Human migration is as old as history and as current as today’s headlines of law enforcement operations and tragedy. Amid the encounters, the question remains: how do strangers become a single people?
Today, more than 90 per cent of China’s population identifies as Han Chinese, despite centuries of migration and upheaval. Historians once credited this unity to strong rulers, uniform writing and Confucius.
But archaeologists in China are finding the answer in the bowl rather than the sword or pen. New scientific research suggests that shared food was the primary engine of assimilation for nomadic tribes migrating into central China over a millennium ago.
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The researchers found this to be the case during the Sixteen Kingdoms period (AD304 to AD439) – a time of intense political fragmentation and warfare in northern China and a pivotal period in the formation of the Chinese national identity.
“In China’s history, the most fundamental manifestation of ethnic assimilation lies in the recognition and development of the agrarian culture by these minority groups who migrated inland,” according to Hu Yaowu, an archaeologist from Fudan University and one of the study’s authors.
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“This constitutes the bedrock of the Chinese nation’s continuous formation,” Hu added.
