The early Bronze Age civilization that originated in the mid-Yellow gained considerable success in the expansion into the south and the east, but was not as successful into the north and the west. In fact, Bronze Age civilizations that arose in the northwest and southwest matched the level of sophistication of the mid-Yellow civilization. These civilizations stemmed from sources different from the mid-Yellow civilization. They maintained low interaction intensity with the mid-Yellow civilization, and contributed little to the formation of the later Chinese civilization.
Sanxingdui
The Sichuan Basin, being locked in by towering mountains, was the home of unique cultural entities in prehistoric and historic times. A poet compared the road to Sichuan to the road to heaven. However, the basin was not entirely isolated from the rest of the world. Communication through mountain passes was limited but possible. The discovery of Sanxingdui tradition demonstrates that as early as the second millennium BC, Sichuan had contact with the civilization of the Central Plains or its offshoots.
The pre-Sanxingdui Neolithic traditions show evidences of increasing complexity through time. Their people built large walled fontifications and their Smaller settlements aggregated around these newly emerged centers. The Sanxingdui tradition developed from these indigenous Neolithic traditions and reached a new level of cultural complexity.
The political center of Sanxingdui society was the Sanxingdui site, located on the western edge of the Chengdu Plain. The center of the site was a walled and moated area of about 360 ha, but smaller occupations sprawled to a wider area of about 1200 ha around the center. Three connected 10 m high oval mounds, stretching 400 m from one end to the other, were located in the southern part of the walled area. They were structures built for public observance. The most spectacular findings of Sanxingdui were found in caches. Caches 1 and 2 are two of the richest caches among the ten excavated (Figure 32). Together, they contained more than 1100 artifacts made of bronze, gold, jade, pottery, and bone. Large numbers of elephant tusks and animal bones were also found. The animal bones, as well as some of the sumptuary artifacts, had been burned before disposal. Reasons for their disposal were perhaps religious. Most of the sumptuary artifacts are unique, having no parallels outside of the Sichuan Basin. For instance, the bronze assemblage included life-size standing statues (Figure 33), masks with protruding eye-balls (Figure 34), human heads with gold foil covering (Figure 35), and models of altars, shrines and trees. The Sanxingdui people used the casting technology to produce artifacts different from those of the midYellow valley, and they seem to have practiced a different religion.
Although most of the sumptuary artifacts were developed locally, a handful of them show similarities with artifacts found in the Central Plains. They included bronze vessels in the shapes of zun and lei (Figure 36) similar to those of the late Shang. The site also yielded some five dozens jade zhang (Figure 37) bearing similarities to that of Erlitou.
The material culture assemblage of Sanxingdui tradition indicates that communication with the midYellow valley civilization did occur, but on a limited basis. It seems that the elite members of the Sanxing-dui society monopolized the contact as an additional means to legitimize their status. On the contrary, the domestic pottery from Sanxingdui maintained its indigenous identity. Most of the ceramic vessels had very small bases or pointed bases, a unique feature of the pre-Bronze Age traditions in Sichuan. The commoners did not seem to have directly involved in the cultural exchange with civilizations outside of Sichuan.
Previous archaeology of the Sanxingdui tradition has yielded sumptuary handicrafts of extremely
Figure 32 Excavation of cache pit 2, Sanxingdui (Sanxingdui Museum, with permission).
Figure 34 Bronze mask with protruding eye-balls, Sanxingdui (Sanxingdui Museum, with permission).
Figure 33 Bronze life-sized standing statue, Sanxingdui (Sanxingdui Museum, with permission).
Complex technology and skill. Nonetheless, we lack evidence of the organization of the government and the presence of a coercive force. Whether the Sanxingdui society was organized as a state needs to be demonstrated by future archaeological work.
The Northern Zone
The land north of the Great Wall has mixed economy of farming and pastoralism in modern China. The northern zone, therefore, is a cultural frontier where farming and nomadic groups interact. The nomadic lifeways of pastoral groups enabled the northern zone to maintain regular contact with cultural groups farther north and west through the steppes. By the second millennium BC, people of the northern zone had established a material culture recognizably distinct from that of the mid-Yellow River civilization. Their bronze industry is often referred to as the ‘Ordos complex’. The Ordos bronze assemblage comprises of a large number of utilitarian artifacts, such as mirrors, ladles, daggers, knives, axes, etc. The Ordos daggers and knives are distinctive in that the blade anD hilt were cast in one piece, and had hollowed-out hilts and ringed pommels. Tubular sockets were cast
Figure 35 Bronze head with gold-leaf mask, Sanxingdui (Sanxingdui Museum, with permission).
Figure 36 Bronze lei-vessel, Sanxingdui (Sanxingdui Museum, with permission).
Figure 37 Jade zhang, Sanxingdui (adapted from Zhongguo kaoguxue Xia Shang juan: Plate 31-1, with permission).
For the hafting of tools; wherein flat tangs were used in the mid-Yellow bronze technology. Only a few bronze vessels were found in the northern zone, and they bear a striking resemblance to the mid-Yellow River vessel styles, indicating that they were imports from the mid-Yellow River valley. On the other hand, a few Ordos bronzes were found in the mid-Yellow sites, such as the mirrors and knives found in the tomb of Fu Hao (Figure 38), and the daggers found in the Zhou tomb at Baifu (Figure 39). It is uncertain whether the bronze technology of the northern zone and the mid-Yellow River valley had the same origin, but it is unequivocal that they used the technology to fulfill different social goals.
One of the well-studied cultural traditions of the northern zone is the Zhukaigou tradition. The core of Zhukaigou tradition was distributed between the Great Wall and the large Ordos bend in the Yellow River in modern south-central Inner Mongolia. The Zhukaigou tradition is said to appear by 2000 BC, developed from the local Longshan tradition. It abruptly ceased about 1200 BC, which is a prehistoric puzzle.
South-central Inner Mongolia had been settled by farming groups from farther south, no later than the fourth millennium BC. Sedentary village communities farming millet with Miaodigou and Longshan style
Figure 38 Diagnostic Northern style bronze knife and mirrors found in the tomb of Fu Hao, Yinxu (adapted from Studies of Shang Archaeology. Figure 51, with permission).
Pottery appeared. Throughout the course of the development of Zhukaigou, it continued to be strongly influenced by the various traditions of the midYellow River basin. The Zhukaigou people maintained the sedentary adaptation living in permanent settlements, practicing farming and burying their dead in cemeteries. However, they had contact with the nomadic groups of the steppes. Ordos style small
Figure 39 Diagnostic Northern style bronze daggers found in the Zhou tomb at Baifu (adapted from Studies of Shang Archaeology. Figure 49, with permission).
Bronze objects, such as daggers, knives, armlets, finger rings, started to appear in the early phase of Zhukaigou occupations. By the late phase of the Zhukaigou tradition, small numbers of Shang style artifacts, such as the typical Erligang style pottery li, dou and gui vessels decorated with the spiral pattern, and bronze ding, jue, ge and arrowheads, appeared. Most intriguingly, a burial at the Zhukaigou site yielded a unique set of Erligang style ceramics and a bronze ge halberd.
It is apparent that south-central Inner Mongolia was a cultural frontier during the 2nd millennium BC where people of different cultural traditions met and interacted. It is interesting to see that the exotic artifacts of Ordos and Erligang origins in small proportions co-occurred at the same site. This suggests the mid-Yellow River civilization gained access to the Ordos nomads through the Zhukaigou communities. Perhaps more extensive trading activities occurred. One of the commodities that the mid-Yellow River civilization badly needed was horses for chariots, which were widely available in the steppes.
The Zhukaigou tradition itself was not a one-sided recipient of influence from other civilizations. One of the unique pottery vessel types of Zhukaigou is the high-collared, deep hollow-legged li tripod cooking ware: many of them have decorative applique around the orifices. Two of these li were found in the Erlitou site. Although the Zhukaigou tradition disappeared in south-central Inner Mongolia by the twelfth century BC, its diagnostic artifacts were then widely dispersed in the northern zone, as far north as the Lake Baikal area in Russia.
The Forging of Chinese Identity
The processes leading to Chinese civilization also led to the formation of a Chinese identity. The later Chinese civilization was characterized by an uninterrupted written tradition, a ritual institution of ancestors and kinship organization. These cultural features were all formed in the early mid-Yellow River civilization. This civilization itself was not a monolith; three ethnic groups took turns as the hegemonic political and cultural powerhouses. The dynamics of interaction between them eventually erased their differences and identities. By the mid-first millennium BC, the distinction between Shang and Zhou was in name only.
The expansion of early civilization also incorporated indigenous groups outside of the mid-Yellow River basin into a greater civilization sphere. This sphere was a melting pot of people of different origins and cultural practices. After centuries of interaction with the offshoots of the mid-Yellow River group, and in the face of the military conquest of Qin and Han Empires, they gradually became Han Chinese.
See also: Asia, Central and North, Steppes, Deserts, and Forests; Asia, Central, Steppes; Asia, East: China, Neolithic Cultures; Asia, Northeast, Early States and Civilizations; Cities, Ancient, and Daily Life; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Food and Feasting, Social and Political Aspects; Political Complexity, Rise of; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology; Social Violence and War; Writing Systems.
World History
