Early millet use in northern China.

It is generally understood that foxtail millet and broomcorn millet were initially domesticated in Northern China where they eventually became the dominant plant food crops. The rarity of older archaeological sites and archaeobotanical work in the region, however, renders both the origins of these plants and their processes of domestication poorly understood. Here we present ancient starch grain assemblages recovered from cultural deposits, including carbonized residues adhering to an early pottery sherd as well as grinding stone tools excavated from the sites of Nanzhuangtou (11.5-11.0 cal kyBP) and Donghulin (11.0-9.5 cal kyBP) in the North China Plain. Our data extend the record of millet use in China by nearly 1,000 y, and the record of foxtail millet in the region by at least two millennia. The patterning of starch residues within the samples allow for the formulation of the hypothesis that foxtail millets were cultivated for an extended period of two millennia, during which this crop plant appears to have been undergoing domestication. Future research in the region will help clarify the processes in place.

Stable isotope dietary analysis of the Tianyuan 1 early modern human.

We report here on the isotopic analysis of the diet of one of the oldest modern humans found in Eurasia, the Tianyuan 1 early modern human dating to approximately 40,000 calendar years ago from Tianyuan Cave (Tianyuandong) in the Zhoukoudian region of China. Carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of the human and associated faunal remains indicate a diet high in animal protein, and the high nitrogen isotope values suggest the consumption of freshwater fish. To confirm this inference, we measured the sulfur isotope values of terrestrial and freshwater animals around the Zhoukoudian area and of the Tianyuan 1 human, which also support the interpretation of a substantial portion of the diet from freshwater fish. This analysis provides the direct evidence for the consumption of aquatic resources by early modern humans in China and has implications for early modern human subsistence and demography.

Nondestructive analysis of alterations of Chinese jade artifacts from Jinsha, Sichuan Province, China.

Jade, which is one of the most characteristic materials constituting Chinese artifacts, signifies cultural differences between ancient Chinese and western civilizations. One of the most important typical characteristics of ancient jade artifacts recovered through archeological excavations is color alterations due to human activity and natural weathering, which has led to an area of intensive research in archeology. "Alteration" refers to chemical component and structural changes in jade artifacts caused by human activity and natural weathering, which is different from the term in geology. In this study, Raman spectroscopy was used to analyze six color alterations on ancient jade artifacts unearthed from the Jinsha Site in Sichuan Province, a region famous for artifacts with colorful alterations. The colorful alterations were observed to originate from corrosion products of bronzeware. The green, black, yellow, blue, purple, and white alterations were due to malachite, tenorite, pyromorphite, azurite, diaboleite, and cassiterite, respectively. Meanwhile, organic matter and hypertoxic arsenolite were first found on ancient jade artifacts.

A method of determining heated ancient nephrite jades in China.

Ancient jade is one of the most significant cultural relics in China. Despite the increasingly important role of heated jades in ancient jade study, there are still few in-depth material studies on heated jades for the time being, which results in limitations on archaeological research and conservation. In order to evaluate the appearance change of nephrite jades, we employ the heating simulation experiment to present these change under different heating temperature ranging from 100 °C to 1300 °C. In this study, a nondestructive identification method proposed is to help determine whether the ancient jades were heated before and what the approximate heating temperature was from 100 °C to 1300 °C though phase transformation, structure change and colour variation with several advanced characterization methods such as the X-ray diffraction (XRD), the thermo-gravimetric analyser (TGA), the ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer (UV-Vis), the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and the scanning electron microscope (SEM). The hierarchy of colour (from ~500 °C) and structure (from ~800 °C) on heated jades in the jade research field were first proposed and discuss here. This method is considered useful and valuable in the study and protection of Chinese ancient jades.