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.

Who Were the Hallstatts?

The Hallstatts were an ancient culture in Europe, from Western Europe to Eastern Europe. The Hallstatt culture has been dated to around c. 1200 – c. 500 BCE and emerged from the Bronze Age Urnfield culture. It is named after the town of Hallstatt when between 1846 and 1863, Johann Georg Ramsauer discovered a major cemetery belonging to it.

The Hallstatt culture has been divided into separate timeframes; Hallstatt A (1200 – 1000 BCE), Hallstatt B (1000 – 800 BCE), Hallstatt C (800 – 650 BCE) and Hallstatt D (650 – 475 BCE). The first two phases (A and B) are allocated to the broad Bronze Age epochs E and F in Central Europe and Hallstatt C and D to the Iron Age. It is then further divided into the Western Hallstatt and Eastern Hallstatt cultures.

Ancient cultures like the Hallstatts are somewhat difficult to recount their daily lives. However, archaeological excavations have revealed a mass of artefacts associated with these people so we can gain an insight into who they really were. In the final stages of the culture, cauldrons or deep bowls have been a typical find associated with them. They are generally equipped with one or two free-swinging handles and the pail either with horizontal, hydria-type handles, or the free-swinging handles. Designs on these types of objects are shown with water bird or the bird proteome with circle disk, which could indicate an Oriental influence according to scholars.

Much of what we know about the Hallstatt culture comes from the prehistoric salt-mines and the extensive cemetery which consists of over 1000 graves. In addition to this, no other culture can offer as much information into understanding temperate Europe at the time when iron first began to be used in Europe (around the seventh and sixth centuries BCE).

The bodies found had been either buried or cremated (roughly half and half in numbers). The skeletons of those who had been buried were sketched and then, unfortunately, thrown away by early scholars. Fortunately, the exact position of grave goods relative to the skeleton was often recorded and sketched. Experts believe that it was the elite social classes that preferred to be cremated rather than buried.

Trade appears to be an important aspect of the Hallstatt culture; the iron flat axe is a typical tool of theirs and distribution areas can be found in Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Bosnia. Trade of their items seems to have spread across most of western and eastern Europe, emphasising the importance of this remarkable culture.

Bibliography:

Foltiny, Stephen (19761) Athens and the East Hallstatt Region: Cultural Interrelations at the Dawn of the Iron Age, American Journal of Archaeology, Archaeological Institute of America.

Hodson, Frank Roy (1977) Quantifying Hallstatt: Some Initial Results, American Antiquity, Society for American Archaeology.

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.