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The Siwa archaeological culture (ca. 3350 and 2650 cal yr BP) has often been associated with the tribes referenced in textual sources as Qiang and Rong: prized captives commonly sacrificed by the Shang and marauding hordes who toppled the Western Zhou dynasty. In early Chinese writings, food plays a key role in accentuating the 'sino-barbarian' dichotomy believed to have taken root over 3000 years ago, with the Qiang and Rong described as nomadic pastoralists who consumed more meat than grain and knew little of proper dining etiquette. To date, however, little direct archaeological evidence has allowed us to reconstruct the diet and foodways of the groups who occupied the Loess Plateau during this pivotal period. Here we present the results of the first ceramic use-wear study performed on the Siwa ma'an jars from the site of Zhanqi, combined with the molecular and isotopic characterization of lipid residues from foodcrusts, and evidence from experimental cooking. We report molecular data indicating the preparation of meals composed of millet and ruminant dairy among the Siwa community of Zhanqi. Use-wear analysis shows that Zhanqi community members were sophisticated creators of ceramic equipment, the ma'an cooking pot, which allowed them to prepare a wide number of dishes with limited fuel. These findings support recent isotope studies at Zhanqi as well as nuance the centrality of meat in the Siwa period diet., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196407.].

Freshwater reservoir offsets (FROs) occur when AMS dates on charred, encrusted food residues on pottery predate a pot's chronological context because of the presence of ancient carbon from aquatic resources such as fish. Research over the past two decades has demonstrated that FROs vary widely within and between water bodies and between fish in those water bodies. Lipid analyses have identified aquatic biomarkers that can be extracted from cooking residues as potential evidence for FROs. However, lacking has been efforts to determine empirically how much fish with FROs needs to be cooked in a pot with other resources to result in significant FRO on encrusted cooking residue and what percentage of fish C in a residue is needed to result in the recovery of aquatic biomarkers. Here we provide preliminary assessments of both issues. Our results indicate that in historically-contingent, high alkalinity environments <20% C from fish may result in a statistically significant FRO, but that biomarkers for aquatic resources may be present in the absence of a significant FRO.