Collagen Stable Isotope Data from East and Northeast Asia, c. 7000 BC – 1000 AD

Abstract

Stable isotope analysis is routinely used in archaeology to answer questions related to past diets. As the technique matures, data from archaeological sites have been generated at an exponential rate over the past several decades, thus provided an invaluable opportunity to examine past dietary practices and subsistence economies in much larger geographical and temporal settings. In Asia, a significant proportion of isotopic data is published in non-English journals or in grey literature, therefore remains largely inaccessible to general researchers. In order to provide easier access to these data, and to encourage future large-scale meta-data analyses in Asia, this collection presents the most comprehensive set of collagen stable isotope data of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur from East and Northeast Asia (29˚ – 51˚N, 96˚ – 136˚ E) to date, including sites located within the modern territories of the People’s Republic of China, Mongolia, the Russian Federation, and the Republic of Korea. Using academic search engines such as Google Scholar, the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and ScienceON, a total of 3,304 previously published archaeological human a faunal stable isotope data from 136 archaeological sites in East and Northeast Asia, spanning over a period of 8,000 years (c. 7000 BC to AD 1000) are collected.

Keywords

• Stable isotope analysis
• collagen
• carbon
• nitrogen
• sulfur
• palaeodiet
• subsistence economy