Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Dec 8;13(24):3794.
doi: 10.3390/ani13243794.

Animals in Mortuary Practices of Bronze-Age Pastoral Societies: Caprine Use at the Site of Dunping in Northwestern China

Yue Li  1 , Ruoxin Cheng  1 , Zexian Huang  1 , Xiaolu Mao  2 , Kexin Liu  1 , Qianwen Wang  1 , Furen Hou  3 , Ruilin Mao  4 , Chengrui Zhang  5
Affiliations

Animals in Mortuary Practices of Bronze-Age Pastoral Societies: Caprine Use at the Site of Dunping in Northwestern China

Yue Li et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

The late second and first millennium BC witnessed extensive economic, cultural, and political exchanges between pastoralists and sedentary farming states in East Asia. Decades of archaeological fieldwork across northern China have revealed a large number of burial sites associated with pastoralists during the first millennium BC. These sites were characterized by the inhumation of specific animal parts in burials, predominantly the skulls and hooves of sheep, goats, cattle, and horses. However, the selection preference for these animals and how they were integrated into the mortuary contexts of these pastoral societies remain poorly investigated. Here, we report a preliminary analysis of caprine remains from 70 burials at the site of Dunping in the southern Gansu region of northwestern China, dated to approximately the seventh to fourth centuries BC. Based on an examination of species composition, post-depositional effects, traces of human alteration, skeletal element representation, and age at death, we discussed the selection, slaughtering, and inhumation of caprines concerning the mortuary practices at the site. Comparisons between Dunping and several other contemporaneous burial sites in neighboring regions, specifically in terms of the mortality profiles, further highlight distinct patterns in the selection of caprines for mortuary purposes among pastoral societies. These differences suggest varying degrees of emphasis placed on the economic and social significance attributed to caprines. Our findings provide new insights into the roles that caprines played in both ritual performances and subsistence practices among pastoralists in East Asia during the first millennium BC.

Keywords: China; age at death; mortuary practice; pastoralist; sheep and goat; the first millennium BC; zooarchaeology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The location of Dunping and Majiayuan, two burial sites associated with Xi Rong pastoralists in the first millennium BC in northwestern China. (1) Dunping; (2) Majiayuan; (3) Jiulongshan; (4) Wangdahu; (5) Zhongzhuang; (6) Zhaitouhe. The map was produced in ArcMap 10.7.1. The digital elevation model (DEM) was acquired from the Geospatial Data Cloud site, Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences (http://www.gscloud.cn, accessed on 18 September 2023).
Figure 2
Figure 2
The natural landscape surrounding Dunping (viewing from north to south).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Animal skeletal elements inhumed in burial M26 at Dunping.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The number of caprines (by MNI) interred in the 70 burials at Dunping, dated to the mid-Spring and Autumn to the late Warring States periods (ca. the seventh to third centuries BC).
Figure 5
Figure 5
The correlation between the number of caprines and the total number of animal individuals in each burial at Dunping, based on unary linear regression. Each blue dot stands for one specific burial. The gray band represents 95% confidence interval.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Cut marks on caprine atlases unearthed from burials M107 (left) and M88 (right).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Moderate weathering on caprine remains from burials at Dunping. (1) A sheep skull from burial M83; (2) a goat right mandible from burial M85.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Age structure for 1367 caprine individuals (viewing all caprines as a collective group).
Figure 9
Figure 9
Age structure for 1367 caprine individuals (analyzing sheep, goat, and sheep/goat separately).
Figure 10
Figure 10
Age structure for caprines from Dunping, Wangdahu, Jiulongshan, Zhongzhuang, and Zhaitouhe (viewing all caprine individuals as a group at each site).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Davis S. The Archaeology of Animals. Yale University Press; New Haven, CT, USA: 1987.
    1. Clutton-Brock J. A Natural History of Domesticate Mammals. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK: 1999.
    1. Reitz E.J., Wing E. Zooarchaeology. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK: 2008.
    1. O’Connor T. Animals as Neighbors: The Past and Present of Commensal Animals. Michigan State University Press; East Lansing, MI, USA: 2014.
    1. Gifford-Gonzalez D. An Introduction to Zooarchaeology. Springer International Publishing; Cham, Switzerland: 2018.

LinkOut - more resources