研究论文

稳定同位素分析在古代人类哺乳和断奶行为研究中的应用

  • 朱思媚 ,
  • 孙艺丹
展开
  • 郑州大学考古与文化遗产学院郑州 450001
朱思媚,讲师,主要研究方向为生物考古学。E-mail: zhusimei1992@foxmail.com

收稿日期: 2024-10-09

  修回日期: 2025-04-01

  网络出版日期: 2026-08-12

基金资助

国家社会科学基金青年项目“河南荥阳官庄遗址出土人骨的生物考古学研究”(22CKG024)

Application of stable isotope analysis in the study of ancient human breastfeeding and weaning behavior

  • ZHU Simei ,
  • SUN Yidan
Expand
  • School of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001

Received date: 2024-10-09

  Revised date: 2025-04-01

  Online published: 2026-08-12

摘要

对古代社会的哺乳断奶问题进行研究,有利于了解古代儿童的食物结构和喂养方式,揭示儿童营养状况及背后的文化动因。近年来,稳定同位素分析方法已成为复原古代母乳喂养与辅食摄入的有效工具,并可用于评估断奶年龄与辅食种类等。本文较为系统地梳理了国内外C、N稳定同位素在复原古代人类哺乳和断奶行为的研究进展,揭示了其在探讨古代人类的生存策略、生存压力、社会结构以及人类进化等考古学问题上极为重要的价值,为深入了解古代人类的生活方式和社会复杂化提供了关键线索。

本文引用格式

朱思媚 , 孙艺丹 . 稳定同位素分析在古代人类哺乳和断奶行为研究中的应用[J]. 人类学学报, 2026 , 45(04) : 709 -720 . DOI: 10.16359/j.1000-3193/AAS.2025.0052

Abstract

Throughout the vast expanse of human history, breastfeeding and weaning practices have played a pivotal role in shaping the growth, development, and survival of children. These practices are not only fundamental to the health and nutrition of infants but they are also closely intertwined with population dynamics and broader societal developments. In fact, far from being simple physiological or dietary behaviors, the age at which infants were weaned and the addition of complementary foods was deeply influenced by the socio-cultural, economic patterns, and natural environments of the time, making it an important cultural variable. By delving into the breastfeeding and weaning customs of ancient societies, we can gain a clear understanding of the food structure and feeding methods of ancient children, and reveal children's nutritional status and the cultural motivations behind it. Anthropologists have long viewed breastfeeding as a quantifiable form of parental investment, a view that provides a unique perspective for understanding parent-child relationships and parenting strategies in ancient families. In recent years, with the development of stable isotope methods, it has become an effective tool for the recovery of breastfeeding and complementary food intake in ancient times. By analyzing the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in ancient human bones, researchers can accurately assess the weaning age of infants and the types of complementary foods. With the continuous deepening of archaeological and anthropological research, the breastfeeding and weaning methods of ancient ancestors have attracted widespread attention from the academic community at home and abroad, and related research results are becoming increasingly abundant. These research results not only cover different historical periods, but also involve a wide geographical area, providing us with a comprehensive and systematic perspective for a deeper understanding of the diverse strategies of ancient families in child rearing, the nutritional changes of ancient children, and their living conditions in different environments. This article systematically reviews the research progress of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in reconstructing ancient human breastfeeding and weaning behaviors both domestically and internationally, and provides a preliminary outlook. It reveals that these isotopic methods hold extremely important value in exploring archaeological issues such as ancient human survival strategies, survival pressures, social structures and human evolution. They provide key clues for a deeper understanding of the lifestyle and social complexity of ancient humans. Future research will further expand the sample size, explore the weaning patterns of populations in more ancient sites, and combine interdisciplinary methods to deeply study the weaning practices of ancient humans, in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their way of life and social complexity.

参考文献

[1] Fernández-Crespo T, Czermak A, Lee-Thorp JA. Infant and childhood diet at the passage tomb of Alto de la Huesera (north-central Iberia) from bone collagen and sequential dentine isotope composition[J]. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2018, 28(5): 542-551
[2] Wang TT, Wei D, Yi B, et al. Infancy, childhood, and puberty on the Silk Road revealed with isotopic analysis of incremental dentine[J]. Scientific Reports, 2022, 12(1): 19494
[3] Fogel ML. Nitrogen isotope tracers of human lactation in modern and archaeological populations[J]. In: Annual Report of the Director of the Geophysical Laboratory, Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1989, 88: 111
[4] Katzenberg MA, Herring DA, Saunders SR. Weaning and infant mortality: evaluating the skeletal evidence[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 1996, 101(S23): 177-99
[5] 胡耀武. 稳定同位素生物考古学的概念、简史、原理和目标[J]. 人类学学报, 2021, 40(3): 526-534
[6] Fuller BT, Fuller JL, Harris DA, et al. Detection of breastfeeding and weaning in modern human infants with carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 2006, 129(2): 279-293
[7] King CL, Halcrow SE, Millard AR, et al. Let's talk about stress, baby! Infant-feeding practices and stress in the ancient Atacama desert, Northern Chile[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2018, 166(1): 139-155
[8] Chinique de Armas Y, Mavridou AM, Garcell Domínguez J, et al. Tracking breastfeeding and weaning practices in ancient populations by combining carbon, nitrogen and oxygen stable isotopes from multiple non-adult tissues[J]. PloS one, 2022, 17(2): e0262435
[9] Fuller BT, Fuller JL, Sage NE, et al. Nitrogen balanceand δ15N: why you’re not what you eat during nutritional stress[J]. Rapid communicationsin Mass Spectrometry: An International Journal Devoted to the Rapid Dissemination of Up-to-the-Minute Research in Mass Spectrometry, 2005, 19(18): 2497-2506
[10] Dupras TL, Schwarcz HP, Fairgrieve SI. Infant feeding and weaning practices in Roman Egypt[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 2001, 115(3): 204-212
[11] Price, Douglas T. The chemistry of prehistoric human bone[M]. CUP Archive, 1989, 155-210
[12] Hedges REM, Clement JG, Thomas CDL, et al. Collagen turnover in the adult femoral mid-shaft: Modeled from anthropogenic radiocarbon tracer measurements[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 2007, 133(2): 808-816
[13] Choy K, Jeon OR, Fuller BT, et al. Isotopic evidence of dietary variations and weaning practices in the Gaya cemetery at Yeanri, Gimhae, South Korea[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 2010, 142(1): 74-84
[14] Fuller BT, Richards MP, Mays SA. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope variations in tooth dentine serial sections from Wharram Percy[J]. Journal of Archaeological Science, 2003, 30(12): 1673-1684
[15] Eerkens JW, Berget AG, Bartelink EJ. Estimating weaning and early childhood diet from serial micro-samples of dentin collagen[J]. Journal of Archaeological Science, 2011, 38(11): 3101-3111
[16] Wood JW, Milner GR, Harpending HC, et al. The osteological paradox: problems of inferring prehistoric health from skeletal samples [and comments and reply][J]. Current anthropology, 1992, 33(4): 343-370
[17] Beaumont J. The whole tooth and nothing but the tooth: Or why temporal resolution of bone collagen may be unreliable[J]. Archaeometry, 2020, 62(3): 626-645
[18] 雷帅, 郭怡. 生物考古学视野下人类的牙齿与饮食[J]. 人类学学报, 2022, 41(3): 501-513
[19] Swindler DR. Primate dentition: an introduction to the teeth of non-human primates[M]. Cambridge University Press, 2002, 1-31
[20] Beaumont J, Gledhill A, Lee-Thorp J, et al. Childhood diet: a closer examination of the evidence from dental tissues using stable isotope analysis of incremental human dentine[J]. Archaeometry, 2013, 55(2): 277-295
[21] Beaumont J, Montgomery J. Oral histories: a simple method of assigning chronological age to isotopic values from human dentine collagen[J]. Annals of Human Biology, 2015, 42(4): 407-414
[22] Czermak A, Schermelleh L, Lee-Thorp J. Imaging-assisted time-resolved dentine sampling to track weaning histories[J]. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2018, 28(5): 535-541
[23] Brickley MB, Kahlon B, D'Ortenzio L. Using teeth as tools: Investigating the mother-infant dyad and developmental origins of health and disease hypothesis using vitamin D deficiency[J]. American journal of physical anthropology, 2020, 171(2): 342-353
[24] Czermak A, Fernández-Crespo T, Ditchfield PW, et al. A guide for an anatomically sensitive dentine microsampling and age-alignment approach for human teeth isotopic sequences[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2020, 173(4): 776-783
[25] Cheung C, Fernández-Crespo T, Mion L, et al. Micro-punches versus micro-slices for serial sampling of human dentine: Striking a balance between improved temporal resolution and measuring additional isotope systems[J]. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, 2022, 36(21): e9380
[26] Ganiatsou E, Souleles A, Papageorgopoulou C. WEaning Age FiNder (WEAN): a tool for estimating weaning age from stable isotope ratios of dentinal collagen[J]. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2023, 15(4): 50
[27] Dean MC, Liversidge HM, Elamin F. Combining radiographic and histological data for dental development to compare growth in the past and the present[J]. Annals of Human Biology, 2014, 41(4): 336-347
[28] AlQahtani SJ, Hector MP, Liversidge HM. Brief communication: The London atlas of human tooth development and eruption[J]. American Journal of physical anthropology, 2010, 142(3): 481-490
[29] Howcroft R, Eriksson G, Lidén K. Conformity in diversity? Isotopic investigations of infant feeding practices in two Iron Age populations from southern ?land, Sweden[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2012, 149(2): 217-230
[30] Burt NM, Garvie-Lok S. A new method of dentine microsampling of deciduous teeth for stable isotope ratio analysis[J]. Journal of Archaeological Science, 2013, 40(11): 3854-3864
[31] Fernández-Crespo T, Schulting RJ, Czermak A, et al. The “post-weanling’s conundrum”: exploring the impact of infant and child feeding practices on early mortality in the Bronze Age burial cave of Moro de Alins, north-eastern Iberia, through stable isotope analysis[J]. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2022, 14(10): 196
[32] Lei S, Gu W, Wu Q, et al. Early childhood nurturing strategies in groups of the Yellow River's middle reaches from the late Yangshao culture (3500-2800 BCE): A stable isotope perspective[J]. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2023, 33(5): 920-937
[33] Craig-Atkins E, Towers J, Beaumont J. The role of infant life histories in the construction of identities in death: An incremental isotope study of dietary and physiological status among children afforded differential burial[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2018, 167(3): 644-655
[34] Schmidt J, Kwok C, Keenleyside A. Infant feeding practices and childhood diet at Apollonia Pontica: Isotopic and dental evidence[J]. American journal of physical anthropology, 2016, 159(2): 284-299
[35] Velte M, Czermak A, Grigat A, et al. Tracing early life histories from Roman times to the Medieval era: weaning practices and physiological stress[J]. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2023, 15(12): 190
[36] Tsutaya T, Sawada J, Dodo Y, et al. Isotopic evidence of dietary variability in subadults at the Usu-moshiri site of the Epi-Jomon culture, Japan[J]. Journal of Archaeological Science, 2013, 40(11): 3914-3925
[37] Ventresca Miller A, Hanks BK, Judd M, et al. Weaning practices among pastoralists: New evidence of infant feeding patterns from Bronze Age Eurasia[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2017, 162(3): 409-422
[38] Goude G, Dori I, Sparacello VS, et al. Multi-proxy stable isotope analyses of dentine microsections reveal diachronic changes in life history adaptations, mobility, and tuberculosis-induced wasting in prehistoric Liguria (Finale Ligure, Italy, northwestern Mediterranean)[J]. International Journal of Paleopathology, 2020, 28: 99-111
[39] Pezo-Lanfranco L, DeBlasis P, Eggers S. Weaning process and subadult diets in a monumental Brazilian shellmound[J]. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2018, 22: 452-469
[40] Dunne J, Rebay-Salisbury K, Salisbury RB, et al. Milk of ruminants in ceramic baby bottles from prehistoric child graves[J]. Nature, 2019, 574(7777): 246-248
[41] Haydock H, Clarke L, Craig-Atkins E, et al. Weaning at Anglo-Saxon raunds: Implications for changing breastfeeding practice in britain over two millennia[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2013, 151(4): 604-612
[42] Stantis C, Schutkowski H, So?tysiak A. Reconstructing breastfeeding and weaning practices in the Bronze Age Near East using stable nitrogen isotopes[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2020, 172(1): 58-69
[43] Kennedy GE. From the ape’s dilemma to the weanling's dilemma: early weaning and its evolutionary context[J]. Journal of human evolution, 2005, 48(2): 123-145
[44] Tsutaya T, Mizushima N. Evolutionary biological perspectives on current social issues of breastfeeding and weaning[J]. American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 2023, 181: 81-93
[45] 【唐】孙思邈. 千金方[M]. 北京: 华夏出版社, 1993
[46] Xia Y, Zhang J, Yu F, et al. Breastfeeding, weaning, and dietary practices during the Western Zhou dynasty (1122-771 BC) at Boyangcheng, Anhui Province, China[J]. American journal of physical anthropology, 2018, 165(2): 343-352
[47] Miller MJ, Dong Y, Pechenkina K, et al. Raising girls and boys in early China: Stable isotope data reveal sex differences in weaning and childhood diets during the eastern Zhou era[J]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2020, 172(4): 567-585
[48] Yi B, Liu X, Yuan H, et al. Dentin isotopic reconstruction of individual life histories reveals millet consumption during weaning and childhood at the Late Neolithic (4500 BP) Gaoshan site in southwestern China[J]. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2018, 28(6): 636-644
[49] Cui MJ, Shang X, Ding Y, et al. Breatfeeding and weaning patterns among agro-pastoralists: New evidence of dentine isotopes in Northwest China during Bronze Age[J]. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2024, 56: 104523
[50] Yi B, Zhang J, Cai B, et al. Osteobiography of a seventh-century potter at the Oupan kiln, China by osteological and multi-isotope approach[J]. Scientific reports, 2019, 9(1): 12475
[51] Yi B, Yuan HB, Wang TY, et al. Life history of a high-class noblewoman from the late Shu state in the Chengdu Plain during the Eastern Zhou period (770-221 BC): Childhood stresses and stable life[J]. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2024, 34(1): e3282
[52] Lee CY, Lin KC, Chen J, et al. Dietary history of two human individuals at the Yingpanshan site, Sichuan Province, revealed by carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of serial samples of dentinal collagen[J]. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2020, 30(4): 565-574
文章导航

/