The long and complex history of cereal cuisine in ancient China

Research reveals interplay of environment and culture have shaped modern cuisines

Changing cuisines in ancient China were driven by multiple environmental and cultural practices over thousands of years, according to a study published November 4, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONEby Xinyi Liu of Washington University in St. Louis and Rachel E. B. Reid of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Virginia.

Cereal grains - including wheat, rice, barley, millet and more - are the most important food sources in the world today. But understanding how these foods originated and spread across the world requires a global effort. In this study, Liu and Reid focus on the ancient history of staple cereals across China, a country well-known for its diverse food products and early adoption of many domesticated plants.

The authors compiled published data of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope compositions measured from 2,448 human skeletal samples from 128 archaeological sites across China, covering a time span over 6,000 years. These isotopic data are indicators of what kinds of plants these humans were predominantly eating, allowing the authors to infer cuisine patterns across time and space. They found that prior to 2000 BC, Chinese staple cuisines were strongly differentiated between northern and southern cultures, while cultures younger than that were dominated by east-west differences.

The authors infer that these patterns of changing cuisines are not driven by traditional narrative of "stages" of changing subsistence modes (hunting, foraging, pastoralism, farming), but are instead driven by multiple factors that favored various hybridized subsistence modes at different times and spaces. They argue that the early north-south divide was driven by environmental differences that favored different plant resources in wetland vs. arid regions, while the later east-west division was driven by differences in cultural practice, with eastern cooking habits of boiling and steaming less suited to adopting new cereals like wheat and barley.

Liu adds: "It appears that cooking is an important force shaping the ancient world. In the context of prehistoric 'food globalisation', the reaction of the local cooking tradition to novel exotic food ingredients is a key driver of their adoption and translocation, sustaining the economic foundation of the ancient world...

The dispersal of crops into new areas was not necessarily accompanied by the spread of the intrinsic cooking technology. Sometimes novel grains could be incorporated into the local cuisines. We can always relate this to our own experience of food and cooking. Southern style homemade baked beans with bacon are folded into English breakfast tradition to be served on toast."

Early big-game hunters of the americas were female, researchers suggest

Challenges age-old 'man-the-hunter' hypothesis

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS

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IMAGE: ILLUSTRATION OF FEMALE HUNTER DEPICTING HUNTERS WHO MAY HAVE APPEARED IN THE ANDES 9,000 YEARS AGO. view more 

CREDIT: MATTHEW VERDOLIVO, UC DAVIS IET ACADEMIC TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

For centuries, historians and scientists mostly agreed that when early human groups sought food, men hunted and women gathered. However, a 9,000-year-old female hunter burial in the Andes Mountains of South America reveals a different story, according to new research conducted at the University of California, Davis.

"An archaeological discovery and analysis of early burial practices overturns the long-held 'man-the-hunter' hypothesis," said Randy Haas, assistant professor of anthropology and the lead author of the study, "Female Hunters of the Early Americas." It was published today (Nov. 4) in Science Advances.

"We believe that these findings are particularly timely in light of contemporary conversations surrounding gendered labor practices and inequality," he added. "Labor practices among recent hunter-gatherer societies are highly gendered, which might lead some to believe that sexist inequalities in things like pay or rank are somehow 'natural.' But it's now clear that sexual division of labor was fundamentally different -- likely more equitable -- in our species' deep hunter-gatherer past."

In 2018, during archaeological excavations at a high-altitude site called Wilamaya Patjxa in what is now Peru, researchers found an early burial that contained a hunting toolkit with projectile points and animal-processing tools. The objects accompanying people in death tend to be those that accompanied them in life, researchers said. It was determined that the hunter was likely female based on findings by the team's osteologist, James Watson of The University of Arizona. Watson's sex estimate was later confirmed by dental protein analysis conducted by UC Davis postdoctoral researcher Tammy Buonasera and Glendon Parker, an adjunct associate professor.

Revealing a broader pattern

The surprising discovery of an early female hunter burial led the team to ask whether she was part of a broader pattern of female hunters or merely a one-off. Looking at published records of late Pleistocene and early Holocene burials throughout North and South America, the researchers identified 429 individuals from 107 sites. Of those, 27 individuals were associated with big-game hunting tools -- 11 were female and 15 were male. The sample was sufficient to "warrant the conclusion that female participation in early big-game hunting was likely nontrivial," researchers said. Moreover, the analysis identified the Wilamaya Patjxa female hunter as the earliest hunter burial in the Americas.

Statistical analysis shows that somewhere between 30 to 50 percent of hunters in these populations were female, the study said. This level of participation stands in stark contrast to recent hunter-gatherers, and even farming and capitalist societies, where hunting is a decidedly male activity with low levels of female participation, certainly under 30 percent, Haas explained.

The study was conducted in collaboration with multiple UC Davis labs. Parker, a forensic expert in the Department of Environmental Toxicology, helped determine sex through a proteomic technique he recently developed. In Professor Jelmer Eerkens' lab, Jenny Chen, an undergraduate researcher at the time of the study, discovered the distinct isotopic signature of meat consumption in the bones, further supporting the conclusion that the Wilamaya Patjxa female was a hunter.

While the research answers an old question about sexual division of labor in human societies, it also raises some new ones. The team now wishes to understand how sexual division of labor and its consequences in different times and places changed among hunter-gatherer populations in the Americas.

Rare ancient child burial reveals 8,000-year-old secrets of the dead

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

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IMAGE: ENTRANCE TO MAKPAN CAVE, ALOR ISLAND, WHERE THE BURIAL WAS DISCOVEREDview more 

CREDIT: IMAGE: DR SHIMONA KEALY, ANU

Archaeologists from The Australian National University (ANU) have discovered a rare child burial dating back 8,000 years on Alor Island, Indonesia.

The one-of-its-kind burial for the region is from the early mid-Holocene and gives important insights into burial practices of the time.

Lead researcher Dr Sofia Samper Carro said the child, aged between four and eight, was laid to rest with some kind of ceremony.

"Ochre pigment was applied to the cheeks and forehead and an ochre-coloured cobble stone was placed under the child's head when they were buried," she said.

"Child burials are very rare and this complete burial is the only one from this time period," Dr Samper Carro said.

"From 3,000 years ago to modern times, we start seeing more child burials and these are very well studied. But, with nothing from the early Holocene period, we just don't know how people of this era treated their dead children. This find will change that."

Notably, the child's arm and leg bones were removed before interment and disposed of elsewhere.

"The lack of long bones is a practice that has been documented in several other burials from a similar time period in Java, Borneo and Flores, but this is the first time we have seen it in a child's burial," Dr Samper Carro said.

"We don't know why long bone removal was practised, but it's likely some aspect of the belief system of the people who lived at this time."

The estimated age of the child based on teeth correspond to a six- to eight-year-old child, but the skeleton is that of a four- to five-year-old child.

"We want to do some further paleo-health research to find out if this smaller skeleton is related to diet or the environment or possibly to being genetically isolated on an island," Dr Samper Carro said.

"My earlier work from Alor showed adult skulls were also small. These hunter-gatherers had a mainly marine diet and there is evidence to suggest protein saturation from a single food source can cause symptoms of mal-nourishment, which affects growth. However, they could have been eating other terrestrial resources such as tubers.

"By comparing other adult burials we have found from the same time period with this child burial in a future project, we hope to build a chronology and general view of burial practices in this region from between 12,000 to 7,000 years ago which at the moment is still scant."

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Neanderthal children grew and were weaned similar to us

Neanderthals introduced solid food in their children's diet at around 5-6 months of age

GOETHE UNIVERSITY FRANKFURT

FRANKFURT/KENT/BOLOGNA/FERRARA. Teeth grow and register information in form of growth lines, akin to tree rings, that can be read through histological techniques. Combining such information with chemical data obtained with a laser-mass spectrometer, in particular strontium concentrations, the scientists were able to show that these Neanderthals introduced solid food in their children's diet at around 5-6 months of age.

Not cultural but physiological

Alessia Nava (University of Kent, UK), co-first author of the work, says: "The beginning of weaning relates to physiology rather than to cultural factors. In modern humans, in fact, the first introduction of solid food occurs at around 6 months of age when the child needs a more energetic food supply, and it is shared by very different cultures and societies. Now, we know that also Neanderthals started to wean their children when modern humans do".

"In particular, compared to other primates" says Federico Lugli (University of Bologna), co-first author of the work "it is highly conceivable that the high energy demand of the growing human brain triggers the early introduction of solid foods in child diet".

Neanderthals are our closest cousins within the human evolutionary tree. However, their pace of growth and early life metabolic constraints are still highly debated within the scientific literature.

Stefano Benazzi (University of Bologna), co-senior author, says: "This work's results imply similar energy demands during early infancy and a close pace of growth between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Taken together, these factors possibly suggest that Neanderthal newborns were of similar weight to modern human neonates, pointing to a likely similar gestational history and early-life ontogeny, and potentially shorter inter-birth interval".

Home, sweet home

Other than their early diet and growth, scientists also collected data on the regional mobility of these Neanderthals using time-resolved strontium isotope analyses.

"They were less mobile than previously suggested by other scholars" says Wolfgang Müller (Goethe University Frankfurt), co-senior author "the strontium isotope signature registered in their teeth indicates in fact that they have spent most of the time close to their home: this reflects a very modern mental template and a likely thoughtful use of local resources".

"Despite the general cooling during the period of interest, Northeastern Italy has almost always been a place rich in food, ecological variability and caves, ultimately explaining survival of Neanderthals in this region till about 45,000 years ago" says Marco Peresani (University of Ferrara), co-senior author and responsible for findings from archaeological excavations at sites of De Nadale and Fumane.

This research adds a new piece in the puzzling pictures of Neanderthal, a human species so close to us but still so enigmatic. Specifically, researchers exclude that the Neanderthal small population size, derived in earlier genetic analyses, was driven by differences in weaning age, and that other biocultural factors led to their demise. This will be further investigated within the framework of the ERC project SUCCESS ('The Earliest Migration of Homo sapiens in Southern Europe - Understanding the biocultural processes that define our uniqueness'), led by Stefano Benazzi at University of Bologna.

Denisovan DNA in the genome of early East Asians

Scientists identify 34,000-year-old Early East Asian of mixed Eurasian descent

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IMAGE: THE SKULLCAP FOUND IN THE SALKHIT VALLEY IN EASTERN MONGOLIA BELONGED TO A WOMAN WHO LIVED 34,000 YEARS AGO. ANALYSES SHOWED: SHE HAD INHERITED ABOUT 25 PERCENT OF HER DNA... view more 

CREDIT: INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY, MONGOLIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

In 2006, miners discovered a hominin skullcap with peculiar morphological features in the Salkhit Valley of the Norovlin county in eastern Mongolia. It was initially referred to as Mongolanthropus and thought to be a Neandertal or even a Homo erectus. The remains of the "Salkhit" individual represent the only Pleistocene hominin fossil found in the country.

Ancient DNA extracted from the skullcap shows that it belonged to a female modern human who lived 34,000 ago and was more related to Asians than to Europeans. Comparisons to the only other early East Asian individual genetically studied to date, a 40,000-year-old male from Tianyuan Cave outside Beijing (China), show that the two individuals are related to each other. However, they differ insofar that a quarter of the ancestry of the Salkhit individual derived from western Eurasians, probably via admixture with ancient Siberians.

Migration and interaction

"This is direct evidence that modern human communities in East Asia were already quite cosmopolitan earlier than 34,000 years ago", says Diyendo Massilani, lead author of the study and researcher at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "This rare specimen shows that migration and interactions among populations across Eurasia happened frequently already some 35,000 years ago".

The researchers used a new method developed at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology to find segments of DNA from extinct hominins in the Salkhit and Tianyuan genomes. They found that the two genomes contain not only Neandertal DNA but also DNA from Denisovans, an elusive Asian relative of Neandertals. "It is fascinating to see that the ancestors of the oldest humans in East Asia from whom we have been able to obtain genetic data had already mixed with Denisovans, an extinct form of hominins that has contributed ancestry to present-day populations in Asia and Oceania", says Byambaa Gunchinsuren, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. "This is direct evidence that Denisovans and modern humans had met and mixed more than 40,000 years ago".

"Interestingly, the Denisovan DNA fragments in these very old East Asians overlap with Denisovan DNA fragments in the genomes of present-day populations in East Asia but not with Denisovan DNA fragments in Oceanians. This supports a model of multiple independent mixture events between Denisovans and modern humans", says Massilani.

New ancient genomes reveal a complex common history of dogs and humans

Newly sequenced whole genomes of ancient dogs reveal a complicated genetic legacy that reflects a long, shared history with humans spanning more than 11,000 years into the past. "The dog is the oldest domesticated animal and has a very long relationship with humans. Therefore, understanding the history of dogs teaches us not just about their history, but also about our history," says lead author, Anders Bergström, in an accompanying video. 

While the antiquity of the inextricable bond between dogs and humans is well recognized, its origin - where and when it began - remains shrouded in history. To date, few whole dog and whole wolf genomes have been available for analysis. As a result, very little is known about the population history of prehistoric dogs and how it relates to humans. Here, Bergström and colleagues greatly expand upon the number of ancient dog genomes and present 27 new whole-genome sequences up to 11,000 years old, from across Eurasia. Analyzing these new data alongside other ancient and modern dog genomes, the authors found that all dogs share a common ancestry distinct from present-day wolves, with limited gene flow from wolves since domestication but substantial dog-to-wolf gene flow. 

While the precise timing and location of domestication remain elusive, the results indicate that at least five major dog lineages had already diversified and spread worldwide by 11,000 years ago, suggesting a considerable genetic history during the Paleolithic. Bergström et al. also compared the ancient dog genomes with commensurable ancient human genome-wide data, revealing aspects of dog population history that likely reflect their migration alongside human groups, as well as instances where population histories do not align. 

Together, the findings underscore dogs' complex common history with humans. Pavios Pavlidis and Mehmet Somel discuss the study further in a related Perspective. Of note to reporters focused on trends, this study builds on recent related work published at Science. In 2016, for example, a study by L.A. Frantz and colleagues revealed a deep split between dogs from Western Eurasia and East Asia. In 2018, a study by M. Ni Leathhlobhair showed the first dogs of North America arrived alongside humans and were not domesticated from North American wolves, but rather, from an ancient breed of Siberian sled dog.

Two studies expand insights into Denisovan ancestry and population history in East Asia

 

In a pair of studies, researchers provide evidence that expands our understanding of modern humans in eastern Asia and their interactions with their most elusive cousins, the Denisovans. While admixture between humans and Denisovans is widely recognized, physical remains of the archaic hominin species are exceedingly rare. What's more, ancient genomic evidence from early modern humans in eastern Asia, which would capture the nature of admixture events between the two species and inform on humans' timing and movement into and across Asia, is lacking. Recently, the fragment of a jawbone, which is suspected to be of Denisovan origin, was recovered from the Baishiya Karst Cave (BKC) located high on the Tibetan Plateau. However, the bone is poorly dated and its Denisovan origin is tenuous. Here, Dongju Zhang and colleagues describe the stratigraphy and chronology of BKC and report on sedimentary DNA analyses, which reveal long-term Denisovan occupation of the cave. Zhang et al. extracted genetic material from cave sediments and identified Denisovan mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) within them. 

The findings indicate that Denisovans occupied the high-altitude cave as early as 100,000 years ago, and possibly as recently as 45,000 years ago, as well as at a point in-between. Such long-term occupation of high-altitude regions suggests that Denisovan admixture could have contributed to the high-altitude adaptations that allowed modern humans to colonize the Tibetan Plateau. 

In another study, Diyendo Massilani and colleagues present the genome recovered from a 34,000-year-old skullcap discovered in the Salkhit Valley in eastern Mongolia. Ancestry modeling of the new genome with regards to other Pleistocene individuals suggests relatively recent Denisovan admixture, perhaps within 1,000 years before the Salkhit individual lived. According to Massilani et al., the Denisovan ancestry identified here, as well as that identified in another 40,000-year-old individual found near Beijing, likely derived from the same admixture events that contributed to present-day mainland Asians. They are, however, distinct from the Denisovan DNA contributions to present-day Australasians. These findings provide a reference point in the early history of modern humans in eastern Eurasia - a region that has lacked genomic evidence.