xinglonggou (8200-7200 BP) and Sanzuodian (4000-3500 BP), and sampling of skeletal remains for the isotopic analysis from on-going and previous excavations, as well as museum collections. In addition, I have carried out a flotation program in a Sagan-Zarba site (Neolithic – Iron Age), Baikal Region, Russia to explore whether millet remains are present.

This work is supported by the Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Award and a Wenner Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant.