Sedimentary ancient DNA from an artificial hydraulic feature in the ordinary city of the Tang Dynasty (PRJCA042047)
The China Central Plains in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) was the eastern starting point of the Silk Road, characterized by a long and developed agricultural civilization. It also developed the world's most prosperous city network centered on Chang'an and Luoyang. The utilization of plant and animal resources by urban residents here offers significant insights into the empire's economy and global interaction. However, direct, quantifiable, arguably less biased archaeobotany and zooarchaeology studies are scarce, due to excavation challenges in modern urban areas, and inherent limitations in macro-remains preservation and identification. And historical documents tend to record elite groups or accidental events. Here, we applied the sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) for an artificial hydraulic feature in an ordinary city, Guan City (modern Zhengzhou) in the Central Plains during the Tang Dynasty.