Figure - available from: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
This content is subject to copyright.
Source publication
The Liangwangcheng site, located in Pizhou County, Xuzhou City, northern Jiangsu Province, is one of the most important Neolithic Dawenkou Culture archeological sites in the Haidai area of China’s eastern seaboard. In recent years, archaeobotanical studies in the Haidai area, mainly focusing on Shandong Province, have yielded fruitful results, whil...
Citations
... In this paper, a geometric morphological approach to the identification of starch granules is introduced, which was previously applied to the site of Liangwangcheng and Dingsishan in China and was found to be effective (Zhang et al., 2021 . In our database, the source of each type of starch granules is often single, which may lead to some starch granules with morphological changes because of environmental changes that cannot be accurately identified. ...
... (3) Landmark information extraction and data analysis. Starch granules were analyzed by generalized procrustes analysis (GPA) and canonical variable analysis (CVA) using MorphoJ software(Zhang et al., 2021). ...
China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has long been a vital link between Europe and eastern Asia. Xinjiang’s geographical location and natural environment have led to unique dietary habits and traditions among both the region’s modern inhabitants as well as their ancient forebears. Here, we report on the analysis of human dental residue samples unearthed from the Jiayi Cemetery, a 10th to 2nd century BCE mortuary complex located in the Turpan Basin, Xinjiang, generating ancient starch granules produced by vegetal foodstuffs. Morphological analysis of starch granules and comparative data indicate that crops of Triticeae tribe and subfamily Panicoideae comprised a large portion of the diet, while common legumes, nuts, root and tuber were also present, although in relatively smaller proportions. The discovery of these plant starch granules in archaeological context provides direct evidence of the Jiayi population’s vegetal diet and sheds light on agricultural practices during this period. With supporting evidence drawn from zooarchaeological, archaeobotanical, and paleo‐isotopic studies of Bronze Age sites in Xinjiang, we conclude that the people interred in the Jiayi Cemetery practiced cereal crop cultivation and animal husbandry in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages. The species of cereal crops represented suggest meaningful economic communication between Central and West Asia.
... Starch granules from dental calculi are useful for identifying plant-derived components, particularly starchy plant food sources (Zhang et al., 2021). Dental calculus is a calcified dental plaque (Suga, 1981;White, 1997) that is mainly composed of calcium phosphate in oral indigenous bacteria and its metabolites in saliva, calcium carbonate, and magnesium phosphate (Little et al., 1963;Little and Hazen, 1964;White, 1997). ...
... Starch granules found in the residues of stone tools and pottery sherds must be verified in conjunction with other analytical studies, and cannot always identify the species levels of processed plants or the details of their utilization (Shibutani, 2017). However, starch granules extracted from dental calculus are derived from plants that were present in the oral cavity of humans and animals and can provide evidence of ingested plants (e.g., Henry et al., 2011;Power et al., 2015;Zhang et al., 2021) and non-dietary debris, thus revealing environmental and cultural contexts . Although conventional methods of analysis involving starch granules are enlightening and have been applied to many archeological studies, research on starch granules from human dental calculus in East Asia remains limited, as this analysis can only be conducted by specialized researchers. ...
This study examined starch granules from the dental calculus of specimens from the Epi-Jomon (Zoku-Jomon in Japanese, ca. 350 BCE–350 CE) period in Japan for taxonomic identification of plant food items and the reconstruction of human socioeconomic practices. Dental calculus was extracted from 21 individuals across six Epi-Jomon sites in Hokkaido. Moreover, 12 starch granules and starch clusters were recovered from nine individuals. The morphologies of the extracted starch granules were then classified into five types: elliptical, angular circular, polygonal, pentagonal, and damaged. Morphometric analysis indicated that a small portion of these starch granules may have derived from acorns, nuts, and bulb or tuber plants, with one starch granule supposedly from rice. Although extracted starch granules are poor predictors of food diversity at the individual level, the results can identify potential food sources of the surveyed population. This is the first study to determine how well plant microremains in dental calculus reflect a plant diet in the Epi-Jomon population. The starch granules discovered at the surveyed sites provide essential information about the utilization of plant species and cultural contacts in Hokkaido during this period. This is of great significance in reconstructing the Epi-Jomon subsistence patterns in Hokkaido and exploring cultural interactions between hunting-gathering-fishing and agrarian societies.
... Plant microfossil residue analysis has been comprehensively applied in archaeology during recent years (McGovern et al., 2017;Prebble et al., 2019;Wang et al., 2019;Barber, 2020;Zhang et al., 2021;Guan et al., 2022). In our study, residue samples were collected from the surfaces of artifacts and human teeth unearthed from the Dingsishan Site. ...
... The technological detail see Bookstein (1997) and Zelditch et al. (2004), thus will not be elaborated in this paper. In our study, 35 landmarks were assigned on each single starch granule, presenting the contour, location of hilum, and the extinction cross curvature of individual starch granule ( Figure 2) (Zhang et al., 2021). Thin Plate Spline (TPS) files (landmark configurations) were imported into MorphoJ software (Klingenberg, 2011), for General Procrustes Analysis (GPA) and Canonical Variate Analysis (CVA). ...
... The Mahalanobis distance matrix and Procrustes distance matrix may help explain group similarities and differences. In addition to CVA, our study also applied a supervised machine learning method to modern starch geometric morphometric data for model training (for technical details, see Zhang et al. (2021). In order to maximize the reliability of the machine learning model results, we adopted 95% accuracy as the standard of model usability, therefore, we regarded labels with an accuracy of 95% or more in the predicted results as valid, while labels with an accuracy of less than 95% were doubtful and are not presented here. ...
The Dingsishan Site, located in Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is one of the most important Neolithic archaeological sites in the Lingnan region of China’s southeastern seaboard. Plant microfossil remains recovered from excavated artifacts and human teeth suggest that the site’s ancient inhabitants practiced a subsistence system based on foraging. Wild plant food resources dominated their vegetal diet. Starch granules extracted from residue samples represent various taxa, including plant roots and tubers, aquatic plant fruits, beans, and wild cereals, defining the primary vegetal diet of Dingsishan’s Neolithic occupants. In addition, residue samples from shell artifacts yielded starch granules and phytolith remains, providing significant clues as to the function of these tools. We also identified millet starch granules from Dingsishan Cultural Phases 3-4 (ca. 7,000–6000 BP), albeit in extremely low quantities. Holocene paleoecological conditions in the Lingnan area provided diverse and plentiful wild food resources, allowing the relatively late emergence of agriculture. Our study suggests that Middle Neolithic human groups in the Yong River drainage consumed various plants, and their subsistence pattern was relatively stable through the four Cultural Phases identified at Dingsishan. Our conclusions enhance understanding the diversity of plant food resources exploited by foraging societies and interpretations of differences in patterns of agricultural origins in different ecological regions of China.
