A tale of two cities: isotopic evidence highlights two distinct millet-based subsistence strategies behind early urban China’s Shimao and Erlitou sites

Abstract

The relationship between management of agricultural / agropastoral resources and the emergence of urbanism in China remains poorly understood. We firstly integrate and contrast new and existing stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data (n = 650) from human, livestock and crop remains at Shimao and Erlitou, two major urban sites in northern China dating from the late Neolithic to early Bronze Age. We identify and discuss temporal and regional differences in subsistence management at both early urbanized regions alongside a narrative of crop-regime shifts and increasing site complexity. We illustrate how two patterns of subsistence management, strongly influenced by agro-pastoral interactions from Eurasian steppe circa. 4500 to 3700/3500 cal. yr BP resulted in dynamic trajectories of intensive and/or extensive herd and crop management and their respective long-term implications.