Volume 22, Issue 1

The Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and other authorities excavated the Jingtoushan site from 2019 to 2020, revealing various features such as ash pits, storage pits, red burnt soils, shell middens, and the loci of tool manufacture. Unearthed artifacts are made of pottery, stone, bone and antler, mussel, wood, and textile. In addition, a large number of faunal, floral, and minerals are also collected. The Jingtoushan site, dating between 8300 and 7800 BP, is the only prehistoric shell midden site discovered thus far in Zhejiang. It also has the oldest and deepest shell midden deposits along the coastal areas of China.

The Zhengzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology excavated at the Shuanghuaishu site in Gongyi, Henan between 2013 and 2020. The excavated features include three encircling trenches, a core residential area, large rammed earth building complexes, rammed earth sacrificial altars, tombs, ash pits, and pottery kilns. Unearthed artifacts include pottery, stone tools, and objects made of animal teeth. The Shuanghuaishu site has been so far the largest middle to late Yangshao residential settlement in the Yellow River valley. Shuanghuaishu and the multiple sites in the neighboring region altogether led to the formation of an impressive site complex on a regional scale.

The Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology et al. excavated at the Guoyuanzui site in Lutai Mountain, Huangpi District, Wuhan, Hubei from 2019 to 2020, and discovered a series of Shang dynasty remains, including residential and bronze casting areas. Features related to bronze casting include architectural structures, ash ditches, ash pits, red burnt soil pits, furnaces, round-shaped burnt ground surfaces, clay mold pits, and backfill pits. Unearthed artifacts range from bronzes, casting-related artifacts, pottery artifacts, and stone objects. Most of the Shang dynasty casting remains found at Guoyuanzui are of the same period as those of the Huayuanzhuang phase in Huanbei Shang City through Yinxu Phase I. The Guoyuanzui site is another Shang dynasty core settlement in the middle of the Yangtze River after Panlongcheng. The excavation at Guoyuanzui is significant for the discussion of the Shang dynasty’s strategic management of South China, and thus is of immense value in revealing the civilizational developmental trajectory in the middle reach of the Yangtze River.

The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Regional Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Pengyang County Commission for Preservation of Ancient Monuments conducted archaeological investigations, probing surveys, and excavations of the Yaoheyuan site from 2017 to 2020. They identified various features, including city walls, moats, a high-ranking burial, a cemetery of small-sized tombs, palatial foundations, a bronze foundry zone, as well as roads and a network of water channels. Retrieved artifacts include objects made of pottery, jade and stone, bone and antler, ivory, mussel, proto-porcelain, and inscribed oracle bone. The Yaoheyuan site, dating from the early through the late Western Zhou, is the capital city of the Huo state of the Western Zhou. This excavation provides invaluable new data for understanding Western Zhou political structure and the relationship between the Zhou royal house and the western frontier. It also sheds new light on the chronological framework and the trajectory of social complexity in the eastern Gansu region.

Through consecutive fieldwork seasons from 2019 to 2020 at the Keyak Khduk Beacon site, the excavation team of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology has unearthed a variety of structures such as a residential area, a berm, a wooden fence, a ramp, and several ash piles. All uncovered artifacts are of practical use for frontier soldiers, including paper and wooden-strip documents, objects made of ceramic, bronze, iron, wood, stone, bone, horn, leather, textile, and grass, and many remains of plants and animals. The excavated texts mention different levels of military units such as “Tonghai Garrison” and “Yulin Garrison” and multiple military roads such as “Loulan Route,” “Yanqi Route,” and “Mazezei Route.” The information fills the gap in the historical records about the military defense system under the Karasahr Garrison, one of the Four Garrisons of Anxi, proving the Tang’s effective administration and governance over the Western Regions. This excavation project has provided new materials for understanding Tang garrisons’ planning characteristics and construction techniques in the Western Regions. It will also greatly facilitate research progress in Dunhuangology, Turfanology, bibliography, history of calligraphic art, and other related fields.

After a looting case was cracked on March 15, 2018, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and other organizations promptly conducted a rescue excavation of the looted tomb No. 1 at Xuewei. The tomb is the mausoleum of the king of Touyu-houen under Tubo’s rule in the mid-eighth century CE. It consists of two parts: the tomb compound aboveground and the underground structure. The former includes enclosure walls, sacrificial buildings, a mound, and a cloister. The latter consists of the entry ramp, the tomb pit, the screen wall, the tomb corridor, and the tomb chambers comprised of a main chamber and four side chambers, which is consistent with the document that recorded an “Inner-Mound Shrine of Five Gods.” The main chamber includes mural paintings, red-colored representations of wooden bracket sets, painted double coffins, a coffin platform, and an offering altar. A large number of artifacts predominated by goldware and textiles were uncovered. Amongst them, a silver seal bearing the inscription “seal of the King of Achai, the nephew” provides critical evidence for the confirmation of the status and ethnic identity of the tomb occupant.

The School of History, Zhengzhou University et al. excavated two bronze foundry zones in the northern part of the larger city at the Guanzhuang site in the summer of 2016 and the autumn of 2017. Archaeological features related to bronze casting were revealed, such as ash pits, wells, and sacrificial pits. A large number of casting artifacts were also retrieved, including clay molds, models, cores, furnace fragments, tuyeres, bronze knives, and whetstones. Judging from the characteristics of the clay molds and co-existing pottery artifacts, the bronze foundries dates to the early- and mid-Spring and Autumn period. A great variety of unearthed artifacts from the Guanzhuang bronze foundries, as well as the material repertoire for casting large bronze ritual vessels and coins, testify that the owner of the workshop could have enjoyed a high social status and possessed great wealth. This is of great importance for the understanding of the nature and function of the Guanzhuang site during the early- and mid-Spring and Autumn period.

Eighteen tombs were uncovered at the Hujiacaochang cemetery in Jingzhou City, Hubei Province in 2018. Tomb M12, a rectangular pit tomb with a wooden chamber, yielded grave goods made of a variety of materials including pottery, bronze, iron, lacquer, bamboo, and stone. Lacquered wooden artifacts, accounting for the largest number among all grave goods, including daily utensils, vanity cases, mingqi , and a game board. A large number of bamboo slips and wooden tablets were found in two bamboo hampers. These manuscripts can be classified into several categories, such as annals, calendar, summer/winter solstice, legal documents, medical and miscellaneous prescriptions, rishu -almanacs, buji -registries, and qiance -grave goods inventory. According to the typology of grave goods as well as the textual records on slips, tomb M12 is dated to the reign of Emperor Wen of the Western Han.

Excavation and survey of the cemetery in the northwest of Hongjiajie, Futun Village, Beizhen City were jointly conducted by the Liaoning Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and other institutes between 2015 and 2017. Four tombs were excavated. Tomb M4 is square in layout and has a descending entrance corridor leading to the tomb chambers. The tomb consists of an entrance corridor, a ventilation shaft, an entrance, front and rear passages, an antechamber, a main chamber, and two side chambers. Remnants of mural paintings and floor paintings were found in multiple parts of the tomb. Grave goods, including pottery, porcelain, metals, jade, and glass artifacts were retrieved. According to the epitaph, the tomb occupant is Han Derang, the Grand Counselor-in-Chief of the Liao dynasty. This discovery provides significant data for the study of the spatial patterns of Liao imperial mausoleums in Yiwulü Mountain, especially as a reliable reference for confirming the location of the Liao Qianling mausoleum.

The 凸-shaped house remains first appeared in the Guanzhong Basin during the late Yangshao period and became a popular form of architecture in the Loess Plateau during the Longshan period. The form usually consists of an inner room and a front hall connecting to an entranceway. The emergence of the protruding front hall is closely related to the appearance of late Yangshao cave dwellings, where they serve an important role in maintaining the architectural stability of the dwelling. Across the millennium ranging from the late Yangshao to the late Longshan, this architectural structure gradually transformed from a pragmatic-functional attribute into an important cultural symbol.

Based on plant and animal remains unearthed from sites of the Liangzhu culture in the coastal area of eastern Zhejiang, the Taihu plain, and the eastern Jianghuai region, we conclude that the Liangzhu society was agriculture-based, practicing rice farming for grain food and animal husbandry for meat. However, the subsistence economy focusing on rice farming was unbalanced in the Liangzhu cultural area, as evidenced by the exceptionally high proportions of fishing and hunting in certain subregions. Unbalanced subsistence economy confined population growth to limited territories and may have been an obstacle to the formation of multiple centers in the Liangzhu cultural area. The collapse of Liangzhu society may also result from the absence of competitive communication between Liangzhu and other cultures. Confronting with natural disasters or social conflicts due to, for example, food shortage, the controlling elite of Liangzhu society, who had long maintained their power and prestige through a religious system, failed to cope with risks and challenges, eventually leading to the collapse of Liangzhu society (and thus the demise of Liangzhu culture).

The first boot-shaped antler artifacts appear in the Shuangdun culture along the middle Huaihe River watershed at circa 7000 BP, before spreading out across the circum-Taihu Lake region, central Henan, and the Shandong Peninsula. Characteristic shape and use-wear marks indicate probable use as a scraping tool for leatherworking. Based on archaeological data from the Old Koryak culture in the Kamchatka Peninsula, as well as Eskimo and Native American ethnographies and contextual analysis of boot-shaped antler artifacts in burials at Sanlihe, a Dawenkou culture site, this essay argues that the boot-shaped antler artifact was likely a leatherworking tool.

The current study first systematically traces the archaeological cultures of southeast China (the Wu Yue region) during the Western Zhou, from the perspective of material culture remains, sources, regional variants, and social conditions revealed from the archaeological evidence. It then analyzes the plurality of interpretations of bronze inscriptions and the nature of documentary records concerning the emergence of the Wu and Yue states and their early history. The author points out that a regional archaeological culture with unique characteristics, showing great cultural affinity with the Wu Yue culture during the late Eastern Zhou period (771–475 BCE) had existed in southeast China during Western Zhou (1045–771 BCE). However, the emergence of Wu and Yue states and their early history recorded in historical texts have not been confirmed by any archaeological discoveries in the form of material cultures, bronze inscriptions, or documentary texts. Assertions of direct connections between related archaeological cultures and early Wu and Yue states lack persuasiveness. Considering this, the author proposes new insights into the textuality of documentary records, the relation between archaeology and historical texts, as well as the essence of historiography.

A set of bronze parts, excavated in a funeral pit next to the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (Hubei, China), is recently restored to its rightful shape, a hip-roof tent from the fifth century BCE. Measured 10m long and built with 127 wooden poles and 338 bronze parts, it is considered to be the largest and the most complicated tent in pre-imperial China, which is portable, easy to assemble, disassemble, and manufactured in an engineering design context.

The niche with the colossal statue of Vairocana Buddha in the Fengxian Temple in Longmen was carved in the second year of the Shangyuan reign period of the Tang dynasty. At the beginning of the Kaiyuan reign, additional niches were carved into the same cliff wall. Based on spatial analysis of the surviving holes for architectural structures and their relation to the niches added later, it is inferred that the architecture in front of the niche was not built after the construction of these later niches. These two construction events could have belonged to the same construction phase. The construction of the architecture in front of the Vairocana niche completely altered the outer appearance and visibility of the statues, which then resulted in the relocation of worship activities from the open area to an enclosed space created by the wooden-structured temple in front of the niche.

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses, together with AMS radiocarbon dating of human and animal bones unearthed from the Zengpiyan and Dayan sites in Guilin of Guangxi suggest a relatively stable environment dominated by C 3 plants, which was supplemented by a small amount of C 4 plants. Although inhabitants of the two Neolithic sites relied mainly on freshwater resources, they differed significantly in their dietary structure from the Early to Middle phases. The Early Neolithic inhabitants (n=6) consumed similar foods in their diet. By contrast, the Middle Neolithic people (n=11) procured and consumed more terrestrial foods from diverse sources. The transition to a broad dietary spectrum was likely interlinked to the shifts in population structures, environmental adaptation, and foraging ranges.