The History of the Xiajiadain Period in Ancient China

Before the major dynasties of ancient Chinese history, there were several Neolithic cultures that sprang up around the valleys of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. These ancient civilizations, known as cultures, established agricultural communities in the Bronze Age which later gave way to better known cultures such as the Shang civilization.

The Lower Xiajiadain culture was established in Inner Mongolia and Liaoning and Hebei provinces in the north of China. At the time it emerged (around 2200 BCE) it was contemporary with the Longshan culture. Excavations have separated the Xiajiadain period into three phrases with the known 2000 sites falling into one of the three categories, based on size and the presence of defences.

Some Xiajiadain sites had large walls for protection; the largest site covers more than 10 ha (25 acres). Smaller defended sites and those without walls clustered around a large central place. An example of this can be found at Chijiayingzi. A number of these stone walls included bastions of stone or stamped earth and had plastered walls and floors.

Different locations had slight variations. For example, in Sifendi in Inner Mongolia, houses were constructed as circular buildings with a diameter of not more than 4m (13ft), dominated by a hearth in the middle of the room.

The Xiajiadain culture was based on millet cultivation and many storage pits were likely to have been dug to store millet for the winter period. Archaeologists have unearthed large amounts of cultural implements, such as stone hoes, sickles, spades made from animal shoulder bones, and bones from several types of animals. The animal bones strongly indicate that the Xiajiadain people had raised livestock as well as hunting deer. From grave excavations, it appears pigs were placed with the bodies as ritual offerings.

Graves have been found at many sites belonging to the Xiajiadain culture. At Dadianzi, some 800 burials have been excavated. The elite classes were placed in large graves of up to 8.9m (29ft) where a wooden coffin was placed at the bottom. On top of the coffin finely painted ceramic vessels and limbs of domestic pigs were placed in niches at the side. Archaeologists have also found polished stone battle-axes, lacquer-ware, rare jades, ornaments made from bronze and skeletons of dogs and pigs.

Not only can the Xiajiadain culture tell us what the society was like, it can also tell us what the conditions were like to live in at the time. “Pollen collected from graves of the Lower Xiajiadian period, however, suggests that conditions did not significantly deteriorate during the 5th and 4th millennia B.P. Analysis of pollen collected from Lower Xiajiadian graves showed that in some samples, tree pollen accounted for up to 99% of the total pollen, while in others bush and grass pollen accounted for 95% of the pollen. Among the trees, pine and other polipodia dominated the pollen spectrum. This suggests that the area had a wooded environment with patches of grassland and agricultural fields. On the basis of the types and relative frequencies of plants identified, a wetter environment than the present is suggested”.

The Xiajiadain period was a remarkable period in Chinese history; because of this ancient society, it is believed they were, in part, the ancestors of the Shang civilization.

Bibliography:

Linduff, Katheryn. M., Drennan, Robert D. & Shelach, Gideon (2002-2004) Early Complex Societies in NE China: The Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project, Journal of Field Archaeology, Boston University.

Higham, Charles (2005) The Human Past – Complex Societies of East and Southeast Asia, Thames & Hudson, London.

Archaeological Sites: Beinan

The archaeological site of Beinan in Taiwan is one of the most important sites of the island. Covering more than 99 acres, the village site is one of most remarkable sites and offers us great insight into the history and the culture here.

Discovered in 1980, the site has revealed the remains of 50 dry stone house foundations and over 1500 burials. The majority of these graves have been given a date of between 1500 to 800 BCE. Beinan is the largest prehistoric burial site on the Pacific Rim, at which archaeologists’ unearthed earthenware for general use, jade ornaments, stone objects, residential areas, and slate coffins.

The houses were built on rectangular stone pavements in rows, with adjacent rows of dry-stone walled storehouses. The floors of the houses sealed slab-lined burial cists, an arrangement indicating an interest in ancestor veneration (Bellwood & Hiscock, p.286). A number of these houses were divided by boulders acting as walls. This has been suggested by scholars that the boulders acted as lineage divisions of some kind within the village plan.

It is of great interest that the most complex burial forms in Taiwan occur on the east coast, in distinctive, non-mainland burial treatments such as the use of slate coffins. The burials have yielded a mass of artefacts; these included beautiful pieces of jade in the form of long tubular beads, bracelets and penannular earrings in the form an almost complete ring (Bellwood & Hiscock, p.287). Other items found included clay spindle whorls, stone reaping knives, anthropomorphic earrings, projectile points, stone bark-cloth beaters and pig and dog figurines.

The pottery belonging to the Beinan culture is very distinctive. It is mostly a fine orange ware, sometimes red-slipped, with no other means of decoration. A jar with two vertical strap handles and a ring foot is the most common form of pottery found at the site. It has been compared to the Yuanshan pottery in the Taipei basin.

The site of Beinan on Taiwan has given archaeologists and scholars a mass of rich information relating to Taiwanese, Chinese and Austronesian history. Today, Beinan is classed as a Class III site and has not yet been fully excavated. However, continual research here will continue to shed light into the fascinating history of these people.

Bibliography:

Bellwood, Peter & Hiscock, Peter (2005) The Human Past – Australia and the Austronesians, Thames & Hudson, London.

Pearson, Richard & Underhill, Anne (1987) The Chinese Neolithic: Recent Trends in Research, American Anthropologist, Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropologist Association.

Bronze Musical Instruments from the Shang and Zhou Periods

Excavations in south China have revealed a large amount of bronze musical instruments dating from the Shang (c. 1600 – 1046 BCE) and the Zhou (c. 1045 – 256 BCE) Dynasties. Each of these music instruments display pronounced regional characteristics and are important artefacts as they can give us great insight into Chinese history at this time.

One type of instruments found were large bells named ‘nao’. These large bells were different from the southern bells as they were set on a stand and hit upright, instead of being grasped in the hands and struck downwards. The tops of the bells are fashioned quite wide and narrow at the bottom with a curved rim and a cylindrical shank (yong). The player can produce two different types of tones with these bells by striking at the ‘gu’ and the ‘sui’ sections. These are called the sui-tone and the gu-tone. The nao are sometimes called yong, zheng, duo, zhong or early period yongzhong.

There have been 73 bronze nao found in south China which are grouped into 6 main categories and 15 sub-categories. The first main type is made up of 21 examples of bells which feature animal-mask motifs and have been found principally in Hunan Province. The second group consists of 12 examples where the principal animal-mask motif is embellished with a cloud pattern design. The third category is made up of 3 examples where the cloud motif has almost completely replaced the animal-0mask motif. Only the eyes remain visible. The fourth group consists of 8 examples where the body of the nao is embellished with the cloud design and the animal mask has completely disappeared and 36 nipple-bosses appear on the zheng section of the bell.

The fifth category consists of 28 examples where the zhuanjian central panel is in the process of forming. Finally, the sixth category is made up of only 1 unusual nao which was unearthed in 1988. The primary design is a dissolved animal-mask. The two C-shaped panels which shape the animal-mask are framed with altering numbers of tooth-shaped protuberances. The eyes of the pattern are composed of two small turtles. The gu sections are decorated with 4 dragon images.

The bo was one of the most important musical instruments in China which were first seen in the late Shang period and prevalent during the Zhou period. The characteristics of the bo are a nui loop, a short mei and a narrow mouth and a straight rim. The body of the bo is thin, elongated and elliptical or almond-shaped in cross-section.

There are, however, only 17 officially published bo that have been found dating to these periods. These have been separated into 4 different categories; the first is made up of 9 examples of Bird-bo, where a bird design is embellished onto the lateral flanges and the animal-masks decorating the zheng sections. The Bird-bo is the earliest example, being dated to the late Shang period. The second category consists of the Tiger-bo, of which there are 6 examples. On these, the flanges are decorated with 4 flat-bodied tiger motifs with an imposing animal-mask on the zheng section and flattened circular nipple-bosses as decorative panels.

The third category is made up of 1 example where a cloud design is most dominant. Excavated from Zixing, Hunan Province, the zheng section of this instrument has cloud-pattern decoration as its principal motif, and dates from around the early Western Zhou Period (c. 1046 – 771 BCE). The fourth category consists of 1 example excavated at Qishan, Shaanxi Province. Dragon motifs decorate the niu suspension loops at the top and the lateral and central flanges are decorated with twisted dragons. Sixteen rhomboid mei adorn the bell above and below the zheng segments. The primary design is an animal-mask made up of dragon designs. On the gu section of the Ke-bo there is an inscription of 79 characters long which dates to the reign of King Yi of Zhou.

The bronze musical instruments were not merely instruments to create beautiful sounds; they were items that could express one’s religious beliefs and artistic talents. Studying these instruments has allowed scholars to gain new insight into early Chinese history. For example, it is clear that Shang and Zhou period bo from the south have been influenced by Shang and Zhou culture. The bronze bo originated in the area of the Xiang River basin and neighbouring regions, the homeland of the Yue people. In the north bo did not appear until the late Western Zhou period but they had a strong influence on the popularity of later bo.

Bibliography:

高 至 喜 (1992) Shang and Zhou Period Bronze Musical Instruments from South China, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African studies, Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies.

Neolithic Cultures in the Yangzi River Valley

Neolithic China offers us great insight into pre-historical China as well as being important for the understanding of early rice farming. This time, place and people have fascinated scholars for decades. For this article, I will discuss three Neolithic cultures in the Yangzi River Valley, these being the Daxi, the Meudu and the Songze cultures.

Neolithic settlements in the Yangzi River Valley were based on millet cultivation proliferated, and a pattern of increasing cultural complexity that culminated in the formation of early states can be identified.

The Daxi culture can be dated around 4500 – 3300 BCE when village sites began to increase both in size and range. The Daxi culture is best known around the reign of Lake Dongting, which then spread out from there to both west and east. The terrain would have been swampy, suitable for the growing of rice fields and archaeological evidence for agricultural intensification through plowing has been established. Domestic pig and cattle were tended as well.

The Daxi Culture is contemporaneous with the Middle and Late Yangshao Culture (5200 – 3000 BCE) and at the Daxi site in Sichuan Province there are burials in narrow shafts apparently unique to the region. However, the most important Daxi site is at Chengtoushan where a series of excavations in the 1990’s revealed an early walled town. This was dated to 4000 BCE, with modifications to the walls undertaken at least three times. Here, 700 burials have been excavated. The majority of these burials were poor, but a number of them contained grave goods, including a body with two jade pendants and 50 pottery vessels (, p.246). Near the eastern wall, early rice fields were found, indicating the importance of rice farming at this time.

The Hemudu Culture had cultivated rice as early as 5000 BCE, as is shown by the archaeological evidence at the site of Hemudu, which, until Pengtoushan, was the oldest known site of rice cultivation.

The site is located around 3.3 ft above sea level, in the Lower valley of the Hangzhou River. Currently, only 5% of this site has been excavated (, p.247), yet the information revealed has been detrimental in the understanding of early rice farming. There are four layers to this site, beginning around 5000 BCE and ending around 3000 BCE. Houses have also been unearthed, one measuring 23 meters long by 7 meters deep with a veranda. It has been suggested by scholars that if these houses were built across the rest of the site, then Hemudu would have held a large population, possibly thousands of people.

The pottery manufactured by the Hemudu was handmade ware with black, tempered with charcoal powder from tempering with plant stems and leaves. The most common type of Hemudu pottery found is the cooking pot, sometimes with a waist ring. Other forms are urns, bowls, shallow plates, basins, vessel lids, and pot supports.

The economy of the Hemudu culture was based on rice cultivation, although it should be noted that these people attained a high level of technological skill. This is illustrated by the number of bone shuttles, needles and spindle whorls found at the site.

The Songze culture was located on the margins of Lake Tai, with sites in northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu provinces, dated around 4200 – 3000 BCE. The Songze Culture is considered a successor phase to Hemudu, which was immediately to the south and the later stage of the Majiabang culture.

The modern day city of Shanghai was first occupied by the Songze around 4000 BCE, and the cemeteries here have revealed interesting information. Burials were oriented with the head to the southeast, rather than, as before with earlier cultures, to the north. There were more grave goods buried with the bodies, with tripod vessels as standard. One of the earliest boat coffins found in China is from the Songze Culture at Jiaxing.

Houses were built on raised ground that allowed access to the wet lowlands for rice cultivation as well as marshes and lakes for hunting and fishing.

Pollen data from the Songze site in the Yangtze delta indicate that in the sixth millennium BCE temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees C higher than at present and that the Yangtze delta was at an early stage of formation. The final period of the Neolithic the annual mean temperature is thought to have been 1 to 2 degrees C higher.

The history of Neolithic cultures in the Yangzi River Valley is important to the study, not only of Neolithic China, but also of rice cultivation and Chinese history as a whole. These cultures are important as they pave the way for the later Chinese Dynasties that make China so fascinating to all audiences.

Bibliography:

Higham, Charles (2005) The Human Past – East Asian Agriculture and It’s Impact, Thames & Hudson, London.

Pearson, Richard (1981) Social Complexity in Chinese Coastal Neolithic Sites, Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Zhimin, An (1988) Archaeological Research on Neolithic China, Current Anthropology, The University on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.