Dietary shifts and diversities of individual life histories reveal cultural dynamics and interplay of millets and rice in the Chengdu Plain, China during the Late Neolithic (2500–2000 cal. <scp>BC</scp>)

Abstract

The crops (millets and rice) were probably manured. Human individuals subsisted on rice/millet agriculture and pigs in general. In combination with the radiocarbon dates, the increase of C₃ (rice) consumption by the humans was found from the early (2500-2200 cal. BC) to late (2200-2000 cal. BC) periods, indicating the intensification of rice agriculture through time. However, four categories of human life histories during childhood are identified given different isotopic profiles of dentine sections, demonstrating that C₃ (rice) and C₄ (millets)-based foods played different roles in human lives. Even though, there were similar weaning practices among the human populations. It is surprising that human individuals with dental ablation, cultural characteristic in the Middle and Lower Yangtze River Valley, consumed more millets during childhood in the early period than those without dental ablation in the late period. Our study here provides novel insights into cultural dynamics and the interplay between rice and millets in rice-millet agricultural system during the Late Neolithic in Southwest China.