Fig 1.
Map of Xipo and the other Yangshao Culture sites in the middle Yellow River region with published pig stable isotope data or mentioned in this study.
Map prepared by Qi Meng in ArchGIS Pro 2.5.0 using Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 (GMTED2010) from USGS EROS [58].
Fig 2.
Communal buildings, ceramics and pig individuals discovered from the Xipo site.
(A) Photograph of the houses F105 and F104. (B) Plan of the houses F105 and F104 [45]. (C) A set of ceramics buried in M13 in the Xipo cemetery. (D) Two pig individuals recovered at the bottom of the moat [50]. (Photograph courtesy of Xinwei Li).
Fig 3.
Bi-variate scatter plot of the δ13C and δ15N values of animal and human bone collagen from Xipo.
The predictive ranges for C3, mixed and C4 dietary groups are determined by the mean values of C3 plants [19, 21] and C4 millets [67, 68], plus 13C enrichment of 5 ‰ between diet protein and collagen [69, 70]. Human isotopic data are from the Institute of Archaeology CASS and Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology [47]. 95% prediction confidence ellipses are drawn for Sus, Bos, Cervus and humans; other species have too few data points. ‘PIG-1’ and ‘PIG-2’ were recovered from the bottom of the moat. ‘Kiln-1’ was recovered associated with the ceramic kiln. The modelled values for different consumer groups are symbolised by open diamonds and calculated as follows. The pure ‘millet consumer’ is based on published millet mean δ13C values + a stepwise diet-consumer collagen shift of +5 ‰, and mean δ15N value with an estimated trophic step of + 4 ‰. For ‘pig consumer’ we used the Xipo pig mean δ13C + 1 ‰ as the trophic step for δ13C, and mean δ15N + 4 ‰ as the trophic shift. For ‘natural C3 feeder’, we used the mean δ13C and δ15N for wild herbivores and for any wild animal consumers we used the latter + 1 ‰ and + 4 ‰ for δ13C and δ15N respectively.
Table 1.
Descriptive statistics of faunal bone collagen δ13C and δ15N data at Xipo.
Fig 4.
Bi-variate scatter plot of the δ13C and δ15N values of human bone collagen from the Xipo cemetery against their sex and burial class (data from Institute of Archaeology, CASS and Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology [47]).
Classes 1–4 are described above and detailed in S2 Table. Sex of the burial owners is presented as female (F), male (M) and unidentified (U).
Fig 5.
Box plot of the δ15N and δ13C values of human bone collagen from the Xipo cemetery against their burial class, respectively (data from Institute of Archaeology, CASS and Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology [47]).
Classes 1–4 are described above and detailed in S2 Table.
Fig 6.
Bi-variate scatter and error bar plot of the δ13C and δ15N values of pig bone collagen from the Yangshao sites in the middle Yellow River region.
The order of the five sites listed in the legend coincides with their chronological sequence from the oldest to youngest. Error bars represent the mean δ13C and δ15N values ± 1SE for each site, and 95% prediction confidence ellipses are calculated for each site except for Dongying, which has too few data points.