By Archaeologists recently revealed that the staple food in Erlitou Relics, a 3,800-year-old relics in central China’s Henan Province, was millet.
According to the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on 34 human skeletons from the relics, researchers found a wealth of information about the food of people living in the area.
They believed that millet was the staple food of the population in Erlitou, which was in line with the food characteristics of people in dryland farming areas. They also found that food varied due to the ranks of graves.
Meanwhile, Chinese and Japanese academics said they could basically confirm that some pots discovered on the site were a kind of container for heating, so they also believed the excavation indirectly proved the existence of ovens at that time.
The Erlitou Relics date back to 3,500 to 3,800 years ago in ancient China’s late Xia or early Shang (1600-1046 B.C.) dynasties.
Discovered in 1959 in Luoyang by historian Xu Xusheng, Erlitou was identified by Chinese archaeologists as the relics of the capital city of the middle and late Xia Dynasty.
Over the past 60 years, archaeologists have excavated over 10,000 items out of a total area of 40,000 square meters from the site.
