Some like it hot: Sichuan pepper ( Zanthoxylum bungeanum ) and other spices from a late Bronze Age kingdom (Chu State) i
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Some like it hot: Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum bungeanum) and other spices from a late Bronze Age kingdom (Chu State) in Hubei, China Pengfei Sheng 1,2
&
Hua Zhou 3 & Jianye Liu 4 & Hongen Jiang 5
Received: 3 January 2020 / Accepted: 8 September 2020 / Published online: 30 September 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Located in the Jianghan plain in Hubei Province, China, the Wangshanqiao Tomb No. 1 is a large-sized burial belonging to a high-status male from the Chu State during Warring States period (475–221 BC). Here, archaeobotanical studies were applied to the waterlogged plant remains discovered from that tomb dated to around 300 BC. The recovery of a considerable number of wellpreserved plant macrofossils suggests that the Chu kingdom noble classes used many plant species including spices such as Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum bungeanum), ginger (Zingiber officinale), and Chinese Angelica (Angelica sinensis), as well as fruits and nuts. We discuss the differences in spice usage between noble classes and genders in this southern central part of China from late Bronze to early Iron Ages by examining these data along with other extant archaeobotanical evidence recovered from 33 tombs during around 1100 BC to AD 30. It indicates that the seeds of Sichuan pepper were more widely used in the noble burials of male and female from upper to lower classes than other spices in the southern central part of China from Warring States period (475–221 BC) to Western Han dynasty (202 BC–AD 8). Keywords Archaeobotany . Spice . Sichuan pepper . Ginger . Warring States . China
Introduction Archaeobotanical research in China has made significant progress in recent years, first focusing on issues related to the domestication of indigenous staple crops such as rice and millets (e.g., Fuller et al. 2009; Lu et al. 2009; Zhao Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-020-01201-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Hongen Jiang [email protected] 1
Institute of Archaeological Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
2
Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
3
College of Applied Arts and Science, Beijing Union University, Beijing 100191, China
4
Jingzhou Museum, Jingzhou 434020, Hubei, China
5
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A, Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
2011), and then shifting toward researching the translocation of other staple crops, like wheat and barley (e.g., Jones et al. 2011; Stevens et al. 2016; Liu et al. 2017; Long et al. 2018; Zhou et al. 2020). Aside from research on these staples, other archaeobotanists have also investigated the remains of fruiting trees from both fruit stones and charcoal (e.g., Jiang et al. 2013; Zheng et al. 2014; Shen et al. 2019). While the earliest evidence of these crops and fruits remain important topics, ma
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