Millet farmed in North China earlier than thought

New isotopic studies on the bones of dogs and pigs in Dadiwan tell us that dogs, and hence people too, had a millet-based diet as early as 7900-7200 years ago (Dadiwan 1). They were therefore surely farmers at that early stage.

Pigs instead only show the millet isotopic signature in the second phase (6500-4900 BP), what suggests to researchers that they were still wild (though maybe they were just being fed in woodlands, as pigs have been traditionally fed everywhere, I guess).

In any case this research confirms the oldest possible dates for the beginning of agriculture in Northern China.

Source: Science Daily - Early Agriculture Left Traces In Animal Bones.
Paper: L. Barton et al., Agricultural origins and the isotopic identity of domestication in northern China. PNAS, 2009.
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