| Located in Xianyang,Shaanxi Province,the Pujiazhai Cemetery has excavated a total of 335 tombs,which are rare in the excavation area to break the relationship and arrange them in an orderly manner,making it a planned cemetery.The cemetery’s existence period encompasses the entire Warring States period and is a valuable material for studying information such as the physical health and ethnic composition of the Qin people in the Guanzhong area.Under the guidance of the research concept and method of human osteoarchaeology,this paper analyzes the demography,paleopathology,craniofacial morphology,ethnic type and other aspects of 123 human bones collected from the Pujiazhai cemetery,with the intention of extracting human bone information to the greatest extent,combined with archaeological and cultural information,and studying the physical characteristics,population status,health status and behavior patterns of ancient residents of Pujiazhai.The sex ratio of individuals unearthed from the Pujiazhai cemetery is 0.77:1.The age of death is highest in the middle age,followed by prime and youth.Higher mortality rates in adolescents and prime-age among women,and lower average life expectancy than men,may be associated with a higher risk of childbearing.From the perspective of the occurrence and performance of dental diseases and bone diseases,the higher caries rate indicates that the livelihood mode of the ancient residents of Pujiazhai is developed agriculture;the male individuals in Pujiazhai show a higher prevalence of dental diseases,combined with the high prevalence of periostitis and degenerative lesions of the vertebrae,and infer that the population faces strong labor intensity and greater survival pressure.The results of ethnic typology and germline studies show that the ancient inhabitants of Pujiazhai are most closely related to the Qin and Zhou ethnic groups under the Bronze-Early Iron Age "Ancient Central Plains Type" racial system,and are also close to the "Ancient North China Type",while the "Ancient Mongolian Plateau Type" population is the most distant. |
