






































Bioarchaeology International


Bioarchaeology International
Volume 8, Numbers 1–2: 63–84
DOI: 10.5744/bi.2022.0030

© 2024 University of Florida Press

Gender across Generations:  
Childhood Food Practices as  
Socialization Processes in Ancient China
Melanie J. Miller,a,b,c* Siân E. Halcrow,a Bowen Yang,d Yu Dong,d  
Kate Pechenkina,e and Wenquan Fanf

aDepartment of Anatomy, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
bArchaeological Research Facility, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
cNorthern California Institute for Research and Education, San Francisco, CA, USA
dInstitute of Cultural Heritage, Shandong University, Qingdao, China
eDepartment of Anthropology, Queens College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
fHenan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology, Zhengzhou, China
*Correspondence to: Melanie J. Miller, Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, 270 Great King Street, 
Dunedin 9016, New Zealand

E-mail: millermj@berkeley.edu

ABSTRACT Food is a biological imperative as well as a core material that humans use in socializing ourselves, and the 
things we choose to consume are infused with cultural meanings. Children, especially very young children, have 
little agency in subsistence decisions, and therefore the foods that caretakers feed to children may hold profound 
information about cultural value systems and reveal social processes and idealized identities. Here we focus on 
relationships between food, sex, and gender in early life by studying the childhood diets of 57 Eastern Zhou pe-
riod individuals from the Central Plains region of China (771– 221 BCE). Using stable isotope analysis of incre-
mental dentin samples, we create detailed dietary histories of childhood years. From very early in life, the average 
δ15N value for boys is notably higher than the average for girls, indicating slightly more protein consumption for 
most males, and this continues across childhood. Foods such as meat and millet were highly valued in ancient 
China and, whether intentional or not, become associated with aspects of sex and gender through preferential 
feeding to male children. These isotopic data reveal a key aspect of the socializing processes of children across 
generational interactions with caretakers, with food communicating information about social worth and gen-
der, which becomes embodied in the developing child.

Keywords: stable isotope; childhood; China

 摘要：食物是生物生存必需品，也是人类社会化过程中的的重要材料，人们选择消费的食物常常富含文化意
义。儿童，特别是年幼的儿童，不具备自主选择食物的能力，照顾者给儿童的饮食可能包含大量关于社会文
化体系的信息，因此可以揭示当时的社会进程和理想化的身份。在本文中，我们通过研究东周时期（公元前
771-221年）中国中原地区57名儿童的饮食，以探索早期饮食与生物性别、社会性别之间的关系。通过对序列
采样的牙本质样本进行稳定同位素分析，我们重建了详细的儿童期饮食史。结果表明，从幼儿时期开始，男
孩饮食的δ15N平均值就明显高于女孩，这表明大多数男孩的饮食中消耗了更多动物蛋白，这种饮食习惯贯
穿于整个童年时期。在中国古代，肉类和粟黍等食物被高度重视，无论是有意还是无意，这些食物被更多的
喂给男性子嗣从而变得与性别相关。稳定同位素数据揭示了儿童与照顾者之间跨代互动的社会化过程，饮
食表达了当时的社会价值和社会性别，并通过发育中的儿童体现出来。

Keywords: 稳定同位素; 童年; 中国

Received 29 October 2022
Revised 05 April 2023
Accepted 10 May 2023



Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China64

Diet and nutrition are key components to health expe-
riences over the lifetime and have significant effects on 
growth and development during early life and contin-
ued effects into adulthood (Gamble and Bentley 2022; 
Gluckman et  al. 2007; Lewis 2018). Beginning from 
birth, nutritious and safe food is critical for all organ-
isms (including liquids/drinks as “food”). However, 
humans approach food not only as a biological imper-
ative but also as a medium that conveys sociocultural 
information (Appadurai 1981). The choices caretakers 
make about the foods given to infants and children are 
implicitly biocultural as they have significant biological 
and social meanings and effects. For example, infant 
feeding strategies (milk feeding vs. formula feeding, 
weaning timing, complementary food choices, etc.) are 
all culturally mediated practices that can have biologi-
cal consequences for the developing infant (Miller 
2018; Palmquist 2017). Consequently, anthropologists 

and health scientists have a long- standing interest in 
studying human diets and nutrition, both to improve 
health conditions in living populations as well as to un-
derstand the cultural values we attach to cuisines. Here 
we utilize stable isotope analysis of tooth dentin and 
bone collagen samples to study diets of ancient Eastern 
Zhou individuals from the Central Plains of China 
(Fig. 1) over their lifetimes, with particular attention to 
childhood diets and the roles specific foods may have 
played in gendering individuals in early life.

Food and Gender

Food is a primary substance used in the socialization 
and enculturation of individuals and communities, 
as food practices are intertwined with culturally spe-
cific understandings of age, gender, wealth, religion, 

Figure 1. Maps showing locations of Eastern Zhou archeological sites. Lower right map shows the archaeological sites of Changxinyuan, Gaolou, 
Tiancheng, and Xiyasi (part of the ancient Zhenghan city). Lower left map shows relative location of archaeological site Guomianyichang, 
approximately 26 km north of Xinzheng/ancient Zhenghan city sites.



Miller et al. 65

politics, and more (Appadurai 1981; Douglas 2008; 
Hastorf 2017; Meigs 1987; Sterckx 2005, 2011; Weisman-
tel 1988). Cultural identities are inextricably tied to 
foodways; indeed, a common way communities iden-
tify “us versus them” is through comparisons of subsis-
tence and cuisine (Appadurai 1981; Douglas 1984; 
Franklin 2001; Gaytán 2008; Harris 1985; Hesse 1990). 
Food practices and beliefs about what is or is not edi-
ble, who consumes particular foods (when, how much, 
how often, in what context), and other values that foods 
are imbued with (such as what qualifies as “healthful” 
foods) are all learned behaviors that are routinely prac-
ticed and embedded in our social interactions (Bour-
dieu 1977; Lévi- Strauss 1966; Meigs 1987; Rozin et  al. 
1997; Sterckx 2011). Caretaker/familial relationships are 
foundational to that socialization process via food; 
caretakers are responsible for ensuring adequate food 
intake for the young, and what qualifies as adequate/
proper meals for young people is culturally defined. 
From how infants are fed (breastfeeding, animal- milk 
feeding, formula feeding, etc.), to who makes the 
choices about weaning foods and what those are (and 
why), to later childhood diets and beyond, these are all 
small acts that normalize and idealize particular ways 
of being and convey significant amounts of social- 
cultural knowledge through their action and embodi-
ment (Bourdieu 1977; Butler 1999; Farnell 2000; Mauss 
1973; Meigs 1987; Mennell 1985; Taylor 1999).

Within the field of bioarchaeology, “sex” is often a 
key variable in research design and is usually presented 
as a binary expression (male/female) of biological fac-
tors (such as chromosomes, genes, gonads, hormones, 
etc.), with skeletal morphology being the primary lens 
of analysis, and this is not without problems or critique 
of assigning a binary gender construction to estimated 
biological sex (Agarwal and Wesp 2017; Fausto- Sterling 
1993, 2012; Geller 2017; Richardson 2013; Sofaer 2006; 
Zuckerman and Crandall 2019; Zuckerman et al. 2023). 
Bioarchaeologists typically disambiguate “sex” from 
“gender” through the framework of viewing gender as 
a cultural construction; gender encapsulates socialized 
(learned) ways of being, embodied and performed 
(how to behave, speak, carry one’s self, emote, etc.), 
which includes culturally specific understandings of 
characteristics and behaviors that make one socially 
appropriate and identifiable according to shared un-
derstandings of gender norms (Butler 1999; Geller 
2017). One’s gender may or may not correspond to no-
tions of an individual’s sex, though historians have 
noted that a sex- gender conflation existed in ancient 
China (Hinsch 2013, 2018; Nyitray 2021).

Both external and internal conditions shape under-
standings of gender, and these are historically contin-
gent and change over time and space (Bourdieu 1977; 
Butler 1999; Farnell 2000; Taylor 1999). Gender/ 
gendering (gender expression, gendered embodiment) 

is a continuous process of both external (communal/ 
societal/institutional) as well as internal (personal/ 
psychological) interpretation and performance of nor-
mative behaviors, expectations, beliefs, actions, and so 
on, such that society genders us and we are gendering 
ourselves through countless thoughts and acts (Butler 
1999; Joyce 2000). Scholars have noted the insidious 
nature of gendering processes, which are often implicit, 
are nondiscursive, and normalize particular ways of 
being in the world as completely “natural,” which is 
achieved through countless choices and acts, usually 
without reflexive critical thought (Bourdieu 1977; Bou-
veresse 1999; Butler 1999; Farnell 2000; Mauss 1973). 
Gender in particular is communicated through em-
bodied performance (hexis; Bourdieu 1977), which 
makes studying these parts of humanity particularly 
challenging for scholars of the past. However, there are 
material things that are central to our socialization, 
and in this case, we investigate food as a primary me-
dium for the communication of cultural values (see 
Geller 2017 on gender and the materially discursive).

Food is embodied material culture, “that is, a special 
kind of material culture created specifically for imme-
diate destruction, but destruction through the trans-
formative process of ingestion into the human body . . .  
hence, it has an unusually close relationship to the per-
son and to both the inculcation and the symbolization 
of concepts of identity” (Dietler 2007:222). While nu-
merous materials reveal and communicate aspects of 
personal and shared identities and ideologies (clothing, 
for example), food is one of the few things humans im-
bibe and whose components, both chemical elements 
and symbolic meanings, can become a part of the per-
son. People have long looked to food, drinks, and other 
substances we consume as constructive, neutral, or de-
structive elements in creating particular types of peo-
ple (healthy, sickly, strong, weak, virtuous, corrupt, 
moral, pious, deviant, etc.), and this was certainly part 
of belief systems in ancient China (Sterckx 2011). These 
food valuations are learned and passed across genera-
tions, which is not to say they remain static but in fact 
can be places where culture is demonstrably changing 
over time and can be studied through material traces in 
the archaeological record (Dietler and Hayden 2001; 
Hastorf 2017). Food can symbolize normative, aspira-
tional, and inimical values, which in turn can be incor-
porated and embodied by the consumer.

Childhood is a critical period where one is figuring 
out how to be in the world (Lancy et  al. 2010), and 
learning gendered behavior is certainly a large part of 
this social developmental process (Montgomery 2010). 
It is through inter-  and intragenerational interactions 
that particular ways of being are normalized over time. 
This socializing/learning of gender norms occurs both 
externally (through dialogue, through material cul-
ture) but also internally (psychologically/personally), 



Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China66

recursively functioning as “boying the boy and girling 
the girl” (Butler 1999; Joyce 2000). It is these processes 
that begin in life as external that individuals then take 
up and carry on, or modify or reject over the course of 
their lifetime (Butler 1999). Food can act as a medium 
imbued with values related to gender, where cultural 
ideas about what a particular gender eats (or should 
eat) is passed on, re- enacted over time, normalized, 
and embodied. Children often lack the agency of choice 
when it comes to subsistence, with families typically 
exerting this power over young individuals (Lancy 
2012). Therefore, through these acts of caretakers 
choosing food for infants and children, they are also 
implicitly communicating ideals and values through 
meals, which in turn create the literal body of the child.

One of the earliest adult interventions in childhood 
feeding is the process of weaning a child off of (breast) 
milk using supplementary foods. This process is highly 
variable in its timing and tempo (Macadam and Dett-
wyler 1995; Tomori et al. 2018). The weaning process 
has long interested anthropologists and health scien-
tists due to the complex biosocial relationship formed 
between a mother/allomother and an infant, as well as 
the potential short-  and long- term consequences for 
the health of the pair, particularly the developing child 
(Lewis 2007; Macadam and Dettwyler 1995; Tomori 
et al. 2018; Tomori et al. 2022). Beliefs and behaviors 
about when to begin weaning a child, how long that 
process should last, what supplementary foods should 
be given to an infant, or what foods should be actively 
avoided are primarily culturally dictated practices. Al-
though infants typically need dietary supplementation 
beginning around age six months as metabolic needs 
outpace milk’s nutritional content, the addition of new 
foods into a child’s diet around this period are primar-
ily cultural/personal choices (Dettwyler 1987; Fouts 
2004; Halcrow et  al. 2018; Macadam and Dettwyler 
1995). It is assumed that over the course of human his-
tory, mothers (embedded in their larger social spheres) 
have primarily been making these decisions about 
when to wean their baby and the appropriate ways to 
do so. The length of time a child is weaned has often 
been related to ideas of parental investment, and the 
foods that children begin eating as they transition to a 
nonmilk diet may be especially revealing about deeply 
held cultural valuations ascribed to specific foodstuffs.

While much of the anthropological work to under-
stand human food practices in relation to culture and 
social identities is on living populations, we have his-
torical and archaeological evidence for gendered diets 
in the past, including revelations made through the 
use of stable isotope analysis (Miller 2016; Miller et al. 
2018; Reitsema and Vercellotti 2012; Soncin et al. 2021; 
White 2005). Our bodies reflect the chemistry of  
the foods we eat and the water we drink, with some 

caveats (Lee- Thorp 2008). Stable isotope analysis of 
bodily tissues is one technique bioarchaeologists fre-
quently use for dietary reconstructions and can inform 
us of the plants and animals consumed during specific 
periods of life, depending on the tissue studied (Miller 
et al. 2018; Sealy et al. 1995). Carbon stable isotope data 
(δ13C) primarily tell us about the plant foods people ate 
as well as animal sources (DeNiro and Epstein 1978; 
Schoeninger and DeNiro 1982). Carbon isotope data 
are particularly useful in places where diets can in-
clude both C3 and C4 plants, such as central China, 
where the traditional domesticated crop millet is a C4 
plant, while primary C3 crops include rice, wheat, soy, 
and more (Farquhar et al. 1989). Nitrogen stable iso-
tope data (δ15N) can be used to understand food webs 
and trophic positions, with increasing nitrogen values 
as one rises through the food chain (i.e., δ15N values 
can aid in distinguishing vegans from carnivores) (De-
Niro and Epstein 1981; Minagawa and Wada 1984).

Analyzing different tissues from the same individ-
ual (i.e., bone and tooth) allows us to study dietary 
patterns from different periods of life, as well as differ-
ent time scales of dietary averaging (Beaumont et al. 
2018; Reynard and Tuross 2015; Tsutaya and Yoneda 
2015). Bone is constantly remodeled over the lifetime 
while teeth are formed during youth and do not re-
model. We can now subsample the dentin of a single 
tooth using an incremental/serial approach to create a 
detailed chronology of isotopic signatures across the 
developmental window of that tooth (Burt and Garvie- 
Lok 2013; Eerkens et al. 2011). For this study, targeted 
sampling of a permanent first molar provides dietary 
evidence spanning from around birth to 10 years of age, 
while sampling a permanent canine informs us of di-
etary patterns roughly from the ages of one to 14 years 
(AlQahtani et al. 2010; Hillson 2005). In contrast, bone 
chemistry reflects the average diet from at least the fi-
nal decade before death (Ambrose and Norr 1993; Fahy 
et al. 2017). By studying a bone and tooth sample from 
individuals who died as adults, we can examine dietary 
patterns over the life course in conjunction with vari-
ous biosocial variables such as sex and age (Miller 
et al. 2018). Therefore, we approach the body as a ma-
terial record of dietary practices during life and use the 
chemical signatures locked in bodily tissues to try and 
understand the biosocial roles that foods played in an-
imating that life (Sofaer 2006; White 2005).

Life in Eastern Zhou Period China

The Eastern Zhou period (Spring and Autumn period 
771– 476 BCE and Warring States period 475– 221 BCE) 
is a pivotal era of Chinese history as numerous po-
litical, technological, and ideological changes were 



Miller et al. 67

under way. This is a time of political instability, with 
many states frequently in conflict and at war, termi-
nating with the final Zhou ruler deposed and the uni-
fication of early China by Qin Shihuang (Feng 2013; 
Liu and Chen 2012; von Falkenhausen 2006). Philos-
ophers such as Confucius, Mencius, and Mozi lived 
during the Eastern Zhou period, and their ideologies 
were recorded and canonized over time, cementing 
cultural philosophies, including idealized behaviors 
and normative social roles, which in turn were being 
shaped in response to earlier Chinese history, as well 
as becoming archetypes for future generations to 
model/modify (Feng 2013; Hinsch 2003; Liu and Chen 
2012; Sterckx 2005; von Falkenhausen 2006). Texts that 
relate to this period of Chinese history are themselves 
revised products. For example, many of the writings 
attributed to Confucius were assembled by disciples in 
the Han Dynasty period (206 BCE– 220 CE). Conse-
quently, these texts reflect later compilers selecting 
particular rules, lessons, and fables that uphold the 
highest standards of moral order to inspire people to 
live up to, as well as reflecting aspects of class, gender, 
clan, and so on (Hinsch 2013). By the Han Dynasty pe-
riod, society was patriarchal, and these texts are pri-
marily devoted to the experiences of men, and elite 
men at that, with far fewer passages dedicated to wom-
en’s experiences, which in and of itself suggests a lower 
value afforded to women and their diminished power 
within these societies (Hinsch 2013, 2018).

Gender roles appear to be increasingly codified 
during this time, with most political and public- facing 
power concentrated in the hands of men, including 
control of wealth, land, inheritance, and so on. In con-
trast, women’s roles emphasized the family and domes-
tic sphere, with great weight placed upon women for 
producing children, particularly a male heir (Hinsch 
2013, 2018; Nyitray 2021). The well- known phrase “men 
plow, women weave” (nangeng nüzhi) is thought to have 
its roots in even earlier times in China and articulates a 
gendered division of labor while also symbolizing the 
larger culturally sanctioned gendered separations that 
existed along many axes of daily life (Hinsch 2013). His-
torians have argued that these bifurcations between 
men and women’s roles evolved over time and that ear-
lier generations (such as the Shang and Western Zhou 
Dynasties) laid the foundation for an ideological shift to 
occur during the Eastern Zhou period, one that created 
a more stark contrast in idealized gender relations and 
whose philosophies related male– female duality of per-
ceived biological sex to individual and familial morality 
and virtue, as well as good governance and political sta-
bility (Hinsch 2013, 2018).

While women are underrepresented in ancient texts, 
the passages that do relate to women often focus on  
the domestic sphere and filial piety, as Hinsch (2013) 

summarizes: “(a) woman should ideally hide herself 
within the recesses of the home, sacrifice her desires so 
she could cater to her husband and his kin, and obey 
her spouse and senior in- laws. Conversely, a man was 
free to leave the home and enter the wider world, pur-
sue personal interests apart from his family, and exer-
cise authority over his wife. Separation of the sexes had 
become a justification for wide- ranging masculine 
privilege” (Hinsch 2013:25). Wealthy families had the 
economic means to segregate parts of their daily lives 
and socialize primarily in homosocial spheres (men 
out in the world with men, women cloistered at home 
with other women and children), but this was certainly 
not the case for most common people whose daily in-
teractions would have likely been structured but po-
tentially less gender- divided out of practical necessity 
(Hinsch 2013). Though much more is known about life 
during these times for the ruling and elite classes, cer-
tain aspects of gender roles, particularly related to the 
roles of girls as daughters, and women as wives and 
mothers responsible for producing and caring for chil-
dren, were likely shared across many social dimen-
sions, including class and clan groups (Hinsch 2018).

The Liji, also known as the Book of Rites, provides 
further insights into the Eastern Zhou sex– gender bi-
nary, which clearly began in childhood with children 
treated differently based on their perceived sex (exter-
nal genitalia and associated reproductive capabilities) 
and gendered accordingly:

子能食食，教以右手。能言，男唯女俞。男鞶革，女
鞶絲. When the child was able to take their own 
food, they were taught to use the right hand. 
When they were able to speak, a boy (was taught 
to) respond with respect; a girl, submissively and 
gentle. The former was fitted with a handbag of 
leather; the latter, with one of silk. 六年教之數與
方名。七年男女不同席，不共食。八年出入門戶及即
席飲食，必後長者，始教之讓。九年教之數日。 At 
six years, they were taught the numbers and the 
names of the cardinal points; at the age of seven, 
boys and girls did not occupy the same mat nor 
eat together; at eight, when going out or coming 
in at a gate or door, and going to their mats to eat 
and drink, they were required to follow their el-
ders: the teaching of yielding to others now be-
gun; at nine, they were taught how to number the 
days. 十年出就外傅，居宿於外，學書計，衣不帛襦
褲，禮帥初，朝夕學幼儀，請肄簡諒。At ten, (the 
boy) went to a master outside, and stayed with 
him (even) over the night. He learned the classi-
cal books and calculation; he did not wear his 
jacket or trousers of silk; in the courteous man-
ners he followed his early lessons; morning and 
evening he followed the etiquette of respecting 



Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China68

the elders; he would ask to be exercised in (read-
ing) the tablets, and learn to be honest. 女子十年
不出，姆教婉娩聽從，執麻枲，治絲繭，織紝組紃，
學女事以共衣服，觀於祭祀，納酒漿、籩豆、菹醢，
禮相助奠。A girl at the age of ten ceased to go out 
(from the women’s apartments). Her governess 
taught her the arts of pleasing speech and man-
ners, to be docile and obedient, to handle the flax 
fibers, to deal with the cocoons, to weave silks 
and to learn (all) woman’s work, how to furnish 
garments, to watch the sacrifices, to supply the li-
quors and sauces, to fill the various stands and 
dishes with pickles and brine, and to assist in set-
ting forth the appurtenances for the ceremonies. 
十有五年而笄，二十而嫁；有故，二十三年而嫁。聘
則為妻，奔則為妾。凡女拜尚右手。At fifteen, she 
assumed the hair- pin; at twenty, she was married, 
or, if there were occasion (for the delay), at 
twenty- three. If there were the betrothal rites, she 
became a wife; and if she went without these, a 
concubine. In all salutations of females, the up-
per place was given to the right hand. (Liji, Nei 
Ze, 76– 82; translation by authors)

Here we see a clear sex– gender binary from a young 
age with a number of specific ages called out as 
chronological markers of particular life events de-
pending on the gender of the individual, and clear 
demarcation of gendered work begins from a young 
age. All of this points to deeply embedded notions of 
a gender binary and an implicit hierarchy where males 
are given greater power in the public domain, while fe-
male power is limited to the domestic sphere (Hinsch 
2013, 2018).

We acknowledge that the layering and intersections 
of various experiential variables (age, gender, social 
status, ethnicity, etc.) means that while we may focus 
on one of these, in this case gender, we recognize these 
axes rarely operate independently and singularly; 
therefore, our interpretations may be clouded by in-
dividual factors we cannot comprehend, qualify, or 
quantify at this time. Recently, feminist and queer cri-
tiques of understandings of gender in China’s history 
have pushed researchers not only to expand studies to 
include women in the past but also to study masculin-
ity, as well as to view gender beyond a dichotomous 
perspective (Chiang 2012; Hinsch 2013, 2018; Louie 
2002; Nyitray 2021). It is certain that different ideas 
and norms for gendered behavior existed for individ-
uals of different social classes, ethnic groups, and so 
on in ancient China (Hinsch 2013, 2018; Ko 2007; Ny-
itray 2021). This research starts to touch upon those 
intersections of gender with other experiential identi-
ties through the presentation of selective individual 
case studies.

Evidence of Eastern Zhou Cuisines

Archaeological and historical evidence indicate the 
importance of particular plants and animals in the di-
ets of Eastern Zhou peoples (Dong et  al. 2017; Lee 
et al. 2007). Millet is the locally domesticated crop and 
dominated diets for millennia (Cohen 2011; Lee et al. 
2007; Liu et al. 2009; Zhao 2011), while grains such as 
rice (domesticated from the south) and wheat (intro-
duced from the west) appear less frequently in archae-
ological assemblages in this region during this time 
(Chen 2016; Deng et al. 2019; Fuller et al. 2009; Guo 
and Jin 2019; Jiang and Liu 2006; Zhou and Garvie- 
Lok 2015). Historical texts reference specific foods, and 
the contexts of these references can provide hints as 
to the valuation and cultural meanings ascribed to 
some of these foodstuffs. For example, in many his-
torical texts such as the Analects of Confucius, the Liji, 
and the Huang Di Nei Jing, millet is repeatedly men-
tioned and is qualified as the traditional, highly de-
sired grain. In contrast, wheat and soybean were 
considered “coarse” foods and therefore less valued, 
both symbolically as well as monetarily, with higher 
prices recorded for millet during the later Han Dy-
nasty. Soybean and wheat were also known as reliable 
foodstuffs for feeding the poor and were even used to 
feed soldiers during military campaigns (Yu 2016). 
Grains such as millet, rice, and wheat were also turned 
into alcoholic beverages, and these wines are often 
mentioned in historical texts in relation to elite men’s 
sociopolitical interactions, as well as rituals honoring 
ancestors (Chang 1977; Liu and Reid 2020; Liu et al. 
2020; Sterckx 2005, 2011; Yu 2016). Importantly, mil-
let is isotopically distinct from most other plants that 
humans consume because it is a C4 plant, with δ13C 
values ranging from − 14‰ to − 8‰. In contrast, C3 
plants, such as rice, wheat, barley, and soybeans, have 
δ13C values around − 23‰ (An et al. 2015; DeNiro and 
Epstein 1978; Farquhar et al. 1989; Kohn 2010; O’Leary 
1988; Wang et al. 2018).

Meat was also given high value both economically 
and socially, particularly holding significant power for 
honoring ancestors and performing rites (see Knapp 
2019; Liji Wang Zhi 31; Sterckx 2019). Meat was also 
thought to have been infrequently consumed by the 
majority of people, particularly beef and lamb, which 
were highly prized and very expensive. Rather, these 
were meats of the upper classes, while pork and 
chicken, in particular, were more likely the occasional 
meat protein sources for commoners and poorer folks 
(Chang 1977; Yu 2016). Nitrogen isotope values can 
provide information about protein consumption, with 
stepwise enrichment of +3– 5‰ in δ15N as one rises 
through the food chain (DeNiro and Schoeninger 
1983; Minagawa and Wada 1984; Schoeninger and 



Miller et al. 69

DeNiro 1984). Isotopic analysis of a small number of 
zooarchaeological samples (pig, dog, cattle, sheep) 
from two Eastern Zhou sites in ancient Zhenghan city 
(Changxinyuan and Tianli) indicate animals raised 
on diverse resources (Dong et  al. 2017; Miller et  al. 
2020). The δ13C values ranged from − 18.6‰ to − 6.8‰, 
and δ15N values ranging from 2.4‰ to 10.7‰. Recent 
bio archae ol o gi cal research using stable isotope anal-
ysis has documented dietary differences between 
nobles and commoners, with nobles/high- status indi-
viduals having the highest nitrogen values, indicat-
ing greater meat consumption and often consuming 
greater amounts of millet (or rice), which were also 
highly valued (Wei et al. 2021; Zhou 2020; Zhou et al. 
2021).

Previous bio archae ol o gi cal research on life for peo-
ple living during the Eastern Zhou period has shown 
links between diet, sex, gender, and increasing social 
inequalities (Dong et al. 2017; Miller et al. 2020). Spe-
cifically, bio archae ol o gi cal evidence has shown dietary 
differences between males and females during adult-
hood, with males consuming more of the traditional 
and highly valued grain of millet, as well as more meat, 
while females consumed more of the relatively newly 
introduced cereals, wheat and soy (Dong et al. 2017; 
Miller et al. 2020). A recent study of 23 individuals 
from ancient urban Zhenghan city (Xiyasi, 西亚斯, 
and Chanxingyuan, 畅馨苑; Fig. 1) using incremental 
dentin samples suggested that aspects of these dietary 
patterns began during childhood, with boys consum-
ing more C4 foods (millets) than girls, starting in 
youth, but overall, individuals consumed more C3 
foods (wheat, soy, rice, etc.) during childhood in com-
parison to their later adulthood diets (Miller et  al. 
2020).

Here we focus on the stable isotopic data from 34 
newly studied Eastern Zhou individuals in addition to 
drawing on the previously published data from 23 
other urban Zhenghan Eastern Zhou people (Miller 
et al. 2020) in order to illuminate childhood dietary 
patterns with particular attention to understanding 
dynamic relationships between food, sex, and gender. 
These dietary data from Eastern Zhou period individ-
uals are from three newly studied archaeological sites 
from Henan Province on the Central Plains of China 
(Fig. 1): Gaolou (郜楼), Tiancheng (天成), and Guo-
mianyichang (国棉一厂). Two of the sites, Tiancheng 
and Gaolou, are from ancient urban Zhenghan city, 
located under present- day Xinzheng. The third site, 
Guomianyichang, is located about 26 km to the north 
of ancient Zhenghan city, in the modern Longhu town, 
near Zhengzhou. Guomianyichang is located near the 
ancient city of Huayang, which was a military outpost, 
though the relationship between those two sites is still 
unclear. Archaeological research on these sites and 

associated excavated materials is ongoing (see Supple-
mental Information for more information).

Materials and Methods

Skeletal samples (both a tooth and a bone sample) 
from 34 Eastern Zhou period individuals from three 
archaeological sites (Gaolou, Tiancheng, and Guo-
mianyichang) were analyzed using isotopic methods. 
We studied nine individuals from Gaolou (five females, 
four males) and nine individuals from Tiancheng (five 
females, four males). Due to preservation issues, we 
are missing bone collagen isotopic data for three indi-
viduals from Tiancheng. From Guomianyichang, 16 
individuals were studied (six females, seven males, 
three unknown skeletal sex). Ongoing analyses of 
archaeological materials, including further human 
osteological analyses, prevent complete assessment of 
the nature of these cemeteries. No radiocarbon dates 
have been analyzed from these locales, but artifacts 
and stratigraphy indicate all burials presented here 
are from the Eastern Zhou era, and in some cases, 
this can be refined further to either the Spring and 
Autumn period or the Warring States period (see 
Supplemental Information). Some burials are be-
lieved to have been disturbed and looted in the past 
and therefore we are cautious in the use of mortuary 
treatment and associated grave goods, as these may 
not accurately reflect the original burial treatment 
and are also known to reflect the actions of the living 
and not necessarily the status of the deceased.

Individuals were selected for isotopic analysis based 
on preservation of skeletal elements to estimate sex 
and age, as well as presence of a permanent canine or 
first molar with minimal wear. Skeletal sex and age 
were estimated using standard osteological observa-
tions of the pelvis and skull (Brooks and Suchey 1990; 
Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994). Almost all were adults 
at the time of death, so these individuals are survivors, 
in that most did not die as youths. Individuals were 
grouped in broad age categories of “juvenile” (esti-
mated age of death as less than 18 years; n = 2), “young” 
(estimated age at death from 18 to 29  years; n = 10), 
“middle” (estimated age at death between 30 and 49; 
n = 8), or “older” (estimated age at death 50+; n = 8). Six 
individuals were more challenging to narrow their 
estimated age at death, so five are listed with two po-
tential age categories, and one is noted as an adult 
(over 18 years at age of death). Of the 34 new individ-
uals studied, 16 were estimated to be females, 15 were 
estimated to be males, and three were of unknown 
skeletal sex. A permanent first molar or canine tooth 
was preferentially selected to capture the early years 
of diet (however, one individual’s childhood diet is 



Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China70

represented by a second molar, Guomianyichang 
M109). Teeth were gently cleaned and silicone molds 
were created prior to destructive analysis. Bone sam-
ples were preferentially taken from elements that were 
already broken.

Tooth dentin segments were prepared for isotopic 
analysis following previously published protocols 
(Beaumont and Montgomery 2015; King et al. 2018; 
Sealy et al. 1995; Sealy et al. 2014). For dental samples, 
enamel was removed using a handheld rotary tool and 
preserved for future analyses. The remaining dentin 
tissue was placed in labeled beakers with dilute HCl 
(0.5 M) until the tissue demineralized sufficiently 
to be sliced with a scalpel. Any adhering cementum 
and/or secondary or tertiary dentin was removed 
when noted. Tooth samples were carefully sliced into 
~1 mm increments beginning from the occlusal sur-
face of the crown and proceeding to the root tip, us-
ing a clean scalpel and metric ruler. Individual dentin 
slices were placed into labeled microcentrifuge tubes 
with 0.5 M HCl until further demineralized. Samples 
were rinsed repeatedly with pure water to neutrality, 
and then dilute HCl of 0.001 M (pH 3 solution) was 
added to samples before gelatinizing them for 24 
hours in a 75°C oven. Samples were then agitated to 
mix and frozen prior to freeze- drying. Bone samples 
followed a similar protocol. Cortical surfaces were 
first cleaned and then bone was crushed and sieved, 
with the 0.25 mm to 1 mm fraction used for collagen 
extraction. Bone samples were demineralized in 0.2 
M HCl (replaced as needed until demineralization 
was complete) and then rinsed with purified water to 
neutrality. Samples were then treated with 0.125 M 
NaOH for 20 hours and then rinsed to neutrality. Di-
lute 0.001 M HCl was added to each sample before 
placing them in a 70°C oven for 48 hours. Samples 
were then frozen and freeze dried.

Freeze- dried collagen samples were weighed into 
tin capsules for isotopic analysis at the Joint Interna-
tional Research Laboratory for Environmental and So-
cial Archaeology at Shandong University, Qingdao, 
China, using a Flash 2000 HY elemental analyzer cou-
pled to a Delta V Advantage IRMS. Samples were an-
alyzed in conjunction with calibration standards, 
including USGS40 (L- glutamic acid, δ13C = − 26.39‰ 
± 0.04‰, δ15N = − 4.52‰ ± 0.06‰), USGS62 (caffeine, 
δ13C = − 14.79‰ ± 0.04‰, δ15N = +20.17‰ ± 0.06‰), 
USGS41a (L- glutamic acid, δ13C = +36.55‰ ± 0.08‰, 
δ15N = +47.55‰ ± 0.15‰), and internal standard of 
EMA B2155 (casein). The lab reports precision of ± 0.1‰ 
for δ13C and ± 0.2‰ for δ15N. Collagen quality was 
assessed by %C, %N, and atomic C:N, with all sam-
ples reported here having C:N values between 3.1 and 
3.6 (DeNiro 1985; Guiry and Szpak 2021; Schwarcz and 
Nahal 2021).

A general developmental timeline for each tooth 
was used to facilitate interindividual comparisons as 
well as allowing for comparisons of dentin isotopic 
data across studies. With M1, we assumed the devel-
opmental range began at birth (0 years) and completed 
at 10 years, while for canines, we placed the maximums 
at six months (0.5 years) to 14 years. Age estimations 
of each segment were calculated using the Beaumont 
and Montgomery (2015) method, which relies on a 
simple, linear relationship between the total time a 
tooth was growing (for example, 10 years for a first mo-
lar) and the number of segmented samples extracted 
by a researcher. The result is an estimated median age 
point for each incremental sample and which provides 
a standardized approach that allows comparison to 
previous studies (Miller et al. 2020). However, dentin 
is not deposited in horizontal layers throughout the 
tooth structure, meaning that the slices created 
through the protocol will inevitably capture overlap-
ping periods of dentin development, and therefore, as-
sociated time frames for each segment should be 
considered an estimated average with potentially fuzzy 
boundaries rather than absolutes (Beaumont et  al. 
2013; Tsutaya 2020).

Results

The incremental dentin samples from Eastern Zhou 
individuals from Gaolou, Tiancheng, and Guomiany-
ichang (n = 34 individuals with n = 393 paired δ13C 
and δ15N values, Supplemental Tables 1 and 2) show a 
wide range of δ13C values, from − 19.8‰ to − 7.6‰, and 
δ15N values range from 6.2‰ to 14.3‰. Examining the 
individual dietary profiles (Figs. 2– 4), many individ-
uals show characteristic declines in δ15N in the first 
years of life, indicating the process of removing breast 
milk from the diet (weaning), as well as changes to 
δ13C values across childhood years related to differen-
tial consumption of C3 and C4 plants. These same in-
dividuals (n = 34) have bone collagen values that range 
from − 15.7‰ to − 8.8‰ and δ15N values from 6.1‰ to 
10.5‰ (Figs. 2– 4, Supplemental Table 1). The dentin 
profiles of individuals from the Eastern Zhou ancient 
Zhenghan city archaeological sites of Xiyasi and 
Changxinyuan are replotted in Supplemental Figures 1 
and 2, and their data are included in subsequent anal-
yses of Eastern Zhou dietary patterns (for all original 
Xiasyi and Changxinyuan data, see Miller et al. 2020).

Figures 5 and 6 plot the incremental dentin isoto-
pic profiles from all of the Eastern Zhou individuals 
we have studied to date (Gaolou, Tiancheng, and Guo-
mianyichang in this study and Xiyasi and Changx-
inyuan data from Miller et al. 2020) and use a loess 
curve to show the moving average for δ15N and δ13C 



Miller et al. 71

across the childhood years in conjunction with esti-
mated skeletal sex (n = 54; 27 females, 27 males). Over-
all, we see a high degree of isotopic heterogeneity, 
with large ranges observed in nitrogen, but especially 
in carbon isotope values, suggestive of differential di-
etary practices between children, as well as revealing 
an expansive diversity in the foods that were consid-
ered acceptable to feed growing children. A patterned 
difference is observed across childhood in the dentin 
δ15N values (Fig. 5), where the male average is consis-
tently slightly higher than the female average, indicat-
ing slightly more protein consumption (or proteins 
from a higher trophic position). The offset suggests a 
meaningful difference in dietary practices. Addition-
ally, for most of childhood, females have slightly lower 
average dentin δ13C values, indicating more C3 foods 
in their diets compared to their male peers (Fig. 6).

We estimated the weaning ages for a total of 47 
Eastern Zhou individuals (28 individuals from this 
study plus data from 19 individuals studied in Miller 
et al. 2020) who have the earliest dentin segments pres-
ent in their profiles (Table  1; Supplemental Table  1). 
To estimate weaning ages, we looked for declines in 
δ15N by 1‰ to 4‰, with potential concurrent changes 
to δ13C values across the earliest forming dentin, and 
that are associated with the removal of milk from the 
diet (Burt and Amin 2014; Eerkens et al. 2011). Indi-
viduals (n = 10) who are missing the early forming 
dentin tissue or those with isotopic data that do not fit 
the expected drop in δ15N were excluded from wean-
ing age estimations. Across the 47 individuals exam-
ined, the average weaning age is estimated at 2.9 years 
of age, with no statistically significant difference 
(Wilcoxon rank sum test p = 0.759) in weaning age 

Figure 2. Isotopic profiles for individuals from Gaolou (n = 9; n = 5 females; n = 4 males). δ15N values (solid plotted line with circles shows dentin 
collagen values and horizontal line is bone collagen value) and δ13C values (dashed plotted line with circles shows dentin collagen values and dashed 
horizontal line is bone collagen value) are presented.



Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China72

estimates between females (n = 20, average = 3.0 years) 
and males (n = 24, average = 2.9 years). These ages are 
estimates in that the dentin samples capture overlap-
ping periods of development due to the way dentin 
tissue grows as well as the sampling procedure, and 
coupled with the fact that every individual’s develop-
mental timeline will vary (i.e., timing of tooth growth). 
Therefore, these estimates should be treated as fuzzy 
averages rather than absolutes.

Diets in the first few years of life are a complex com-
bination of a mother’s (or allomother’s) diet (via milk) 
and the weaning foods consumed. Since the isotopic 
data indicate the average age of weaning was three 
years, we used the age of five years as the cutoff for 
comparing means (δ15N; δ13C) between females and 
males, which should represent diets that do not in-
clude the influence of milk (mother’s diet) and only 
reflect the diet of the individual (Tables 2 and 3; Sup-
plemental Table 1). There is a statistically significant 
difference in childhood diets post five years between 
males (mean δ15N = 8.5‰; mean δ13C = − 13.3‰) and 
females (mean δ15N = 7.8‰; mean δ13C = − 14.0‰) for 
both elements. All δ15N values were pooled (not aver-
aged by individual) and appear bimodally distributed 

for both males and females, with males’ distribution 
shifted slightly higher on δ15N values (Wilcoxon rank 
sum test, p = 1.21e- 07). All δ13C values post age five years 
were compared between males and females (values 
pooled, not averaged by individual), and males were 
normally distributed but females were not (Wilcoxon 
rank sum test, p = 0.0018). We further compared the 
means of dentin samples of females and males be-
tween ages five and 10 years, which is the overlapping 
developmental period first molars and canines cap-
ture. The 27 males (represented by 139 dentin sam-
ples) had a mean δ15N = 8.5‰, which is statistically 
significantly different from the 27 females (represented 
by 144 dentin samples) who had a mean δ15N = 7.8‰ 
(Wilcoxon rank sum test, p = 3.086e- 5). The female 
mean δ13C (27 females, n = 144 samples) of − 13.9‰ is 
statistically significantly different from the male mean 
δ13C (27 males, n = 139 samples) of − 13.2‰ (Wilcoxon 
rank sum test, p = 0.006). This suggests there are mean-
ingful differences in diets between boys and girls. 
On average, females have lower average δ15N and δ13C 
values than males during childhood (postweaning).

Bone collagen values are compared for these same 
Eastern Zhou individuals to examine possible dietary 

Figure 3. Isotopic profiles for individuals from Tiancheng (n = 9; n = 5 females; n = 4 males). δ15N values (solid plotted line with circles shows dentin 
collagen values and horizontal line is bone collagen value) and δ13C values (dashed plotted line with circles shows dentin collagen values and dashed 
horizontal line is bone collagen value) are presented.



Miller et al. 73

Figure 4. Isotopic profiles for individuals from Guomianyichang (n = 16; n = 6 females; n = 7 males; n = 3 unknown skeletal sex). δ15N values (solid 
plotted line with circles shows dentin collagen values and horizontal line is bone collagen value) and δ13C values (dashed plotted line with circles 
shows dentin collagen values and dashed horizontal line is bone collagen value) are presented.

Figure 5. δ15N dentin profiles for each Eastern Zhou individual studied 
across the Gaolou, Tiancheng, and Guomianyichang sites as well as the 
δ15N dentin profiles of individuals from Xiyasi and Changxinyuan 
(Miller et al. 2020). Female and male dentin profiles are plotted. A loess 
curve was plotted for males and females, and it shows that on average, 
male children had slightly higher δ15N values than their female peers 
across infancy and childhood.

Figure 6. δ13C dentin profiles for each Eastern Zhou period individual 
studied across the Gaolou, Tiancheng, and Guomianyichang sites as 
well as the δ13C dentin profiles of individuals from Xiyasi and 
Changxinyuan (Miller et al. 2020). Female and male dentin profiles are 
plotted. A loess curve was plotted for males and females, and for much 
of the childhood period, females had slightly lower δ13C values 
compared to their male peers.



Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China74

differences in later life (Tables 4 and 5; Supplemen-
tal Table 1). There are no statistically significant dif-
ferences between the average δ15N (Wilcoxon rank 
sum test, p = 0.762) and δ13C (Wilcoxon rank sum 
test, p = 0.079) bone collagen values of females and 
males. Interestingly, the degree of difference between 
the childhood dentin and later life bone collagen δ15N 
values decreases between females and males, while 
the average δ13C values become more divergent in 
adulthood.

Table 1. Eastern Zhou Estimated Age of Weaning

Eastern Zhou Count (n) Median (years) Mean (years) SD (years)

Overall 47 2.8 2.9 0.6
Males 24 2.7 2.9 0.7
Females 20 3 3 0.7
Unknown 3 2.8 2.9 0.5

Table 2. Summary of δ15N Dentin Values Post Age Five Years

Sex
Number of  

Dentin Samples
Median  
δ15N (‰)

Mean  
δ15N (‰)

SD  
(‰)

Female (n = 27) 168 7.9 7.8 1.2
Male (n = 27) 159 8.6 8.5 1.3

Table 3. Summary of δ13C Dentin Values Post Age Five Years

Sex
Number of  

Dentin Samples
Median  
δ13C (‰)

Mean  
δ13C (‰)

SD  
(‰)

Female (n = 27) 168 – 14.5 – 14 2.8
Male (n = 27) 159 – 13.2 – 13.3 2.5

Table 4. Summary of Bone Collagen δ15N for These Eastern Zhou 
Individuals

Sex
Number of  

Dentin Samples
Median  
δ15N (‰)

Mean  
δ15N (‰)

SD  
(‰)

Female 27 8 8.1 1.1
Male 27 7.9 8.2 1.1
Unknown 3 6.9

Table 5. Summary of Bone Collagen δ13C for These Eastern Zhou 
Individuals

Sex
Number of 

Dentin Samples
Median 
δ13C (‰)

Mean 
δ13C (‰)

SD  
(‰)

Female 27 – 11.4 – 12 2
Male 27 – 10.9 – 11 1.8
Unknown 3 – 13.8

Discussion

Feeding children as gendering practices: 
Childhood diets

Overall, the dentin isotopic values for Gaolou, 
Tiancheng, and Guomianyichang individuals show a 
very wide range, from diets composed primarily of 
C3 plants to diets heavily reliant on C4 plants, and nu-
merous mixtures between these extremes. There was 
also differential consumption of proteins (relatively 
more or less and/or proteins from different trophic 
positions) (Figs. 2– 4). We see that dietary variation 
occurs both within the same person’s diet over the 
course of childhood, in comparison with their later 
bone collagen values, and between individuals. This 
high degree of diversity in the isotopic values during 
childhood indicates that people living in this region 
had access to many different kinds of plant and ani-
mal resources and that a large spectrum of items were 
considered foods that were appropriate to feed grow-
ing children.

Surprisingly, when we aggregate all of the incre-
mental dentin values for Eastern Zhou individuals 
we have studied from this region so far (Fig. 5), we ob-
serve a small but consistent offset in the average δ15N 
values between males and females across infancy and 
childhood. In general, females have lower δ15N values 
when compared with males. Stable nitrogen isotope 
values primarily reflect the proteinaceous foods of the 
diet, and differences between individuals may be evi-
dence of more or less protein consumed or different 
types of proteins consumed (i.e., plant proteins vs. an-
imal derived proteins). That individuals we assessed 
as biologically male show, on average, higher δ15N val-
ues across their childhood years compared with the 
individuals assessed as biologically female reveals that 
males were fed a bit more meat, or proteins from 
higher trophic levels, when they were children. In con-
trast, the females we studied generally received a bit 
less meat in their diets or instead consumed lower tro-
phic proteins (potentially more plant- derived pro-
teins) as youths. Patriarchal Eastern Zhou society 
valued males more than females, and meat was also 
highly prized. We propose that caretakers fed male 
children more meat than female children, and whether 
intentionally or not, meat became tied to the creation 
of male bodies and embodiment of male gender roles, 
including conveying notions of social worth.

Furthermore, the δ15N offset occurs across the en-
tire period of dentin development represented, begin-
ning in the very earliest period of life. Across 
childhood but especially during the first years of life, 
it was likely mothers who were the primary caretak-
ers making choices about the feeding habits of their 



Miller et al. 75

children and setting their dietary trajectories (though 
certainly mothers’ beliefs were embedded within cul-
turally learned, normative frameworks). The earliest 
dentin segments capture the first couple years of life, 
when most infants were still consuming significant 
amounts of breast milk (see discussion of weaning, be-
low). The fact that an offset between males and fe-
males begins so early in life presents the possibility 
that the diets of lactating women may have even al-
tered based on perceptions of their child. If male chil-
dren were preferred, women who produced male heirs 
may have themselves benefited by being able to con-
sume more meat in their own meals. This temporary 
access to a more coveted food item, meat, could cause 
a slight increase in the δ15N of their breast milk, which 
in turn would be consumed by their developing infant 
and resulted in the downstream effect, separating the 
δ15N dentin values observed between females and 
males during the earliest period of infancy. The per-
sistence of the offset across all of the childhood years 
represented (and statistically significant difference in 
δ15N between boys and girls after age five years) indi-
cates that, in general, male children were likely fed a 
little bit more meat than their sisters and other girls 
throughout this developmental period and that this 

was an ongoing embodied gendering practice across 
childhood.

We also considered if there may have been any dif-
ferences in childhood nitrogen isotope patterning 
within and between sites; perhaps meat consumption 
was related to factors such as geography (urban vs. 
nonurban communities), economic power, or access to 
particular foodstuffs. Comparing within and between 
sites, we see that the higher male offset in δ15N persists 
(Fig. 7). This suggests that notions that children deemed 
to be “boys” (highly desired male offspring) should 
be fed more meat in their diets because of their higher 
social value may have been widespread within Cen-
tral Plains Eastern Zhou culture. There are a few in-
dividuals who do not follow these patterns (a few 
females with high δ15N values, a few males with low 
δ15N values) who likely indicate how diet is also entan-
gled in aspects of wealth, status, access, and other 
factors. It is in these dietary isotopic data sets that we 
can begin to access personalized and lived aspects of 
gender for Eastern Zhou people, discerning how food 
practices were entangled in gender norms and embod-
ied gender expression, with specific foods fed to cer-
tain individuals, which, over time, shapes that person 
into the embodiment of those cultural ideals.

Figure 7. δ15N isotopic data profiles by site and by skeletal sex showing the same patterning of a higher average δ15N value for males than for females 
across all sites.



Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China76

Although we believe this patterned offset in δ15N 
values for the dentin collagen samples was driven by 
cultural forces, we cannot rule out the possibility of a 
sex- based biological explanation. Physiological stress 
can change how the body utilizes energetic resources, 
which can alter tissue nitrogen stable isotope values 
(D’Ortenzio et al. 2015; Fuller et al. 2003; Fuller et al. 
2006; Katzenberg and Lovell 1999; Williams et  al. 
2011). Elevated δ15N values observed in hair or dentition 
samples have been interpreted as potential evidence 
for stress in past populations (D’Ortenzio et al. 2015; 
King et al. 2018; Miller et al. 2020), but these are usually 
short- term changes to a few individuals, and protracted 
stress across an entire group has (to our knowledge) 
only been observed by Beaumont and Montgomery 
(2016) in their study of victims of the Great Irish 
Famine. We believe it is unlikely that as a group, male 
children are experiencing heightened stress relative 
to their female peers, particularly in the patriarchal 
Eastern Zhou society with known male– female hier-
archies. If not related to stress, perhaps boys metab-
olize and incorporate dietary protein differently during 
childhood compared to females? However, most re-
search using this isotopic methodology to study child-
hood diets from other regions of the world finds little 
difference in isotope results used for assessing diets 
between males and females during childhood. Further, 
when dietary differences between females and males 
have been found, they have been explained as evi-
dence for cultural behaviors, such as social differenti-
ation via food practices, not as a biological phenomenon 
(Eerkens and Bartelink 2013; Ganiatsou et al. 2022). A 
few individuals we studied exhibit opposing covari-
ance in nitrogen and carbon values (such as nitrogen 
declining but carbon values increasing; for example, 
see Guomianyichang M068). These patterns have been 
considered potential evidence of physiological stress 
(Beaumont and Montgomery 2016; Garland et al. 2018; 
King et al. 2018) but can also occur when a child is 
weaned onto a diet that is different from the milk they 
were previously consuming (i.e., mother’s diet). If an 
infant was weaned using foods that have more posi-
tive δ13C values (such a millets) than what the lactating 
female had been consuming (captured in the milk), 
we would see nitrogen values continuing to decline 
(removal of milk from diet) while carbon values in-
creased (consumption of foods like millets with higher 
δ13C values). Both of these hypotheses should be con-
sidered in individuals whose values exhibit covari-
ance, and other stress indicators (via paleopathological 
analyses) may also assist in these interpretations. Fu-
ture studies may help to clarify if there are any under-
lying physiological reasons that might cause such 
noted differences in nitrogen isotope values between 
growing children.

When we aggregate the dentin δ13C isotope profiles 
for all Eastern Zhou individuals, we find that the av-
erage is slightly lower for females than it is for males 
across most of childhood, and the means between the 
sexes are statistically different when we look at the val-
ues after age five years (see loess curves in Fig. 6). This 
indicates that overall, female children were consum-
ing a bit more C3- type foods while males were con-
suming a bit more C4- type foods. If C4 foods, such as 
millets, were afforded a higher value (as indicated in 
historical texts), then the difference in childhood car-
bon isotope values may demonstrate the preferential 
feeding of millets to boys and with slightly less of these 
foods (or drinks) given to girls. However, the patterns 
in these data appear more complex when we exam-
ine the values within and between archaeological 
sites (Fig. 8).

We previously found (Miller et al. 2020) that during 
childhood, females from Xiyasi and Changxinyuan 
generally consumed more C3 foods than males, who 
consumed more C4 foods (millets), and this pattern is 
also seen in the newly examined individuals from 
Tiancheng. However, the opposite pattern is found for 
those buried at the sites of Gaolou and Guomiany-
ichang; the average δ13C value for males is lower than 
females, indicating females buried at those sites ate 
more millets during childhood than the males. The 
few individuals with the very highest δ13C values across 
childhood and the very lowest δ13C values across child-
hood also all come from Gaolou and Guomianyichang 
(with one exception of a male from Changxinyuan 
who also has quite high δ13C values in childhood), and 
therefore the individuals who were interred in these 
cemeteries encompass the largest δ13C range in child-
hood diets. When we examine the evidence at the in-
dividual level, we see indications of relationships 
between isotope values, markers of grave wealth/ 
status/class, and life histories (see “Dietary patterns 
over the lifetime: Individual examples”). Here we may 
be seeing interacting effects of regional food practices 
and access to specific resources, in conjunction with 
experiences such as gender and class.

Weaning patterns

All Gaolou, Tiancheng, and Guomianyichang individ-
uals studied with early life dentin segments show ev-
idence for breastfeeding and weaning in their isotopic 
values. Our weaning age estimations for 47 of the 
Eastern Zhou individuals show that by around age 
three years of age, milk is no longer a detectable di-
etary component for most, and there is no significant 
difference in the estimated weaning ages between fe-
males and males. The earliest age we detected wean-
ing termination was around 1.6 years (Gaolou, M100, 



Miller et al. 77

female; Supplemental Tables 1 and 2) while the latest 
age we estimated weaning completion was around 
4.3 years (Guomianyichang, M090, female; Supple-
mental Tables 1 and 2). Therefore, there is variability in 
the length of the weaning process, with most children 
completing weaning between ages 2.5 and 3.5 years.

Historical texts provide information about the re-
lationship between specific chronological and social 
ages, and they suggest that the age of three years was 
an important marker in a child’s life. For example, in 
the Liji, a Warring States and Han period document 
advising of social norms and ceremonial rituals, we 
learn, “食子者，三年而出，見於公宮則劬。大夫之子有食
母，士之妻自養其子. The nurse of the ruler’s boy quit 
the palace after three years, and the ruler meets her, 
and rewarded her for her toilsome work. The son of a 
Great Officer had a nurse. The wife of an ordinary of-
ficer nourished her child herself” (Liji, Nei Ze, 74). This 
passage tells us a few very important things: (1) chil-
dren were nursed (breastfed), (2) in almost all cases a 
baby’s mother was the one nursing the infant but 
ruling and upper- class elite families had access to wet 
nurses, and (3) children were nursed and closely cared 
for in this way for the first three years of life. Further 
evidence of the importance of the age of three is found 
in the Analects of Confucius through a discussion of 

proper mourning rites, where it is said deceased par-
ents should be mourned for three years as that is the 
same amount of time that they intensely cared for their 
child at the beginning of their life (Chen [Confucius] 
2017:215; see also Miller et al. 2020). These isotopic find-
ings, in conjunction with historical references, sup-
port the importance of the social age of three years in 
ancient Eastern Zhou culture.

There is a large amount of variation in childhood 
diets (between individuals and within the same indi-
vidual’s childhood years), revealed through the wide 
spread of nitrogen and carbon isotope values observed 
across the dentin data sets. This shows there was a high 
degree of variability in supplemental foods during 
weaning and the diets subsequently consumed across 
childhood. When we look more closely at the carbon 
isotopic profiles from the earliest years of life, we see 
that during the first two to three years of life, the male 
δ13C values are actually lower than the females. How-
ever, the loess curve representing the male average δ13C 
values over time (average is the solid blue line and blue 
shaded band is the confidence interval of the mean; see 
Fig. 6) is almost flat across all of childhood, suggest-
ing little change overall in the average male consump-
tion of C3 and C4 plant- based foods (and animals 
consuming those resources). In contrast, the female 

Figure 8. δ13C isotopic data profiles by site do not show a standardized pattern between the sexes, suggesting this aspect of diet is not driven by 
gender alone but likely has many complicating factors such as location/region, class/wealth, and more.



Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China78

δ13C average line shows a drop of about 2‰ across the 
first few years of life before leveling out slightly below 
the male line. This is the same period of time we be-
lieve most individuals were still consuming some 
breast milk as they were slowly being weaned. Conse-
quently, these data from the earliest years of life par-
tially reflect a mother’s diet while she was breastfeeding 
as well as revealing the isotopic values of the dominant 
weaning foods. We suggest that the patterns in the 
δ13C averages indicate that infant girls’ diets were sup-
plemented with more C3 foods (daughters given more 
meals with wheat, soy, rice, barley, etc.), while infant 
boys were generally weaned onto diets with slightly 
more C4 foods (millets). Mothers’ diets likely con-
tained more C4 foods than the diets that they weaned 
their daughters onto, hence the ~2‰ decline as they 
were weaned off of millet- enriched milk and onto di-
ets with more C3 solid foods. Sons were weaned onto 
diets that more closely resemble their mother’s diets 
(a bit more millet), hence the relatively flat loess curve 
for male δ13C across childhood.

Dietary patterns over the lifetime:  
Gender and age

For the Eastern Zhou people studied (n = 56), we cal-
culated that on average, dietary δ13C increased by 1.9‰ 
between childhood and adulthood (comparing aver-
age δ13C post age five to bone collagen δ13C; Tables 2– 5; 
Supplemental Table 1), meaning most individuals con-
sumed slightly more C3 resources in childhood and 
then more C4 resources in adulthood. When divided 
by skeletal sex, we see that on average, female values 
(n = 27) increased between childhood and adulthood 
by 1.7‰, while male values (n = 27) increased by 2.1‰. 
Of 27 females, only seven had values in adulthood that 
were lower than their childhood values (i.e., their di-
ets included more C3 foods as they aged), and further 
three of those individuals had change of less than 1‰ 
(so a relatively insignificant dietary change for those 
women). Of the 27 males, five had values in adulthood 
that were meaningfully lower than their childhood 
values (change was greater than 1‰), suggesting a shift 
to more C3 foods as they aged. These patterns show 
that most people’s diets changed slightly over their life 
course, and for the majority, that meant consuming a 
greater amount of C4- type foods, presumably millets, 
in adulthood compared to during their childhood 
years. This dietary influx of millet during adulthood 
may relate to better access to preferred foods for older 
individuals, as well as the consumption of millet- based 
alcoholic beverages (Liu 2021).

The Liji provides multiple narratives on age- related 
dietary habits, such as passage 11 of the Nei Ze, which 
discusses the proper conduct for a recently married 

young couple who live with the husband’s parents: “
父母在，朝夕恒食，子婦佐餕，既食恒餕，父沒母存，冢
子御食，群子婦佐餕如初，旨甘柔滑，孺子餕. While the 
parents are both alive, at their regular meals, morn-
ing and evening the sons and their wives will serve 
them, and what is left after they will themselves eat. 
When the father is dead, and the mother still alive, the 
eldest son should accompany her at meals, and other 
sons and the wives will serve, and do with what is left 
as in the former case. The children should have the 
sweet, soft, and unctuous things that are left” (Liji, Nei 
Ze, 11). This passage reveals information about the fa-
milial structure as well as how food is distributed 
within a household. The parents of the eldest son 
(parents- in- law from the wife’s perspective) hold the 
highest regard in the family, they are fed first, and 
what they do not eat is then left to the married cou-
ple, and after that children (those of the younger mar-
ried couple) are fed the remaining foods. The Liji text 
can be interpreted as a guide for how people (of par-
ticular classes and means) should ideally comport 
themselves, and it presented guiding structures and 
principles for proper cultural behavior to maintain or-
der in the family, clan, and state. Here we see how 
food- related behaviors are part of upholding the so-
cial power structure. If as one ages, they get to select 
the better (preferred/more valued/tastier) portions of 
a meal, then we could see how consumption of partic-
ular foods such as millet could be mediated by multi-
ple aspects of life experience, including sex/gender, 
age, and status.

Interestingly, within the 56 individuals we can cal-
culate dietary change between their dentin and bone 
collagen samples, we find almost no change observed 
for δ15N. When we divide the sampled individuals by 
sex, we see that female δ15N values generally increase 
between childhood and adulthood, by an average of 
0.3‰, while male values actually decrease by an aver-
age of 0.2‰. Neither of these shifts are considered iso-
topically meaningful, in that they are not indicative 
of a major dietary change (Pestle et al. 2014), though 
the slightly higher rate of change for females may in-
dicate some benefit for particular women who had 
better access to meat in adulthood compared with 
childhood, while boys and men already generally had 
better access to meat compared with females and 
maintained that over their lifetime. Interestingly, the 
Liji again points to the intersections of multiple life 
variables and highlights how aging adults should be 
given privileged access to certain food if they are el-
derly: “王制: 五十異粻，六十宿肉，七十貳膳，八十常珍；
九十，飲食不離寢、膳飲從於游可也. For those of fifty, 
the grain was (fine and) different (from that used by 
younger men). For those of sixty, flesh was kept in 
store. For those of seventy, there were two fine dishes 



Miller et al. 79

every meal. For those of eighty, there was a constant 
supply of delicacies. For those of ninety, food and 
drink were never out of their chambers. Wherever 
they wandered (to another place), it was required that 
savory meat and drink should follow them” (Liji, 
Wang Zhi, 56). Here we see how nicer grain and meat 
were considered particularly important foods for peo-
ple as they aged, with the elderly ideally always hav-
ing easy access to a tasty meal, especially meat; this 
hypothesis could be tested in future bio archae ol o gi-
cal research focused on age- related dietary changes in 
adulthood.

Dietary patterns over the lifetime:  
Individual examples

Two of the females we studied from Gaolou have ex-
ceptionally high δ13C values in childhood and that are 
retained into adulthood based on their bone collagen 
values, and both of these women also had markers of 
wealth in their burials. Individual M089 had both an 
inner and outer coffin (considered a more expensive 
grave), while M145 was buried with many pieces of 
pottery and a coffin decorated with cinnabar, and per-
haps their (interpreted) higher status may have given 
them greater access to the desirable grain, millet, 
across their lifetimes. However, the relationships be-
tween gender and wealth likely have interacting effects 
over the life course. For example, M082 was a female 
from Gaolou who also had a wealthier burial featur-
ing inner and outer coffins, pottery, cowry shell, and 
cinnabar, but she has much lower δ13C values across 
childhood showing significant C3 food consumption. 
Her bone collagen value is over 3‰ higher than her 
final dentin sample, indicating she experienced a di-
etary change to consuming more C4 foods in adult-
hood, which may have been tied to a change in wealth/
status later in life. Similarly, Gaolou M115, a male, 
had the lowest δ13C values across his early childhood 
years within the whole Gaolou sample: the average 
δ13C across all his dentin samples = − 16‰, with the 
very final dentin segment δ13C = − 14.1‰, but his later 
life bone collagen δ13C = − 9.1‰, shows a very dramatic 
dietary shift between childhood and adulthood. Per-
haps his social standing and wealth improved as an 
adult, he was buried with shell and cinnabar, and the 
later life shift to a diet rich in the desired grain, mil-
let, could have also been a benefit if his social status 
improved. It is certain that gender was only one of 
many potential axes that diet was interacting with, 
and wealth and status would have played a major role 
in the foods people could afford to eat as well as what 
was considered appropriate and desirable cuisine. Un-
fortunately, assessing large- scale relationships be-
tween mortuary treatment and diet over the lifetime 

is challenging due to grave disturbances and plunder-
ing in earlier times, limiting our ability to accurately 
assess all individuals’ treatment at death (see Materi-
als section).

The same patterning of average δ13C for males be-
ing lower than females during childhood is also seen 
in the Guomianyichang sample. Guomianyichang 
may have been affiliated with a nearby military site 
and may not have had consistent access to the same 
food resources as Zhenghan city (Yang et al. in press). 
For example, individual M124 from Guomianyichang 
was an older aged male from the Spring and Autumn 
period, and his childhood carbon isotope values are 
the lowest of any Eastern Zhou male we have studied 
to date: average δ13C across all his dentin samples 
= − 19.1‰, with the very final dentin segment δ13C 
= − 18.3‰, but his later life bone collagen δ13C = − 11‰, 
showing a significant dietary shift between childhood 
and adulthood. He appeared to be buried without a 
tomb structure but had five pottery items interred with 
him. Perhaps M124’s social status increased over his 
lifetime and in his older age he was able to dine on 
more millet? Interestingly, another male from Guo-
mianyichang, M068, also had very low δ13C values 
across most of his dentin samples, with an average δ13C 
= − 18‰ between birth and around age nine years. His 
final dentin sample, aged around nine to 10  years, 
shows a large change in δ13C to − 11.6‰, and this di-
etary shift may have held through his later life as his 
bone collagen δ13C value is − 11.4‰. In contrast, M146 
was a young adult woman who lived during the War-
ring States period and upon death was buried in a sin-
gle coffin, with one piece of pottery. Her childhood 
dentin δ13C values were very high (average = − 8.2‰), 
indicating a diet dominated by millets, but her final 
bone collagen value, − 14.2‰, shows a significant di-
etary shift occurred for her and that she consumed 
much more C3- type foods as an adult. It might be pos-
sible that some of the individuals who were buried at 
Guomianyichang were not born and raised in this area 
but instead moved here in association with the mili-
tary post, and therefore their diets may have shifted if 
there were regional differences in the cuisines or access 
to particular ingredients. Therefore, gender may be an 
important factor in childhood dietary practices, but 
additional variables such as wealth or region/location 
may have played a larger role or dictated different di-
etary customs for individuals or specific communities.

Conclusions

The unique relationships that humans have with the 
things that we eat make food- related data sets (bo-
tanical and faunal remains, stable isotope data, dental 



Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China80

calculus data, iconographic representations, etc.) a rich 
medium to explore layers of the human experience 
that are inaccessible from other material remains in 
archaeological contexts. Technological advances are 
allowing for finer resolution of information that was 
previously out of reach, and attention to particular 
materials, such as dietary evidence from food studies, 
which is known to be laden with meaning (including 
environmental information, economic values, ideo-
logical uses, understandings of sex, gender, age, health, 
wellness, etc.), offers us a window to aspects of hu-
manity that are personal, are relatable, and can deepen 
our understanding of the shared and divergent parts 
of what it has meant to be human in particular times 
and places. Isotopic analysis of skeletal tissues pro-
vides a rare opportunity to get to know the life history 
of a specific person from the past, and advances such 
as incremental segmentation of tooth dentin provide 
detailed pictures of specific periods of ancient lives. 
Here we have shown that dentin samples can reveal 
information about particular foods fed to children 
and the ways that communities thought about and 
imbued those foods with values. The observed pat-
terning in the isotopic data reported here is pointing 
to something that goes beyond the simplistic act of 
eating; repeated processes of feeding children slightly 
different meals, such as differing amounts of meat or 
other protein- rich foods, appears to reflect socially 
constructed food- value systems intersecting with gen-
der roles, which are enacted by caretakers using food 
(intentionally or not) as a material medium that both 
symbolically conveys gendered meaning as well as lit-
erally creating a gendered body that is chemically dif-
ferentiated through consumption of these meals over 
time.

All humans become part of their culture and com-
munities through socialization into myriad roles and 
shared understandings of normalized/naturalized 
ways of being. The Warring States period philosopher, 
Xunzi, related learning to be a cultured gentleman to 
the processes acting on individuals during key peri-
ods of life through a simple analogy: “Through steam-
ing and bending, you can make wood as straight as 
an ink- line into a wheel. And after its curve conforms 
to the compass, even when parched under the sun it 
will not become straight again, because the steaming 
and bending have made it a certain way” (Xunzi, tran-
scribed by Hutton 2014:1). Gendered ways of being 
are historically contingent and learned (habitus) 
through observation, mimesis, modification, and re-
iteration over generations (hexis), with individuals and 
social groups constantly making and remaking the 
boundaries and, in a sense, rules of how differently 
gendered groups should behave and exist in the world 
(Bourdieu 1977; Butler 1999). Some of these social 

processes are created through dialogue and may even 
be embedded within linguistic structures (such as gen-
dered language), others are materially communicated 
(such as clothing) or enacted (such as the activities/ 
labor/products one can produce), and others, such as 
food, can operate along multiple dimensions, includ-
ing uniquely being a material that becomes a part of 
the person’s body itself (Dietler 2007). Dietary prac-
tices and the specific foods a person eats can be a part 
of gender identity and the gendering process. Child-
hood is a critical period of dynamic biological changes 
and complex social learning, and gender identities are 
one of many human experiences that may be cata-
lyzed beginning in early life. The fact that children 
lack the ability to feed themselves for the first years of 
life makes studying early childhood foodways an ex-
ceptionally revealing space for illuminating social 
processes and the cultural values of specific foods, 
particularly as it speaks to the transgenerational as-
pects of social reproduction.

Through high- resolution dietary reconstructions of  
early life using an incremental dentin sampling ap-
proach, we have seen how for Eastern Zhou peoples 
living on the Central Plains of China, one food type  
in particular, meat, reveals social values and gender 
inequalities, while also becoming part of the gender-
ing process and gender embodiment itself. Caretakers, 
primarily mothers, were responsible for feeding their 
children, and therefore in studying early life diets, we 
are observing intergenerational interactions material-
ized through food choice. Maleness becomes embod-
ied through enacting particular characteristics that 
make up the category itself, and here we see mothers 
and other caretakers marking the maleness of specific 
children through the consumption of meat, and po-
tentially millet to a minor extent, which in turn also 
marks female children in contrast to this (i.e., less meat  
consumption, less millet consumption). These gen-
dered roles are relational and, in some ways, opposi-
tional to one another, fitting within the dyadic 
frameworks of ancient Chinese philosophies, thought 
to create balance and harmony through their coexis-
tence (Louie 2002). These dietary practices worked to 
create gendered bodies that were sensible in accor-
dance with cultural norms and values, which fol-
lowed particular ways of being in the world, including 
intersections with other aspects of identity, and rein-
forced gendered notions through their existence and 
repetition across generations.

Ethics Statement

Bioarchaeological analyses, including the chemical 
studies of the human remains described here, were 



Miller et al. 81

undertaken with permission of the Henan Provincial 
Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the staff of the Henan Provincial Institute 
of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Shen Xiaofang, 
Tommy Budd, Bi Xiaoguang, Chen Songtao, Yang Fan, 
Aida Romera, Dustin Stansbury, Christine Hastorf, 
Sabrina Agarwal, and Rosemary Joyce. Funding sup-
port was provided by the Royal Society New Zealand 
Marsden Fund (18- UOO- 123).

References Cited

Agarwal, Sabrina C., and Julie K. Wesp. 2017. Exploring Sex and 
Gender in Bioarchaeology. University of New Mexico Press, 
Albuquerque.

AlQahtani, S. J., M. P. Hector, and H. M. Liversidge. 2010. Brief 
communication: The London atlas of human tooth develop-
ment and eruption. American Journal of Physical Anthropol-
ogy 142(3):481– 490. DOI: 10 . 1002 / ajpa . 21258.

Ambrose, Stanley H., and Lynette Norr. 1993. Experimental evi-
dence for the relationship of the carbon isotope ratios of whole 
diet and dietary protein to those of bone collagen and carbon-
ate. In Prehistoric Human Bone, edited by J. B. Lambert and G. 
Grupe. Springer, Heidelberg, pp. 1– 37.

An, Cheng- Bang, Weimiao Dong, Hu Li, Pingyu Zhang, Yong-
tao Zhao, Xueye Zhao, and Shi- Yong Yu. 2015. Variability of the 
stable carbon isotope ratio in modern and archaeological mil-
lets: Evidence from northern China. Journal of Archaeological 
Science 53:316– 322.

Appadurai, Arjun. 1981. Gastro- politics in Hindu South Asia. 
American Ethnologist 8(3):494– 511. DOI: 10 . 1525 / ae . 1981 . 8 . 3 
. 02a00050.

Beaumont, Julia, A. Gledhill, Julia Lee- Thorp, and Janet Mont-
gomery. 2013. Childhood diet: A closer examination of the ev-
idence from dental tissues using stable isotope analysis of 
incremental human dentine. Archaeometry 55(2):277– 95. DOI: 
10 . 1111 / j . 1475– 4754 . 2012 . 00682 . x.

Beaumont, Julia, Elizabeth- Craig Atkins, Jo Buckberry, Hannah 
Haydock, Pennie Horne, Rachel Howcroft, Kevin Mackenzie, 
and Janet Montgomery. 2018. Comparing apples and oranges: 
Why infant bone collagen may not reflect dietary intake in the 
same way as dentine collagen. American Journal of Physical An-
thropology 167(3):524– 540. DOI: 10 . 1002 / ajpa . 23682.

Beaumont, Julia, and Janet Montgomery. 2015. Oral histories: A 
simple method of assigning chronological age to isotopic val-
ues from human dentine collagen. Annals of Human Biology 
42(4):407– 414. DOI: 10 . 3109 / 03014460 . 2015 . 1045027.

Beaumont, Julia, and Janet Montgomery. 2016. The Great Irish 
Famine: Identifying starvation in the tissues of victims using 
stable isotope analysis of bone and incremental dentine col-
lagen. PLoS ONE 11(8):e0160065. DOI: 10 . 1371 / journal . pone 
. 0160065.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge 
University Press, Cambridge.

Bouveresse, Jacques. 1999. Rules, dispositions, and the habitus. In 
Bourdieu: A Critical Reader, edited by Richard Shusterman. 
Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 45– 63.

Brooks, S., and J. M. Suchey. 1990. Skeletal age determination 
based on the os pubis: A comparison of the Acsádi- Nemeskéri 
and Suchey- Brooks methods. Human Evolution 5(3):227– 238. 
DOI: 10 . 1007 / BF02437238.

Buikstra, Jane E., and Douglas H. Ubelaker. 1994. Standards for 
Data Collection from Human Skeletal Remains. Arkansas Ar-
cheological Survey Research Series No. 44, Fayetteville.

Burt, Nicole M., and Maryam Amin. 2014. A mini me? Explor-
ing early childhood diet with stable isotope ratio analysis us-
ing primary teeth dentin. Archives of Oral Biology 59(11): 
1226– 1232. DOI: 10 . 1016 / j . archoralbio . 2014 . 07 . 014.

Burt, Nicole M., and Sandra Garvie- Lok. 2013. A new method of 
dentine microsampling of deciduous teeth for stable isotope ra-
tio analysis. Journal of Archaeological Science 40(11):3854– 
3864. DOI: 10 . 1016 / j . jas . 2013 . 05 . 022.

Butler, Judith. 1999. Performativity’s social magic. In Bourdieu: 
A Critical Reader, edited by Richard Shusterman. Blackwell, 
Oxford, pp. 113– 128.

Chang, Kwang- chih, ed. 1977. Food in Chinese Culture: Anthro-
pological and Historical Perspectives. Yale University Press, 
New Haven, CT.

Chen, Xuexiang. 2016. An archaeological perspective on the scale 
of wheat cultivation during the Chinese Early Bronze Age. Ag-
ricultural History of China 35(3):3– 9.

Chiang, Howard, ed. 2012. Transgender China. Palgrave Macmil-
lan, New York.

Cohen, David Joel. 2011. The beginnings of agriculture in China: 
A multiregional view. Current Anthropology 52(S4):S273– S293. 
DOI: 10 . 1086 / 659965.

Confucius. 2017. Lunyu. Translated by Xiaofen Chen. Zhonghua 
Book Company, Beijing.

Deng, Zhenhua, Dorian Q. Fuller, Xiaolong Chu, Yanpeng Cao, 
Yuchao Jiang, Lizhi Wang, and Houyuan Lu. 2019. Assessing 
the occurrence and status of wheat in Late Neolithic Central 
China: The importance of direct AMS radiocarbon dates from 
Xiazhai. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 29:69– 73. DOI: 
10 . 1007 / s00334 - 019 - 00732 - 7.

DeNiro, Michael J. 1985. Postmortem preservation and alteration 
of in vivo bone collagen isotope ratios in relation to palaeodi-
etary reconstruction. Nature 317(6040):806– 809. DOI: 10 . 1038 
/ 317806a0.

DeNiro, Michael J., and Samuel Epstein. 1978. Influence of diet 
on the distribution of carbon isotopes in animals. Geochimica 
et Cosmochimica Acta 42(5):495– 506. DOI: 10 . 1016 / 0016 - 7037(78) 
90199 - 0.

DeNiro, Michael J., and Samuel Epstein. 1981. Influence of diet 
on the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in animals. Geochimica 
et Cosmochimica Acta 45(3):341– 351. DOI: 10 . 1016 / 0016 - 7037 
(81)90244 - 1.

DeNiro, Michael J., and Margaret J. Schoeninger. 1983. Stable carbon 
and nitrogen isotope ratios of bone collagen: Variations within 
individuals, between sexes, and within populations raised on mo-
notonous diets. Journal of Archaeological Science 10(3):199– 203.

Dettwyler, Katherine A. 1987. Breastfeeding and weaning in Mali: 
Cultural context and hard data. Social Science & Medicine 
24(8):633– 644. DOI: 10 . 1016 / 0277 - 9536(87)90306 - 6.

Dietler, Michael. 2007. Culinary encounters: Food, identity, and 
colonialism. In The Archaeology of Food and Identity, edited by 
Katheryn Twiss. Center for Archaeological Investigations, 
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Occasional Paper 
No. 34, pp. 218– 242.

Dietler, Michael, and Brian Hayden, eds. 2001. Feasts: Archaeo-
logical and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics, and 
Power. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Dong, Yu, Chelsea Morgan, Yurii Chinenov, Ligang Zhou, Wen-
quan Fan, Xiaolin Ma, and Kate Pechenkina. 2017. Shifting 



Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China82

diets and the rise of male- biased inequality on the Central 
Plains of China during Eastern Zhou. Proceedings of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences 114(5):932– 937.

D’Ortenzio, Lori, Megan Brickley, Henry Schwarcz, and Tracy 
Prowse. 2015. You are not what you eat during physiological 
stress: Isotopic evaluation of human hair. American Journal 
of Physical Anthropology 157(3):374– 388. DOI: 10 . 1002 / ajpa 
. 22722.

Douglas, Mary. 1984. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Con-
cepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge, London.

Douglas, Mary. 2008. Deciphering a meal. In Food and Culture: 
A Reader, edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, 
2nd ed. Routledge, New York, pp. 44– 53.

Eerkens, Jelmer W., and Eric J. Bartelink. 2013. Sex- biased wean-
ing and early childhood diet among Middle Holocene hunter– 
gatherers in central California. American Journal of Physical 
Anthropology 152(4):471– 483. DOI: 10 . 1002 / ajpa . 22384.

Eerkens, Jelmer W., Ada G. Berget, and Eric J. Bartelink. 2011. Es-
timating weaning and early childhood diet from serial micro- 
samples of dentin collagen. Journal of Archaeological Science 
38(11):3101– 3111. DOI: 10 . 1016 / j . jas . 2011 . 07 . 010.

Fahy, G. E., C. Deter, R. Pitfield, J. J. Miszkiewicz, and P. Ma-
honey. 2017. Bone deep: Variation in stable isotope ratios and 
histomorphometric measurements of bone remodelling within 
adult humans. Journal of Archaeological Science 87:10– 16. DOI: 
10 . 1016 / j . jas . 2017 . 09 . 009.

Falkenhausen, Lothar von. 2006. Chinese Society in the Age of 
Confucius (1000- 250 BC): The Archaeological Evidence. Cotsen 
Institute of Archaeology Press, Los Angeles.

Farnell, Brenda. 2000. Getting out of the habitus: An alternative 
model of dynamically embodied social action. The Journal of 
the Royal Anthropological Institute 6(3):397– 418.

Farquhar, G. D., J. R. Ehleringer, and K. T. Hubick. 1989. Carbon 
isotope discrimination and photosynthesis. Annual Review of 
Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology 40(1):503– 537. 
DOI: 10 . 1146 / annurev . pp . 40 . 060189 . 002443.

Fausto- Sterling, Anne. 1993. The five sexes. The Sciences 33(2):20– 
24. DOI: 10 . 1002 / j . 2326 - 1951 . 1993 . tb03081 . x.

Fausto- Sterling, Anne. 2012. Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social 
World. Routledge, New York.

Feng, Li. 2013. Early China: A Social and Cultural History. Cam-
bridge University Press, Cambridge.

Fouts, Hillary N. 2004. Social and emotional contexts of wean-
ing among bofi farmers and foragers. Ethnology 43(1):65– 81. 
DOI: 10 . 2307 / 3773856.

Franklin, Maria. 2001. The archaeological dimensions of soul 
food: Interpreting race, culture, and Afro- Virginian identity. 
In Race and the Archaeology of Identity, edited by Charles E. 
Orser Jr. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 88– 107.

Fuller, Benjamin T., J. L. Fuller, D. A. Harris, and R. E. M. Hedges. 
2006. Detection of breastfeeding and weaning in modern hu-
man infants with carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios. 
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 129(2):279– 293. 
DOI: 10 . 1002 / ajpa . 20249.

Fuller, Benjamin T., Michael P. Richards, and Simon A. Mays. 
2003. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope variations in tooth 
dentine serial sections from Wharram Percy. Journal of Ar-
chaeological Science 30(12):1673– 1684. DOI: 10 . 1016 / S0305 - 4403 
(03)00073 - 6.

Fuller, Dorian Q., Ling Qin, Yunfei Zheng, Zhijun Zhao, Xugao 
Chen, Leo Aoi Hosoya, and Guo- Ping Sun. 2009. The domes-
tication process and domestication rate in rice: Spikelet bases 
from the Lower Yangtze. Science 323(5921):1607– 1610. DOI: 10 
. 1126 / science . 1166605.

Gamble, Julia, and Gillian Bentley. 2022. Developmental origins of 
health and disease (DOHaD): Perspectives from bioarchaeology. 

In Palaeopathology and Evolutionary Medicine, edited by Kim-
berly A. Plomp, Charlotte A. Roberts, Sarah Elton, and Gillian R. 
Bentley. Oxford Academic, Oxford, pp. 17– 41.

Ganiatsou, Elissavet, Efrossini Vika, Angeliki Georgiadou, Tania 
Protopsalti, and Christina Papageorgopoulou. 2022. Breast-
feeding and weaning in Roman Thessaloniki. An investiga-
tion of infant diet based on incremental analysis of human 
dentine. Environmental Archaeology. In press. DOI: 10 . 1080 
/ 14614103 . 2022 . 2083925.

Garland, Carey J., Laurie J. Reitsema, Clark Spencer Larsen, and 
David Hurst Thomas. 2018. Early life stress at Mission Santa 
Catalina de Guale: An integrative analysis of enamel defects 
and dentin incremental isotope variation in malnutrition. Bio-
archaeology International 2(2):75– 94. DOI: 10 . 5744 / bi . 2018 . 1019.

Gaytán, Marie Sarita. 2008. From sombreros to sincronizadas: 
Authenticity, ethnicity, and the Mexican restaurant industry. 
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 37(3):314– 341. DOI: 10 
. 1177 / 0891241607309621.

Geller, Pamela L. 2017. The Bioarchaeology of Socio- Sexual Lives: 
Queering Common Sense About Sex, Gender, and Sexuality. 
Springer, Cham, Switzerland.

Gluckman, Peter D., Mark A. Hanson, and Alan S. Beedle. 2007. 
Early life events and their consequences for later disease: A life 
history and evolutionary perspective. American Journal of Hu-
man Biology 19(1):1– 19. DOI: 10 . 1002 / ajhb . 20590.

Guiry, Eric J., and Paul Szpak. 2021. Improved quality control cri-
teria for stable carbon and nitrogen isotope measurements of 
ancient bone collagen. Journal of Archaeological Science 132: 
105416. DOI: 10 . 1016 / j . jas . 2021 . 105416.

Guo, Rongzhen, and Guiyun Jin. 2019. Study on the wheat agri-
culture in the pre- Qin period of the Haidai Region. Quaternary 
Sciences 39(1):144– 160.

Halcrow, Sian E., Charlotte L. King, Andrew R. Millard, Anne 
Marie E. Snoddy, Rachel M. Scott, Gail E. Elliott, Darren R. 
Gröcke, Hallie R. Buckley, Vivien G. Standen, and Bernardo T. 
Arriaza. 2018. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings: 
Breastfeeding and weaning in the past. In Breastfeeding: New 
Anthropological Approaches. Routledge, New York, pp. 155– 169.

Harris, Marvin. 1985. Good to Eat, Riddles of Food and Culture. 
Allen and Unwin, London.

Hastorf, Christine A. 2017. The Social Archaeology of Food: Think-
ing about Eating from Prehistory to the Present. Cambridge 
University Press, New York.

Hesse, Brian. 1990. Pig lovers and pig haters: Patterns of Palestin-
ian pork production. Journal of Ethnobiology 10(2): 195– 225.

Hillson, Simon. 2005. Teeth. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 
Cambridge.

Hinsch, Bret. 2003. The origins of separation of the sexes in 
China. Journal of the American Oriental Society 123(3):595– 616. 
DOI: 10 . 2307 / 3217752.

Hinsch, Bret. 2013. Masculinities in Chinese History. Rowman & 
Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MD.

Hinsch, Bret. 2018. Women in Ancient China. Rowman & Little-
field, Lanham, MD.

Jiang, Leping, and Li Liu. 2006. New evidence for the origins of 
sedentism and rice domestication in the Lower Yangzi River, 
China. Antiquity 80(308):355– 361. DOI: 10 . 1017 / S0003598 X00 
093674.

Joyce, Rosemary A. 2000. Girling the girl and boying the boy: The 
production of adulthood in ancient Mesoamerica. World Ar-
chaeology 31(3):473– 483. DOI: 10 . 1080 / 00438240009696933.

Katzenberg, M. Anne, and Nancy C. Lovell. 1999. Stable isotope 
variation in pathological bone. International Journal of Osteo-
archaeology 9(5):316– 324.

King, Charlotte L., Siân E. Halcrow, Andrew R. Millard, Darren R. 
Gröcke, Vivien G. Standen, Marco Portilla, and Bernardo T. 



Miller et al. 83

Arriaza. 2018. Let’s talk about stress, baby! Infant-feeding prac-
tices and stress in the ancient Atacama Desert, Northern Chile. 
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 166(1):139– 155. DOI: 
10 . 1002 / ajpa . 23411.

King, Charlotte  L., Andrew  R. Millard, Darren  R. Gröcke, 
Vivien G. Standen, Bernardo T. Arriaza, and Siân E. Halcrow. 
2018. A comparison of using bulk and incremental isotopic 
analyses to establish weaning practices in the past. STAR: Sci-
ence & Technology of Archaeological Research 3(1):1– 9. DOI: 10 
. 1080 / 20548923 . 2018 . 1443548.

Knapp, Keith N. 2019. Noble creatures: Filial and righteous ani-
mals in early medieval Confucian thought. In Animals through 
Chinese History: Earliest Times to 1911, edited by Roel Sterckx, 
Martina Siebert, and Dagmar Schäfer. Cambridge University 
Press, Cambridge, pp. 64– 83.

Ko, Dorothy. 2007. Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History of 
Footbinding. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Kohn, Matthew J. 2010. Carbon isotope compositions of terres-
trial C3 plants as indicators of (paleo)ecology and (paleo)cli-
mate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(46): 
19691– 19695.

Lancy, David. 2012. Unmasking Children’s Agency. Anthro-
poChildren 1(2):1– 20. https:// digitalcommons . usu . edu / sswa 
_ facpubs / 277.

Lancy, David F., John Bock, and Suzanne Gaskins. 2010. The An-
thropology of Learning in Childhood. AltaMira Press, Lanham, 
MD.

Lee, Gyoung- Ah, Gary W. Crawford, Li Liu, and Xingcan Chen. 
2007. Plants and people from the Early Neolithic to Shang pe-
riods in North China. Proceedings of the National Academy of 
Sciences 104(3):1087– 1092. DOI: 10 . 1073 / pnas . 0609763104.

Lee- Thorp, Julia A. 2008. On isotopes and old bones. Archaeom-
etry 50(6):925– 950. DOI: 10 . 1111 / j . 1475 - 4754 . 2008 . 00441 . x.

Lévi- Strauss, Claude. 1966. The culinary triangle. Partisan Review 
33:586– 595.

Lewis, Mary E. 2007. The Bioarchaeology of Children: Perspectives 
from Biological and Forensic Anthropology. Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, New York.

Lewis, Mary E. 2018. Paleopathology of Children: Identification of 
Pathological Conditions in the Human Skeletal Remains of Non- 
Adults. Academic Press, London.

Liu, Li. 2021. Communal drinking rituals and social formations in 
the Yellow River Valley of Neolithic China. Journal of Anthropo-
logical Archaeology 63:101310. DOI: 10 . 1016 / j . jaa . 2021 . 101310.

Liu, Li, and Xingcan Chen. 2012. The Archaeology of China: From 
the Late Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, Cambridge.

Liu, Li, Jiajing Wang, and Huifang Liu. 2020. The brewing func-
tion of the first Amphorae in the Neolithic Yangshao culture, 
North China. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 
12(6):118. DOI: 10 . 1007 / s12520 - 020 - 01069 - 3.

Liu, Xinyi, Harriet V. Hunt, and Martin K. Jones. 2009. River Val-
leys and foothills: Changing archaeological perceptions of 
North China’s earliest farms. Antiquity 83(319):82– 95. DOI: 10 
. 1017 / S0003598X00098100.

Liu, Xinyi, and Rachel E. B. Reid. 2020. The prehistoric roots of 
Chinese cuisines: Mapping staple food systems of China, 6000 
BC– 220 AD. PLoS ONE 15(11):e0240930. DOI: 10 . 1371 / journal 
. pone . 0240930.

Louie, Kam. 2002. Theorising Chinese Masculinity: Society and 
Gender in China. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Macadam, Patricia Stuart, and Katherine A. Dettwyler. 1995. 
Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives. Aldine de Gruyter 
Press, New York.

Mauss, Marcel. 1973. Techniques of the body. Economy and Soci-
ety 2(1):70– 88.

Meigs, Anna. 1987. Food as a cultural construction. Food and 
Foodways 2(1):341– 357. DOI: 10 . 1080 / 07409710 . 1987 . 9961926.

Mennell, Stephen. 1985. All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in 
England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present. Basil 
Blackwell, Oxford.

Miller, Elizabeth M. 2018. Beyond passive immunity: Breastfeed-
ing, milk, and collaborative mother- infant immune systems. 
In Breastfeeding: New Anthropological Approaches, edited by 
Cecília Tomori, Aunchalee E. L. Palmquist, and E. A. Quinn. 
Routledge, New York, pp. 26– 39.

Miller, Melanie J. 2016. Social Inequality and the Body: Diet, Ac-
tivity, and Health Differences in a Prehistoric Muisca Popula-
tion (Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia, AD 1000– 1400). PhD 
dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

Miller, Melanie J., Sabrina C. Agarwal, and Carl H. Langebaek. 
2018. Dietary histories: Tracing food consumption practices 
from childhood through adulthood using stable isotope anal-
ysis. In Children and Childhood in Bioarchaeology, edited by 
Patrick Beauchesne and Sabrina C. Agarwal. University Press 
of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 262– 293.

Miller, Melanie J., Yu Dong, Kate Pechenkina, Wenquan Fan, and 
Siân E. Halcrow. 2020. Raising girls and boys in early China: 
Stable isotope data reveal sex differences in weaning and child-
hood diets during the Eastern Zhou Era. American Journal 
of Physical Anthropology. 172(4):567– 585. DOI: 10 . 1002 / ajpa 
. 24033.

Minagawa, Masao, and Eitaro Wada. 1984. Stepwise enrichment 
of 15N along food chains: Further evidence and the relation be-
tween D15N and animal age. Geochimica et Cosmochimica 
Acta 48:1135– 1140.

Montgomery, Heather. 2010. Learning gender roles. In The An-
thropology of Learning in Childhood, edited by David F. Lancy, 
John Bock, and Suzanne Gaskins. AltaMira Press, Lanham, 
MD, pp. 287– 306.

Nyitray, Vivian- Lee. 2021. Confucian complexities: China, Korea, 
Vietnam, and Japan. In A Companion to Global Gender History, 
edited by Teresa  A. Meade and Merry  E. Wiesner- Hanks, 
2nd ed. John Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, pp. 239– 252.

O’Leary, Marion H. 1988. Carbon isotopes in photosynthesis. Bio-
science 38(5):328– 336.

Palmquist, Aunchalee E. L. 2017. Consuming immunities: Milk 
sharing and the social life of passive immunity. In Breastfeed-
ing: New Anthropological Approaches, edited by Cecília Tomori, 
Aunchalee E. L. Palmquist, and E. A. Quinn. Routledge, New 
York, pp. 40– 54.

Pestle, William J., Brooke E. Crowley, and Matthew T. Weirauch. 
2014. Quantifying inter- laboratory variability in stable isotope 
analysis of ancient skeletal remains. PLoS ONE 9(7):e102844. 
DOI: 10 . 1371 / journal . pone . 0102844.

Reitsema, Laurie J., and Giuseppe Vercellotti. 2012. Stable isotope 
evidence for sex-  and status- based variations in diet and life 
history at medieval Trino Vercellese, Italy. American Journal 
of Physical Anthropology 148:589– 600.

Reynard, Linda  M., and Noreen Tuross. 2015. The known, the 
unknown and the unknowable: Weaning times from archaeo-
logical bones using nitrogen isotope ratios. Journal of Archae-
ological Science 53:618– 625. DOI: 10 . 1016 / j . jas . 2014 . 11 . 018.

Richardson, Sarah S. 2013. Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Fe-
male in the Human Genome. University of Chicago Press, 
Chicago.

Rozin, Paul, Jonathan Haidt, Clark McCauley, and Sumio Imada. 
1997. Disgust: Preadaptation and the cultural evolution of a 
food- based emotion. In Food Preferences and Taste, edited by 
Helen Macbeth. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 65– 82.

Schoeninger, Margaret J., and Michael J. DeNiro. 1982. Carbon 
isotope ratios of apatite from fossil bone cannot be used to 

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/sswa_facpubs/277
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/sswa_facpubs/277


Childhood Food Practices as Socialization Processes in Ancient China84

reconstruct diets of animals. Nature 297(5867):577– 578. DOI: 
10 . 1038 / 297577a0.

Schoeninger, Margaret J., and Michael J. DeNiro. 1984. Nitrogen 
and carbon isotopic composition of bone collagen from marine 
and terrestrial animals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 
48(4):625– 639.

Schwarcz, Henry P., and Harmeet Nahal. 2021. Theoretical and 
observed C/N ratios in human bone collagen. Journal of Ar-
chaeological Science 131:105396. DOI: 10 . 1016 / j . jas . 2021 . 105396.

Sealy, Judith, Richard Armstrong, and Carmel Schrire. 1995. Be-
yond lifetime averages: Tracing life histories through isotopic 
analysis of different calcified tissues from archaeological hu-
man skeletons. Antiquity 69:290– 300.

Sealy, Judith, Malia Johnson, Michael Richards, and Olaf Neh-
lich. 2014. Comparison of two methods of extracting bone col-
lagen for stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis: 
Comparing whole bone demineralization with gelatinization 
and ultrafiltration. Journal of Archaeological Science 47:64– 69. 
DOI: 10 . 1016 / j . jas . 2014 . 04 . 011.

Sofaer, Joanna R. 2006. The Body as Material Culture: A Theoreti-
cal Osteoarchaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Soncin, Silvia, Helen M. Talbot, Ricardo Fernandes, Alison Har-
ris, Matthew von Tersch, Harry K. Robson, et al. 2021. High- 
resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 CE 
Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound- specific iso-
tope analysis. Science Advances 7(35):eabg5791. DOI: 10 . 1126 
/ sciadv . abg5791.

Sterckx, Roel. 2005. Food and philosophy in early China. In Of 
Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics, and Religion in Traditional 
China, edited by Roel Sterckx. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 
pp. 34– 61.

Sterckx, Roel. 2011. Food, Sacrifice, and Sagehood in Early China. 
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. DOI: 10 . 1017 / CBO978 
0511736247.

Sterckx, Roel. 2019. Animal to edible: The ritualization of animals 
in early China. In Animals through Chinese History: Earliest 
Times to 1911, edited by Roel Sterckx, Martina Siebert, and Dag-
mar Schäfer. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 46– 63.

Taylor, Charles. 1999. To follow a rule. In Bourdieu: A Critical 
Reader, edited by Richard Shusterman. Blackwell, Oxford, 
pp. 29– 44.

Tomori, Cecília, Aunchalee E. L. Palmquist, and E. A. Quinn, eds. 
2018. Breastfeeding: New Anthropological Approaches. Rout-
ledge, New York.

Tomori, Cecília, E. A. Quinn, and Aunchalee E. L. Palmquist. 
2022. Making space for lactation in the anthropology of repro-
duction. In The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and Re-
production, edited by Sallie Han and Cecília Tomori. Routledge, 
New York, pp. 527– 540.

Tsutaya, Takumi. 2020. Blurred time resolution of tooth dentin 
serial sections. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 
173(4):748– 759. DOI: 10 . 1002 / ajpa . 24113.

Tsutaya, Takumi, and Minoru Yoneda. 2015. Reconstruction of 
breastfeeding and weaning practices using stable isotope and 

trace element analyses: A review. American Journal of Physi-
cal Anthropology 156(S59):2– 21. DOI: 10 . 1002 / ajpa . 22657.

Wang, Can, Houyuan Lu, Wanfa Gu, Xinxin Zuo, Jianping 
Zhang, Yanfeng Liu, et al. 2018. Temporal changes of mixed 
millet and rice agriculture in Neolithic- Bronze age Central 
Plain, China: Archaeobotanical evidence from the Zhuzhai 
site. The Holocene 28(5):738– 754.

Wei, Xiaoyang, Jianrong Chong, Zhanwei Sun, Liang Chen, Shuai 
Lei, and Xue Ling. 2021. Preliminary exploitation on human 
lifestyles of Rui state during the Spring- and- Autumn Period at 
Liujiawa site − based on stable carbon and nitrogen isotope 
analysis of human bones. Quaternary Sciences 41(5):1466– 1474.

Weismantel, Mary. 1988. Food, Gender and Poverty in the Ecua-
dorian Andes. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.

White, Christine D. 2005. Gendered food behaviour among the 
Maya time, place, status and ritual. Journal of Social Archaeol-
ogy 5(3):356– 382. DOI: 10 . 1177 / 1469605305057572.

Williams, L. J., Christine D. White, and Fred J. Longstaffe. 2011. 
Improving stable isotopic interpretations made from human 
hair through reduction of growth cycle error. American Jour-
nal of Physical Anthropology 145(1):125– 136. DOI: 10 . 1002 / ajpa 
. 21479.

Xunzi. 2014. Xunzi: The Complete Text. Translated by Eric L. Hut-
ton. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

Yu, Ying- shih. 2016. Food in Chinese culture: The Han Period. 
In Chinese History and Culture Volume 1: Sixth Century B.C.E. 
to Seventeenth Century, edited by Ying- shih Yu, Josephine 
Chiu- Duke, and Michael Duke. Columbia University Press, 
New York, pp. 91– 121.

Zhao, Zhijun. 2011. New archaeobotanic data for the study of the 
origins of agriculture in China. Current Anthropology 
52(S4):S295– S306. DOI: 10 . 1086 / 659308.

Zhou, Ligang, and Sandra J. Garvie- Lok. 2015. Isotopic evidence 
for the expansion of wheat consumption in northern China. 
Archaeological Research in Asia 4:25– 35. DOI: 10 . 1016 / j . ara . 2015 
. 10 . 001.

Zhou, Ligang. 2020. The stable isotope analysis of human bones 
of Eastern Zhou elites from Changxinyuangcheng, Xinyang 
city, and several other archaeological sites. Huaxia Archaeol-
ogy 2020(5):60– 65.

Zhou, Ligang, Zhaohui Han, Lei Sun, and Guoqiang Hu. 2021. 
Stable isotope analysis of human remains from the Songzhuang 
Eastern Zhou Cemetery in Qixian, Henan Province: An in-
vestigation on the diet of nobles and human sacrifices. Acta 
Anthropologica Sinica 40(1):63– 74.

Zuckerman, Molly K., and John Crandall. 2019. Reconsidering sex 
and gender in relation to health and disease in bioarchaeology. 
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 54:161– 171. DOI: 10 . 1016 
/ j . jaa . 2019 . 04 . 001.

Zuckerman, Molly K., Sierra W. Malis, Daniel D. Dillon, Kerri J. 
Widrick, Elise J. Adams, Mary E. Hill, et al. 2023. Sex, gender, 
and sexuality in paleopathology: Select current developments 
and pathways forward. International Journal of Paleopathology 
41:8– 21. 




