History of health in the Chinese Bronze Age: Results from five seasons of the Mogou bioarchaeology project

Elizabeth BERGER1, Jenna DITTMAR2, Ivy Hui-Yuan YEH3, Ruilin MAO4, Hui WANG5, Guoke CHEN4 1Univers it y of California, Rivers ide; 2Cambridge Univers it y; 3Nanyang Technological University; 4Ga n s u Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology; 5Fudan Univers it y

The work in Project background 2019 team progress The Mogou cemetery, in Lintan County, Province, , was excavated from 2008-2012 by the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the School of Cultural Heritage of Northwest University. The cemetery dates to 1750-1100 BCE, the middle and late Bronze Age material culture horizons of Qijia and Siwa. It is located in the Tao River Valley, in the upper Yellow River drainage, in the western Loess Plateau. The site yielded 1688 graves and over 5000 skeletons.1,2 3,4 Bioarchaeologists from Cambridge University were initially invited to do an inventory and analysis of the human remains. The team began work in 2015, and grew to include scholars and students based in or originating from China, the UK, the US, Canada, and Singapore. The team has visited the collection five times, growing to 8+ participants in the last two seasons. The work has included some post-excavation organizing and curation, as well as basic inventory, and collecting data on paleopathology, metrics, and paleodemography. The hope is to eventually analyze the entire skeletal series, while training Chinese and foreign students in skeletal analysis. Other teams and graduate projects, primarily from within China, have conducted or are in the process of conducting analyses of dietary stable isotopes, human aDNA, and pathogen aDNA.5,6

2018 team hand-pulled noodles

Findings to date References

The bioarchaeology team has collected data on 1. Mao, R., Qiang, Y., Xie, Y., Zhu, Y., Zhou, J., 2009. Gansu Lintan Mogou Qijia wenhua mudi fajue jianbao (Brief report on the excavation of graves at the approximately 760 individuals so far. Preservation is Mogou cemetery, Lintan, Gansu). Wenwu 641, 10–24. generally very good at the site, and the collection 2. Mao, R., Xie, Y., Qian, Y., Wang, Y., 2014. Gansu Lintan Mogou mudi Siwa wenhua muzang 2009 nian fajue jianbao (Brief report on the 2009 excavations of Siwa includes individuals from neonatal to old adult ages at culture graves at the Mogou cemetery, Lintan, Gansu). Wenwu 2014 (6), 24–38. death, making it an ideal collection for assessing Bronze 3. Qian, Y., Zhou, J., Mao, R., Xie, Y., 2009. Gansu Lintan Mogou Qijia wenhua mudi fajue de shouhuo yu yiyi (The main findings and meaning of excavations of Qijia Age social, environmental, and health changes in graves in Mogou, Lintan County, Gansu Province: one of the "2008 top 10 Northwest China. An initial analysis found the archaeological discoveries in China”). Journal of Northwest University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition) 5, 5–10. prevalence of nonspecific indicators of physiological 4. Xie, Y., Qiang, Y., Mao, R., Zhou, J., Zhu, y, 2009. Gansu Lintan xian mogou Qijia stress (41.6% of individuals with CO/PH, 43.1% of wenhua mudi (A Qijia cultural cemetery, Mogou in Lintan County, Gansu Province). M1247: healed trepanation Kaogu 49 (7), 10–17. individuals with dental enamel hypoplasias, 47.1% of M3:R2 likely spinal TB 5. Liu, Xinyi, Emma Lightfoot, Tamsin C. O’Connell, Hui Wang, Shuicheng Li, Liping individuals with subperiosteal new bone formation on Zhou, Yaowu Hu, Giedre Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute, and Martin K. Jones. From necessity to choice: Dietary revolutions in West China in the second millennium BC. the appendicular skeleton) are higher than those at Analyses in progress World Archaeology 46, no. 5 (2014): 661-80. other published sites in the region. The population also 6. Ma, Minmin, Guanghui Dong, Xin Jia, Hui Wang, Yifu Cui, and Fahu Chen. Dietary The Gansu Institute is still seriating the grave goods from shift after 3600 cal yr bp and its influencing factors in Northwestern China: experienced a notably high prevalence of interpersonal Evidence from stable isotopes. Quaternary Science Reviews 145 (8/1/ 2016): 57-70. the large number of excavated graves, so a detailed violence (11.4% of adults), largely perimortem cranial 7. Dittmar, Jenna M., Elizabeth Berger, Xiaoya Zhan, Ruilin Mao, Hui Wang, and Hui- temporal analysis is pending, but it is known which areas Yuan Yeh. Skeletal evidence for violent trauma from the Bronze Age Qijia Culture trauma.7 Eleven adult individuals have presented with (2,300-1,500 Bce), Gansu Province, China. International Journal of Paleopathology of the cemetery come from the early Qijia occupation, healed circular trepanations on the parietal bones, 27 (2019/12/01/ 2019): 66-79. the late Qijia occupation, and the smaller Siwa 8. Dittmar, Jenna, Xiaoya Zhan, Elizabeth Berger, Ruilin Mao, Hui Wang, Yongsheng which appear to be ritualistic rather than medical, given Zhao, and Hui-Yuan Yeh. Ritualistic cranial surgery in the Qijia Culture (2300-1500 occupation. We plan to examine changes through time the consistency in location and size, as well as the lack of Bce), Gansu, China. Acta Anthropologica Sinica 38, no. 3 (2019): 389-97. in measures of health and paleodemography. These can other cranial pathological lesions in these individuals.8 then be correlated with regional settlement data and The cemetery has also yielded individuals with lesions climate change proxies to understand the interaction of suggestive of a range of specific infectious, metabolic, cultural, technological, and biophysical factors in the and congenital illnesses (including tuberculosis, scurvy, human skeleton. Analyses are in progress to examine the DISH, ankylosing spondylitis, and carcinomas), for which relationship between fertility, morbidity, and mortality Acknowledgements radiographic and DNA analyses are ongoing. and environmental conditions; changes in fine-grained Funding to carry out this research was provided by the NAP Start-Up oral health data through time for dietary reconstruction; Grant from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; a Chinese distribution of osteoarthritis within the skeleton and National Social Science Key Project Grant for ‘The Mogou Cemetery Project: Multidisciplinary Research in Gansu Lintan’ (grant number: across the population, as well as metric analysis, to 18ZDA225); Banco Santander through the Santander Mobility Grant reconstruct changes in mechanical stressors and activity; scheme at the University of Cambridge; the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for and specific cases of presumed disability due to Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan; the Esherick-Ye Family congenital conditions and injuries. Specific infectious Foundation; the Association for Asian Studies China and Inner Asia Council; and the American Association of Physical Anthropologists Cobb diseases are also being examined through aDNA analysis Professional Development Grant program. The authors would like to by collaborators at Fudan University. We anticipate a thank all the student volunteers of the Mogou project and the staff at continuing fruitful long-term international collaboration, the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology for their invaluable support and assistance during data collection. M875:R5: perimortem SFT M189:R2: antemortem SFT and the chance to train many future cohorts of students.