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Ancient plant use and palaeoenvironmental analysis at the Gumugou Cemetery, Xinjiang, China: implication from desiccated plant remains

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Abstract

The Gumugou Cemetery is located in the Lop Nor region of the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, northwest China. Radiocarbon dating found the site to be 3800 years BP. Due to the exceptionally arid conditions, most of the plant remains are well-preserved. Morphological and anatomical studies suggest that the plant remains consist of: Triticum cf. aestivum, Phragmites australis, Populus euphratica, Ephedra sp., as well as Typha sp. These ancient plants imply that the indigenous people lived in oases surrounded by extensive desert. Caryopses of T. cf. aestivum might have been used as funeral objects of the mummies as well as a subsidiary food source of the inhabitants, while the wild plants were used in other aspects of daily life.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr Benjamin Fuller for his kind help of revising this paper. This study was supported by the National Key Basic Research Program of China (2014CB954201), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41102114 and 41172164). Furthermore, the authors are grateful to the European Research Council project, Food Globalization in Prehistory (FOGLIP) for financial support for radiocarbon dating and to the members of FOGLIP for useful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Human Evolution, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, China

    Guilin Zhang & Yimin Yang

  2. Department of Scientific History and Archaeometry, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Guilin Zhang, Yimin Yang & Hongen Jiang

  3. Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, 100710, China

    Shuzhi Wang

  4. Institute of Palaeontology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090, Vienna, Austria

    David K. Ferguson

  5. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Xinyi Liu

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  1. Guilin Zhang
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  2. Shuzhi Wang
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  3. David K. Ferguson
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  4. Yimin Yang
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Correspondence to Hongen Jiang.

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Zhang, G., Wang, S., Ferguson, D.K. et al. Ancient plant use and palaeoenvironmental analysis at the Gumugou Cemetery, Xinjiang, China: implication from desiccated plant remains. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 9, 145–152 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-015-0246-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-015-0246-3

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