Early childhood nurturing strategies in groups of the Yellow River's middle reaches from the late Yangshao culture (3500 –2800 BCE): A stable isotope perspective

We present dentin incremental and bone collagenδ13C andδ15N isotope data from 17 individuals from two late Yangshao culture archeological sites (Qingtai 青台 and Shuanghuaishu 双槐树). The result showed that all individuals in the sample weaned between 2.5 and 3.8 years old, and other than the fact that females weaned slightly sooner than males in the Qingtai sites, there were no sex variations in dietary trends across life history stages. Th e majority of individuals consistently consumed C4 foods (millets) from early childhood onward. A small number of individuals consumed both C3 and C4 foods at an early age, and the proportion of C3 foods (rice) consumed declined or gradually disappeared with increasing age. In addition to the traditional local foods based on millets, a small number of individual families added rice, a newly accessible resource, in varying proportions for young children's foods, which has directly contributed to the dichotomy within this research group in terms of dietary patterns and child-rearing concepts. The emergence of early childhood nurturing strategies in this study serves as a significant microcosm of the social context in which individual families, private ownership, and civilization progressively took shape in early China.
Source: International Journal of Osteoarchaeology - Category: Science Authors: Tags: RESEARCH ARTICLE Source Type: research