Exploring Railroad Impacts on Meat Trade: An Isotopic Investigation of Meat Sourcing and Animal Husbandry at Chinese Diaspora Sites in the American West.

This study uses isotopic analyses to explore how new railroad transportation systems influenced Chinese diaspora meat sourcing and animal husbandry in the nineteenth-century American West. Isotopic compositions of animal bone collagen (n=224) demonstrate tremendous dietary diversity for pigs and chickens, across both C3-to-C4 and omnivory continuums, reflecting variable reliance on local (C3) plants versus use of imported maize (C4) feed and maize-fed and/or finished animals from the Midwest. We argue that these results highlight both the cultural importance of Chinese chicken husbandry and the widespread impact that the Transcontinental Railroad had on food supply across the American West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]