Prehistoric Human Migration In Jiahu Relics: Evidence From Strontium Isotope Analysis

Isotope analysis technology could reveal the latent information of archaeological remains effectively, which is an important tool for archaeometry. It is also the frontier of current international archaeology. Ericson (1985) first proposed strontium isotope ratio in human tooth enamel and bone to identify migration and the geologic origins of immigrants. Since then, the method has been thought highly by many archaeologists. Over the last two decades, archaeologists have used this method to investigate migration of some archaeological sites and the results have demonstrated both the possibility and the practicality. Archaeologists abroad have achieved some good results in this field, but in China there is still no report.In this article, we used strontium isotope analysis technology to investigate migration of Jiahu human by analyzing the bones of human and animal. This research is the exploration of this method in practice of Chinese archeology and the further study of Jiahu relics.Jiahu relics is a famous Neolithic site occupied from 9000 BP to 75000BP. From 1983 to 2001, seven excavation campaigns were performed. The richness of bones and teeth of both human beings and animals excavated in Jiahu relics presents us a good opportunity to probe the prehistoric Chinese human mobility during the Neolithic period in central China. In this study, a total of 59 animal and human samples from three cultural layers have been analyzed. The experiment is finished at the Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and Environments, University of Science and Technology of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The results show that strontium concentration in pig enamel is significantly higher than in human enamel. This result is in accord with the relation between strontium concentration and the trophic position of organism. Higher strontium concentration indicates lower trophic levels. There are the highest strontium concentration in compact bones, the middle level in dentine samples, and the lowest in tooth enamel samples in human skeletons. For the human migration, 12 of 32 individuals (37.5%) from Jiahu relics were identified as immigrants according to the criterion determined by the average ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios±2 s. d. of 9 pig enamel samples. It shows that there is a high rate of human migration in Jiahu relics. With respect of time span, it is obviously that the rates of immigrants are increasing from Period I to Period III. Our results also show the close cultural and economic ties between different human groups of Jiahu relics and around relics in central China from 7000 B.C. to 5500 B.C., especially in late period of Jiahu relics.This is the first attempt to apply strontium isotope analysis to Chinese archaeology, which shows a powerful method identifying prehistoric population mobility in Jiahu relics. Of course, there are many shortages in this article which need to be further strudy in the future. Especially, because it is the first time to use this method in Chinese archeology research and the source of samples is single, we only get the migration information about prehistoric human in Jiahu relics and recognize that "there is a high rate of human migration in Jiahu relics". Without any other related information to compare with, we don't know where the immigrants came from and which settlements the human beings in Jiahu contacted with. These problems will be settled after we realize the distribution of strontium isotope in this area and the migration information about the related relics.