High-elevation sheep and goat provisioning on the Tibetan Plateau, 3000–2200 BP
High-elevation environments present harsh challenges for the pursuit of agropastoral subsistence strategies and relatively little is known about the mechanisms early communities employed to adapt to such locations successfully. This article presents the sequential carbon and oxygen analysis of archaeological caprine teeth from Bangga ( c . 3000–2200 BP), which is approximately 3750masl on the Tibetan Plateau. Made visible through this method, intra-tooth variation in isotopic composition allows insights into herding strategies that possibly included the provisioning of livestock with groundwater and agricultural fodder and summer grazing in saline or marsh environments. Such intensive provisioning differs markedly from lower-elevation agropastoralism.
Authors
- Xinzhou Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7970-4423)
- Petra Vaiglova (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9468-8138)
- Shargan Wangdue
- Hailun Xu
- Xinyi Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4767-4737)
- Zhengwei Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7989-0899)
- Li Tang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0593-5668)
- Hongliang Lü
- Jixiang Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-6481-5698)
Institutions
- Australian National University (AU)
- Washington University in St. Louis (US)
- Sichuan University (CN)
- Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Antiquity
- Published
- 2024-09-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2024.137
- Citations
- 9
- Primary Topic
- Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 33.47
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Sichuan University