A Companion to Chinese Archaeology (Underhill/A Companion to Chinese Archaeology) || The Houli and Beixin Cultures

The Eastern Central Plain Region and Environs

PART V

A Companion to Chinese Archaeology, First Edition. Edited by Anne P. Underhill.© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

The Houli and Beixin Cultures

WANG Fen 王芬

The Houli 后李 culture is currently the earliest known fully developed Neolithic culture in the Haidai 海岱 , or eastern seaboard, area of China. Earlier sites have been discovered, such as Bianbiandong cave 扁扁洞 in Shandong province ( Sun and Cui 2008 ), dating to about 10,000 BP ( c. 8050 BC ). At this point, however, the available information is not suffi cient to comment about earlier Neolithic cultures in this area. After describing major fi nds from the Houli culture, I will discuss important remains from the succeeding Beixin 北辛 culture.

Objects from the Houli culture were discovered as early as the 1970s and 1980s. Despite their very distinctive appearance, the fact that these artifacts were mostly collected during regional surveys and did not have any related stratigraphic informa-tion means that it was diffi cult to ascertain their cultural character. It is only in more recent years that archaeologists have begun to understand the basic characteristics of this important culture. In the context of construction work for the Jinan–Qingdao highway in 1989, archaeologists carried out excavations at Houli village in Linzi county and uncovered the remains of a previously unknown culture. The objects excavated included simple sherds of coarse ( jiasha 夹砂 ) red wares, found underneath layers from the already known late Beixin cultural complex. In 1991, more Houli culture objects were discovered at sites such as Xihe 西河 and Xiaojingshan 小荆山 in Zhangqiu county, including houses and burials.

Approximately ten Houli culture sites have been excavated including: the site of Houli 后李 ( Jiqing 1992, 1994 ), Xihe 西河 ( Shandong 2000 ), Xiaojingshan 小荆山

CHAPTER 19

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( Shandong 1996 ; Shandong and Zhangqiu 2003 ; Jinan and Zhangqiu 2004 ), Qian-buxia 前埠下 (Shandong and Zhanqiu 2000) and Yuezhuang 月庄 ( Shandong Daxue and Shandong 2005 ). These sites are mostly situated in the alluvial plains to the north of the Taiyi mountain chain and are distributed over an area approximately 250 km long from east to west, and only 30 km wide from north to south. Houli culture sites are generally distributed in the plains and terraces of low hills. Most of these sites are situated about 50 m above sea level. Sites tend to be located on terraces alongside rivers, which provide convenient access to water while still being high enough to avoid fl ooding. Calibrated radiocarbon dates place the Houli culture between about 8500 and 7500 BP ( c. 6550–5550 BC ]) However, as only a few radiocarbon dates are available so far, it is possible that with future research these dates could be extended in either direction.

SUBSISTENCE ECONOMY

Living in diversifi ed landscapes, the inhabitants from the Houli culture developed varied subsistence strategies including agriculture, plant gathering, hunting, fi shing, and animal husbandry. Given the early dates for Houli culture sites, scholars have focused on researching the extent and nature of agriculture in the Houli culture.

There is evidence for established millet farming. Data from Houli sites show larger quantities of broomcorn millet than foxtail millet ( Jin 2007 ). In four pits at Yuezhuang, over 40 carbonized seeds of broomcorn millet ( Panicum miliaceum ), or shu 黍 , and one carbonized seed of foxtail millet ( Setaria italica ), or su 粟 , were found ( Crawford et al. 2006 ). In pits H62 and H78 from the Xihe site, large quantities of phytoliths ( guisuanti 硅酸体 ) were found. It is possible that these indicate some kind of foxtail millet ( Jin 2006 ).

Archaeologists also found rice at Yuezhuang. A sample of rice grains were AMS dated to 7050 ± 80–11865 BP (6060–5750 cal. BC ), a surprisingly early date for the Haidai area. Some scholars believe that it is hard to be certain whether these 26 rice remains are wild or domesticated ( Crawford et al. 2006 ). It is likely that these grains do not represent the earliest rice agriculture in Shandong ( Jin 2008 ). At Yuezhuang, however, footed stone grinding slabs ( daizu shi mopan 带足石磨盘 ) of manufacture and style identical to those from Peiligang culture sites in the central Yellow river valley (see Chapter 9 ) have been discovered. We know that the inhabitants of the Peiligang culture region already had developed rice agriculture. It is possible that the presence of this footed grinding slab at Yuezhuang indicates more than transfer of grinding technology. Future research may help us understand whether some inhabitants from the middle Yellow river valley migrated to the Haidai region and introduced rice agriculture.

Stone tool forms can potentially provide information about activities associated with farming in the Houli culture. From an examination of artifacts at Yuezhuang it seems that tools such as stone axes ( fu 斧 ) , grinding slabs ( mopan 磨盘 ), grinding rollers ( mobang 磨棒 ), and stone support legs ( zhijiao 支脚 ) used in hearths for ceramic vessels are more numerous than tools associated with tilling and harvesting of crops, such as shovels ( chan 铲 ) and sickles ( lian 镰 ). Grinding slabs and rollers are used to process foods or plant material. These items are the most numerous, and they have very noticeable traces of wear. Some scholars have argued instead that

THE HOULI AND BEIXIN CULTURES 391

grinding slabs and rollers might not be representative of agricultural practices, since they can also be used, for instance, to remove shells from nuts. From the quantity of grinding stones alone, therefore, it is diffi cult to comment how developed agri-culture was at that time. A recent study shows that grinding stones at Yuezhuang were used to process broomcorn millet, rice, and nuts ( Wang et al. 2010 ).

A large quantity of pottery fu 釜 cauldrons has been found at Houli culture sites, often up to 70–80 percent of the whole pottery assemblage. In addition, burnt fea-tures are often present at the bottom of these cauldrons. We believe therefore that these vessels were the most common cooking vessels. This indicates that the Houli people had already begun preparing their meat and plants by cooking.

The large quantities of house remains uncovered at most of the excavated sites, such as Xihe and Houli, indicate that the population was already largely sedentary. As sedentism is closely associated with an agricultural lifestyle, archaeologists hypoth-esize that the Houli culture is characterized by an incipient stage of developing agriculture. The degree to which people were reliant on agriculture, however, is an important question which future research needs to address.

Plant-gathering is an important and common economic strategy, but we have not found plant remains at Houli culture sites which are directly related to plant-gather-ing, except for the grinding stones and rollers. We need to excavate more Houli sites in order to better understand the subsistence system. Probably the level of agricultural development in the Houli culture was low, and subsistence activities included con-siderable gathering and processing of wild plant foods.

Sources of animal foods A diverse array of animal bones has been unearthed from Houli culture sites. At the sites of Xiaojingshan and Qianbuxia, archaeologists have recovered not only remains of deer ( Cervus nippon ), wolf ( Canis lupus ), fox (Vulpes vulpes ), tiger ( Panthera tigris ), and roe deer (Hydropotes inermis ), but also of clearly domesticated animals including pig ( Sus domesticus ) and dog ( Canis familiaris ). Remains from over 200 pigs from the sites of Xiaojingshan and Qianbuxia were recovered, including long mandibles and large teeth. According to their skeletal morphology, scholars have argued that the pigs may not have been fully domesticated ( Kong 1996, 2000 ). It is worth mentioning that in the sites of Xiaojingshan and Xihe, there are also clay sculptures of pigs which show round bodies and smaller snouts. These features are characteristic of the early stages of pig domestication. These fi ndings also indicate the close relationship between pigs and humans. Around six domesticated dogs have been unearthed from Houli sites, too.

Bones of cattle ( Bos sp.) and water buffalo ( Bubalus sp.), horse, and sheep/goat are relatively rare and have not been fully identifi ed. It is also unclear as to whether these animals were wild or domesticated. Faunal remains unearthed from the site of Yuezhuang are all from wild animals, with no domesticated animals represented ( Song 2008 ). The large quantity of wild animal bones indicates that there was a suitable climate and environment at the time, including suffi cient forests, meadows, and watery areas to support these animals. In addition, large amounts of snail, oyster, clam, and turtle remains were unearthed. These were probably gathered from water sources near the site. Houli sites located near the coast have more remains of these

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aquatic resources. For instance, two types of shallow sea mollusks were unearthed from the Qianbuxia site.

Subsistence-related artifacts including hunting and fi shing equipment such as net weights ( wang zhui 网坠 ), stone balls ( shiqiu 石球 ), bone projectile points ( zu 镞 ) and bone darts ( biao 镖 ) have also been uncovered at Qianbuxia. In terms of animal resources, it appears that during the Houli period people were reliant primarily on hunting and fi shing. Raising domesticated animals played a substantially smaller role.

CRAFT PRODUCTION

There are many types of artifacts from sites of the Houli culture including pottery vessels, very small pieces of jade (nephrite, ruanyu 软玉 ), and tools made from bone, shell, and antler. Although pottery vessels and stone tools are by far the most numer-ous, tools made from bone, antler, tooth, and shell are both unusual and striking in terms of their workmanship.

Pottery from the Houli culture is noticeably different from pottery of neighboring, contemporary cultures in terms of material, color, and shape. Most pottery vessels were made by selecting natural clays with fi ne sandy inclusions (i.e., without fi ltering the clays or adding tempering materials). In some later Houli period sites, the vessels show that coarser-grained sand, powdered shell, talc, and mica were added as tempers. The main fi red color of pottery ranges from red to reddish-brown; however gray, black, and yellow spots are present on the interior and exterior of vessel walls as a result of fi ring at a low temperature.

The methods used to produce this pottery are very simple and include molding ( mozhi 模制 ), coiling ( nitiao panzhu 泥条盘筑 ), and “clay ring bonding” ( niquan taojie 泥圈套接 ). The degree of standardization of this pottery is not high. Many sherds have traces of the production process such as paddling and scraping on the interior and exterior sides of the vessels. It appears that pottery production was in an initial stage of development.

For the most part there is little decoration on the pottery. Houli culture pottery vessels, however, do have several distinctive features. On larger pieces of pottery a folded lip is common. This lip is turned over into two layers, and the turned piece is often decorated with short clay strips or some pricked designs. Some pottery vessels also have a clay strip to strengthen it, designed as either waves or zigzags, circled around the vessel. Others either have decorations resembling fi ngernails or other jabbed or pricked patterns underneath the rim.

Only a few types of pottery are present in Houli assemblages, and their methods of manufacture are relatively simple. The most common form of pottery is a rounded-base fu cauldron; this cooking vessel often accounts for two-thirds of the pottery assemblages from Houli sites. At the site of Xiaojingshan, a very distinctive type of rounded-bottom vessel was discovered. This vessel has between three to eight small, nipple-shaped feet to stabilize the vessel. This vessel might be the predecessor of three-footed vessels which are characteristic of later sites in the Haidai region. Another unusual type of Houli culture vessel is the yi 匜 water vessel. Its overall shape is ovoid, and the front part is an open spout, whereas on the back is a high ring-shaped handle. Less common forms of vessels include double-eared (handled) jars


( shuanger guan 双耳罐 ), ring-footed shallow dishes ( quanzu pan 圈足盘 ) high-necked, egg-shaped hu jars ( gaoling danxing hu 高领蛋形壶 ), gourd-shaped vessels ( yixingqi 匜形器 ), cups ( bei 杯 ), and support legs ( zhijiao ) for vessels in hearths.

Three kilns have been found in association with Houli sites. Kiln Y6 at the site of Houli is particularly representative. It is a vertical pit kiln ( shuxue yao 竖穴窑 ) with a fi ring chamber ( yaoshi 窑室 ), fi rebox ( huotang 火膛 ), and pits for used fuel ( xiehui keng 泄灰坑 ). Of the kiln fi ring chamber all that remains is the grate ( yaobi 窑箅 ), 84 cm in diameter and 10 m thick. It is pierced with seven fi ring holes ( huokong 火孔 ). Since the rim diameter of the fu cauldron commonly found in Houli sites ranges from 20 to 30 cm, kiln Y6 could only have fi red four or fi ve fu pottery vessels at a time. In summary, Houli culture pottery production was in an early stage of develop-ment, in which manufacturing techniques were relatively simple, and production scale and pottery output were small.

Stone and jade tools The stone tools from the Houli culture are quite well developed. Houli culture sites are located close to hills or in valleys near rivers, where abundant cobblestones could be gathered from the riverbeds, giving inhabitants readily available materials for stone tool manufacture. Types of stone tools include axes ( fu ), shovels ( chan 铲 ), hammers ( chui 锤 ), sickles ( lian ), chisels ( zao 凿 ), adzes ( ben 锛 ), stone balls ( shiqiu 石球 ), grinding rollers ( mobang ), grinding slabs ( mopan ), grinding/polishing stones ( yanmoqi 研磨器 ), grinding stones ( moshi 磨石 ), plow-shaped tools ( lixingqi 犁形器 ), stone zhijiao support legs, and stone decorative objects ( shishi 石饰 ).

There are differences in manufacturing for different types of stone tools. The tool bodies of fu axes, ben adzes and lian sickles are pecked, while their blade portions are polished. The majority of grinding slabs and grinding rollers are made from pecking. The upper parts of zhijiao support legs are also made by pecking, whereas the lower parts are manufactured using percussion techniques. These stone zhijiao support legs have characteristic shapes like long cattle horns. People placed three together with the bottom parts buried in the earth to support round-bottomed pottery vessels.

Three pieces of worked jade (nephrite) were found during excavation of the Houli culture sites of Qianbuxia and Xiaojingshan. They all are zao chisels. These pieces were manufactured using percussion technology in the initial steps and then they were ground and polished until their surfaces had a high gloss. We should not auto-matically assume that these functional tools were regarded as wealth items.

Bone, antler, and shell tools from the Houli culture indicate a high level of manu-facturing techniques. Bone tools are generally made out of the limbs or ribs of animals, and are fashioned into zu 镞 projectile points, biao 镖 darts, bi 匕 daggers, ji 笄 hair-pins, and si 耜 spade-like tools. The tools are mostly polished over the entire body.

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Among the sites discovered from the Houli culture, well-preserved remains of settle-ments have been discovered at the sites of Xihe and Xiaojingshan. We will use the

394 WANG FEN

settlement remains from these two sites as an example to discuss settlement patterns and social organizations in the Houli period.

Xiaojingshan is situated north of Xiaojingshan mountain, which is situated on the western edge of the Changbaishan mountains. The Luo river runs to the west of the site. Xiaojingshan is 22 km southwest from the site of Xihe. After three seasons of excavations and numerous exploratory surveys, it has been determined that the Houli cultural layers at Xiaojingshan cover an area of 14 ha.

However, it was the discovery of a moat surrounding the site that attracted the attention of the scholarly world. This triangular moat is situated at the western portion of the settlement and was constructed after the site had already been inhab-ited for some time. The moat has a perimeter of 1,130 m, and the area it surrounds is about 5 ha. The width of the moat is irregular, ranging from 19–40 m at the widest to only 4–6 m at the narrowest point. The depth of the moat is thought to have been between 2.5 and 5.0 m.

Houses and burials have been discovered both outside and inside the area sur-rounded by the moat. There is a particularly dense section of Houli period houses in an area about 100 m south to north. There are more than 30 houses located in the northeast area enclosed by the moat. To date 10 have been fully excavated. As the site was severely damaged by people extracting clay for brick kilns, very little has survived. The total area excavated was thus not large, and it is diffi cult to discuss the manner in which houses were distributed across the site. Three different cemeteries also were discovered. One is near the northwest area of the site, and the other two are found at the inside and outside edges of the moat. Because the site suffered great destruction, it is diffi cult to tell how the three separate cemeteries were related to the residential areas ( Shandong and Zhangqiu 2003 ).

The site of Xihe is situated at the border of Zhangqiu and Licheng counties. The city of Jinan is situated 25 km to the west, and to the east the famous site of Chengziya 城子崖 (see Chapter 21 ) is only 1.6 km away. The site is surrounded by a small tributary of the Juye river, and the Xihe river to the south, west, and north. It is from this river that the site derives its name. As workers from the brick and tile industry had extracted clay from the site for many years, this site also has suffered considerable destruction, especially in the northeastern part. A total of 10 ha is all that remains of the site. Two seasons of excavations were carried out in 1991 and 1997 by the Shandong Provincial Archaeological Institute. In an area of only 2,000 sq m, they uncovered the remains of 24 Houli period houses. Other Houli period house remains were also discovered through exploratory surveys and from profi les left by the clay extraction activities. The majority of the approximately 30 houses in total were concentrated in the northeastern, central and southeastern parts of the site ( Shandong 2000 ).

As the area excavated was limited, the distribution of the settlement is not fully understood. However, it is clear from the arrangement of houses that Xihe was a planned settlement. Five houses are located to the northeast, 19 in the center of the site, and eight to the southeast. Archaeologists expect that there are additional houses in this central area which have not yet been excavated. From the spatial layout of the 19 known houses, we can see that they are divided into a number of groups, with a total of three to fi ve houses per group. On the basis of the entire spatial layout, it appears the establishment of the settlement involved spatial areas for individual


houses, house groups, house zones, and the entire community (see the discussion below).

The structure of individual houses Houses at Houli culture sites are semi-subterranean ( bandi xueshi 半地穴式 ), and are either square or rectangular in shape with round corners. They have several distinctive features. First, they are all single rooms of a relatively large size (most are over 20 sq m). In addition, each single room house has two or more hearths joined together to make a combined hearth group ( zuhe zao 组合灶 ). According to this information we have divided the houses into three different types.

The fi rst type is a large house with two or three hearths. There are many houses of this type, characterized by a large size, 30–50 sq m. The house can be divided into a living area, a cooking area, and activity areas with several different functions. A combined hearth group, composed of two or three individual hearths, is generally located in the cooking area. Each individual hearth is formed by three half-buried, stone zhijiao support legs. In addition, the surface of a typical house fl oor has scat-tered pottery sherds and discarded production tools.

A good example is house F62 from the Xihe site (Figure 19.1 ), 45.6 sq m in size. The fl oor and walls of this house were baked and dried via a construction method that involved burning the earthen-clay walls and fl oors to make them harder. Three hearth groups were unearthed in the middle of the living area. Archaeologists also uncovered more than 40 daily-use artifacts on the fl oor including pottery, stone zhijiao support legs, stone mopan grinding slabs, stone mobang grinding rollers, antlers, and probable potters ’ tools. Few pottery sherds were found near the northern, western and eastern walls of the house, so it is likely these were the living areas. According to the total living area and the numbers of artifacts within the house, we believe that it could have been occupied by about 10 people.

Only a few houses of the second type, those with a single hearth, have been found. Compared with the fi rst type of houses, this type of house has a relatively modest fl oor area, generally less than 30 sq m. For instance, the total area covered by house F58 from Xihe is 22 sq m. A single hearth is situated in the center of the house. The northwestern and southeastern corners have scattered stone tools and pottery, which leads us to believe that the northeastern and western portions of the house were used for sleeping and other activities. This structure was used primarily for habitation, although it could have only contained a small number of inhabitants. Given the spatial distribution of the artifacts in this house, we believe that approximately six to seven people could have resided there.

The third type is structures without hearths. These houses have a slightly smaller surface area, and there is no trace of roasting or drying from the fl oor and walls. On the surfaces inside some of these houses there are large numbers of broken pottery pieces, stone fl akes, and stone pieces. Given this information it seems that these structures were not used for habitation, but possibly for storage or for manufacturing tools. The inhabitants of this type of structure would have depended on one of the houses with a hearth for cooking. Therefore, one can hypothesize that the social group using these structures were not independent with respect to either production activities or consumption of foods and goods.

396 WANG FEN

Social organization refl ected by houses at Houli sites The internal organization of the Xihe settlement can be explored on the basis of its house remains. Four levels of settlement organization representing increasingly large social scales can be recognized: individual houses, house groups, house zones, and the entire settlement. These spatial areas provide information on social structure in Houli society ( Luan 2004 ).

Figure 19.1 House F62 from Xihe site, Houli culture, with three hearth groups. (After Shandong Institute 2000a: 16, Figure 3; Luan 2009 , reprinted with permission Verlag Philipp von Zabern Press.)


The most common type of individual house at Xihe has a relatively large fl oor area and a combined hearth group (two or three hearths). This pattern and the presence of scattered artifacts for daily use inside suggest that this type of house represents the primary social unit for the whole society. Although it is likely that this type of house constituted an independent consumption unit, we cannot determine whether it also constituted an independent production unit. The number of people living in the house was larger than that of a nuclear family. The social scale of this house was likely for a social group of about 10–20 people such as an extended family ( kuodaxing jiating 扩大型家庭 ). The extended family was a unit of consumption, characterized by shared preparation and consumption of food.

It is worthwhile to consider the slightly smaller, second type of house with just a single hearth. There are fewer houses of this type known so far. The main difference between the fi rst two types of houses is not with respect to function but in the number of people who could have occupied them at once. These houses contain daily neces-sities such as tools and vessels which directly relate to the number of residents.

At the site of Xihe, individual houses appear to be organized in spatial clusters with three to six houses in each group. The 19 structures in the central part of the site are distributed into two spatial groups about 30 m apart. Each of them has a number of structures that contain hearths. Between the two spatial groups, there are some struc-tures without hearths that may have served as storage or production spaces, possibly shared by people living in the nearby residences. The social structure of each of the two house groups composed of three to six houses may have been a “ large kinship family” ( jiazu 家族 , 20 to 30 people, consisting of several extended families). The house zone (all 19 structures in the central part of the site), however, was probably associated with a clan, or shizu 氏族 . The large kinship family and the clan would have been responsible for undertaking several different agricultural and production-related activities.

The entire site represents a larger societal unit than a clan. The existence of the moat and of protective installations at the site of Xiaojingshan means that the inhabit-ants within the moat shared a close relationship, and the site is laid out in an organ-ized manner with some areas dedicated to housing, and others to graves. Three residential areas or house zones ( fi ve houses located to the northeast, 19 in the center of the site, and eight located to the southeast) have also been discovered at the site of Xihe. This kind of societal organization likely represents a large descent group such as a phratry ( baozu 胞族 ), where blood ties are the most important factor in linking people together. The large kinship family and clan would have been produc-tion units at different scales. The phratry would have played a guiding role in public activities for the whole settlement such as constructing the moat, guarding the set-tlement, and communicating and exchanging with neighboring settlements.

ANALYSIS OF HOULI BURIALS

In comparison to the numerous house remains, there are relatively few burials from Houli sites. These burials have primarily been excavated at the sites of Xiaojingshan, Houli, and Yuezhuang.

At Xiaojingshan, the cemetery situated outside the moat is contemporary to the settlement, and the graves are neatly arranged. Unfortunately, due to the large-scale

398 WANG FEN

extraction of clay from the site for the brick and tile industry, only a long strip of this cemetery, located in the western section, remains. A total of 21 graves were discovered and these can be divided into three rows: a row of four graves in the south, a row of six graves in the middle, and a row of 11 graves in the north. Because of the site destruction, it is impossible to tell how many rows of graves there were originally, and how many graves were in each row. In addition, most of the surviving graves have been partially destroyed.

During a survey archaeologists found an additional cemetery outside the moat at Xiaojingshan. If these two cemeteries were in operation at the same time, it is pos-sible that they represented two different clans. The lack of preserved material, however, makes it diffi cult to discuss their societal signifi cance. The graves are “vertical pit graves,” shallow graves dug into the earth ( tukeng shuxue mu 土坑竖穴墓 ). Each burial consists of one single supine and extended body ( danren yangshen zhizhizang 单人仰身直肢葬 ). The heads of the deceased are oriented between 6 and 18 degrees from the line of the body. The degree of preservation of the skeletal remains varies. There are no coffi ns for these burials, and most contain only a few offerings such as an oyster shell adjacent to the body. Two to three thousand years later in the Dawenkou 大汶口 culture (see Chapter 20 ) in Shandong, there is also a burial tradi-tion using shells as offerings, as seen at the sites of Dawenkou and Xixiahou 西夏侯 . At the site of Sanlihe 三里河 , in 24 of the 66 Dawenkou period burials the occupants are holding shells in either one or both hands.

Only a few graves have been found at the sites of Houli and Yuezhuang. At Houli archaeologists found vertical pit graves and an unusual type of pit grave called a dongshi mu 洞室墓 . This kind of pit grave is dug down to a certain depth, and then a lateral chamber like a niche is dug into the northern and eastern walls. The body, which is in a supine position with extended limbs, was placed in the northern lateral chamber. The individual ’ s head was placed facing east and a few pieces of pottery and shell were placed as burial offerings in the eastern lateral chamber and south of the body. At the site of Yuezhuang, only one burial occupied by a child has been discovered. This child was placed in an extended supine fashion without any offerings.

We can see that the Houli graves are all similar in scale and similar with respect to the fact that most of them did not contain any burial offerings. We can hypothesize that differences in status and in wealth had not yet emerged in the Houli culture and that the society was relatively egalitarian in nature.

Physical anthropologists have conducted some analyses of human bone from the Xiaojingshan site. They conclude that the remains are physically similar to those of other inhabitants of the Yellow river valley ( Shandong 2005 ). The average age at death of the individuals was 37.9 years. In terms of dentition, the anterior dental occlusal surfaces show a high degree of wear. This may indicate a varied diet including not only crops, but also hard-textured plants obtained from gathering ( Shandong 2005 ). This conclusion is supported from the remains of plant foods as discussed above.

SEARCH FOR ORIGINS OF THE HOULI CULTURE

After the Paleolithic period, how did the practices typically associated with the Neo-lithic Age such as sedentism, agriculture, and pottery production emerge? The reasons


for their emergence and the manner and fashion in which they came into being are important questions in understanding the origins of the Neolithic.

To date, in Shandong province Paleolithic sites have been mainly discovered in the Yi and Shu river valleys in the southern parts of the Taiyi Mountain range. In 2004, in the southeastern hills of Yiyuan county, the site of Bianbiandong cave was discov-ered. There were clear cultural remains in this cave including pottery sherds, grinding slabs, and grinding rollers. The pottery consisted primarily of round-bottomed fu cauldrons and other kinds of bowls ( bo 钵 ). According to radiocarbon analysis of human bones found in the cave, the site dates to around 9600–11,000 BP ( Sun and Cui 2008 ). In 2006, in the northern part of Yiyuan county, red pottery sherds with sandy paste were unearthed from the cave site of Huangya 黄崖 . Both fu cauldrons and other kinds of bo bowls were identifi able forms. This site is somewhat later than that of Bianbiandong cave on the basis of pottery style ( Sun Bo and Cui 2008 ). The pottery at this site begins to show the distinctive folded lips ( diechun 叠唇 ) which are common for Houli culture pottery vessels. In order to increase stability, the edges of the pottery mouths were usually folded over to the outside to form a double lip. Huangya is located further to the north and thus closer to the distribution area of the Houli culture, which further seems to show they shared a close connection. Future excavation and survey work in the north and south of the Taiyi mountain range should result in more discoveries of this sort.

Most scholars agree that in the Haidai region, the Houli culture is followed by the Beixin culture. These two cultures have some shared cultural components. Some scholars propose that population migration was a factor for development of the Beixin culture after the Houli culture. Scholars have focused their attention to the Peiligang culture dating to around 8500–7000 BP ( c. 6550–5050 BC ) and located in the center of Henan province. Many of its cultural attributes appear to have been inherited by the Beixin culture to the east. However, it is diffi cult to explain development of the Beixin culture only in this way. For one thing, the dates of these two different cultures do not overlap. Luan ( 1997 : 21) proposes, on the basis of similarities of ceramic styles, that people from the Peiligang culture in Henan fi rst moved to central and southern Shandong, and then to other parts of the Haidai area. Peiligang people may have faced pressure from expansion of the Dadiwan 大地湾 culture from central Shaanxi province to the east. Therefore, it was perhaps this wave of immigrants from the west that changed the trajectory of development of the Houli culture, and thus gave rise to the Beixin culture. The Beixin culture with its hypothesized foreign roots was born after merging with the local Houli culture. Whether this process of merging and replacement took place in a peaceful way or involved some form of struggle is something that will only be possible to answer after new archaeological discoveries.

THE BEIXIN CULTURE

Towards the end of the 1950 S , under the Longshan cultural layers of the Erjiancun 二涧村 site in Lianyungang city, northern Jiangsu province, an early Neolithic deposit was unearthed. Archaeologists characterized these remains as being related to a culture identifi ed at the time as Qingliangang 青莲岗 . In 1962 and 1964, archaeo-logical surveys were carried out at the sites of Beixin in Tengxian county, Shandong,

400 WANG FEN

and Xisangyuan 西桑园 in Yanzhou county, Jining city, Shandong. A set of cultural material that was different from that of the Dawenkou cultural remains at these sites caught the attention of researchers, who tentatively classifi ed the remains as belonging to a new archaeological culture. In 1978 and 1979, the Shandong Archaeological Team, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, carried out a large scale excavation at the site of Beixin. They gained an overall understanding of the features of this culture and entitled it the “Beixin culture.”

Sites of the Beixin culture are primarily found in southern Shandong, particularly the valleys of the Xue and Wensi rivers. Some sites have also been discovered in the plains north of the Taiyi mountain and south of the Yellow river in northern Shandong. Sites associated with the Beixin culture are also distributed across the eastern Shandong peninsula and northern Jiangsu province. Beixin cultural deposits have been discovered at over 100 sites. Twenty have been excavated, including the sites of Beixin ( Zhongguo Shandong 1984 ), Dongjiabai 东贾柏 ( Zhongguo Shan-dong 1993 ), Dawenkou 大汶口 ( Shandong 1997 ), Dayishan 大伊山 ( Lianyungang 1988 ; Nanjing et al. 1991 ), and Baishicun 白石村 ( Yantai 1992 ; Yantai Bowuguan 2000 ).

The Beixin culture can be divided into early, middle, and late phases. Remains from the early Beixin culture are relatively rare and have only been discovered at a few sites such as Beixin, Xisangyuan, and Zhangguan. More remains from the middle Beixin culture have been found, and the distribution area expands to include northern Jiangsu, southern Shandong, northern Shandong and the eastern Shandong penin-sula. The late phase is the period under which this culture fl ourished, and remains are found across the entire Beixin culture area. There are over 20 radiocarbon dates for the Beixin culture. The conclusion is that the Beixin culture dates from 5000 to 4100 BC as a whole, including the early (5000–4600 BC ), middle (4600–4300 BC ) and late (4300–4100 BC ) periods ( Luan 1997 : 36–37).

BEIXIN SUBSISTENCE ECONOMY

In comparison to the Houli culture, agricultural products played an increasingly important role in the Beixin culture, although gathering was still an indispensable part of the subsistence strategy. Only a few plant remains have been recovered so far. With respect to dry farming, a few grains of foxtail millet ( su 粟 ) have been discovered in the lower layers of the Beixin site in Tengzhou county and Dadunzi 大墩子 in Pixian county ( Nanjing 1979 ). In addition, remains similar to foxtail millet chaff were found at the site of Zhangshan 张山 in Jining city ( Jining 1996 ). In the southern area, remains of rice were found at the site of Erjiancun 二涧村 in Lianyungang, including traces of rice husk in burnt earth ( Li 1985 ).

There is a noticeable increase in the quantity and diversity of agricultural tools from Beixin sites in comparison to Houli sites. These include stone and bone shovels ( chan 铲 ), stone and shell sickles ( lian ), stone and shell knives ( dao 刀 ), grinding slabs ( mopan ), grinding rollers ( mobang ), and deer antler tools interpreted as hoes ( lujiao chu 鹿角锄 ). Representative forms include fi nely polished, large, fl at, rectan-gular or peach-shaped shovels; rectangular, oval, or triangular grinding slabs without feet; and all kinds of grinding rollers that measure between 10 and 20 cm in length.


The shell sickle unearthed at the site of Beixin is of a very similar manufacture to that of the Dawenkou period.

Stone shovels, sickles, deer antler hoes, and stone axes are the most abundant tool types. There are over a thousand stone chan shovels and fragments at Beixin, making up two-thirds of the entire assemblage. At the site of Yuancheng 苑城 , a total of 200 stone tools have been recovered, and stone shovels make up over half of the assem-blage. Stone shovels from Beixin sites are large and wide, and thicker than those of later periods. Some of these shovels have been worked to a high polish. As stone shovels are a primary tool for tilling the earth and removing weeds, the huge quantity of shovels indicates that the practice of farming had become a more signifi cant sub-sistence strategy by this period. There are also a large number of stone axes at sites, with 107 at the Beixin site alone. Since axes are generally used for felling trees, the Beixin period was probably a period of agricultural expansion, involving the clearing of forests for tillage.

There also is a large quantity of grinding slabs and grinding rollers in Beixin cultural sites. In addition, over 30 stone and pottery pestles ( chu 杵 ) and mortars ( jiu 臼 ) have also been unearthed. Grinding slabs and rollers crush foods in a sideways direc-tion, but pestles and mortars crush foods using pressure from above. The appearance of these new crop-processing tools may be related to new kinds of foods exploited by the inhabitants of these sites.

The level of agricultural development during the Beixin period seems to vary by region. For the areas north and the south of the Taiyi mountain range, it appears that subsistence was focused on dry farming species such as foxtail millet, but in northern Jiangsu, rice had begun to be grown. The practice of cultivating rice may have been directly introduced into the northern Jiangsu area from the neighboring lower Huai river valley, judging from Longqiuzhuang 龙虬庄 culture sites there with abundant rice ( Longqiuzhuang 1999 ). On the basis of our knowledge of the natural environment at the time, and the presence of different tool assemblages, plant-gathering must have still played an important role in the food sources of the Beixin culture as well.

Sources of protein Remains for the Beixin period show an increase in the quantity of domesticated species. No bones of wild boar have been found from surveys and excavations, pos-sibly indicating that the process of pig domestication had already been completed by this time. Pig bone has been found at several sites, including Yuancheng and Dongj-iabai. Pigs also are the major domesticated animals from the very rich coastal environ-ment of the eastern Shandong peninsula. Among the 10 species of animals found at the site of Beixin, three domesticated species were present including pig, cattle, and chicken. At the site of Qiujiazhuang 邱家庄 in Fushan county, domestic animal remains constitute over 50 percent of the mammal remains. Remains of dogs have been found at Beixin sites, too.

Despite the fact that the number of domesticated animals increased during this period, hunting was still an important way of getting access to meat. At the sites of Beixin, Dongjiabai, Wangyin 王因 , and Dawenkou a large quantity of wild animal bones were uncovered, of which deer bones were the most numerous. In addition,

402 WANG FEN

in the areas adjacent to lakes, particularly in areas of the Shandong peninsula, large numbers of shell mounds have been discovered. These were likely formed by people gathering these shells for food and then discarding them ( Zhongguo Kaogu 1999 : 28–110).

Environmental archaeology shows that the Haidai region was at its warmest and most moist humid between 8000 and 5000 BP ( c. 6050–3050 BC ), especially after 7000 BP ( c. 5050 BC ) Some species of animals and fi sh indicate warm climates. In sites located in the Wensi river valley at the time of the Beixin and early Dawenkou cultures, Yangzi alligators ( Alligator sinensis 扬子鳄 ) have been unearthed. At the site of Wangyin, species such as Chinese long snout catfi sh ( Leiocassis longirostris 长吻鮠 ), Distoechodon tumirostris Peters ( 圆吻鲴 ), catfi sh ( Silurus soldatovi meridi-onalis Chen 南方大口鲶 ) and mussels ( Lamprotula 丽蚌 ) have been unearthed. These species currently inhabit the Dongting lake area of southern China in Hubei and Hunan provinces.

Additionally, pollen from Pteris vittata 蜈蚣草 and Lygodium 海金沙 which rep-resent a hot and humid environment, were unearthed at the site of Wangyin. This shows that between 7500 and 6000 BP ( c. 5500–4050 BC ), the environment of the Wensi river valley in Shandong was the same as that of the middle and lower Yangzi river valley today, with average temperatures 2–3°C higher than that of today. The sea level would also have been 4 m higher than it is today in eastern coastal regions ( Zhongguo Kaogu 1999 : 183–185). Due to rising sea levels, people probably relied more heavily on shellfi sh for food, and this led to the proliferation of shell mounds. The rich resources in this area made agriculture less important whereas fi shing and collecting shells formed a more important part of subsistence.

BEIXIN PERIOD CRAFT PRODUCTION

There are many different types of artifacts found at Beixin culture sites made from stone, pottery, bone, shell, and jade. Additionally Beixin people had knowledge of textile production. With respect to lithics, there is a huge increase in the quantity of stone tools found in excavation areas of similar size between Houli and Beixin sites. Tools were manufactured using different technologies such as fl aking ( dazhi 打制 ) , pecking ( zuozhi 琢制 ), and grinding ( mozhi 磨制 ). Grinding is the most common lithic technology during this period. Small ornaments of jade (nephrite) are not abundant, but are occasionally found in southern Beixin culture sites, such as the cemetery of Dayishan in northern Jiangsu province. The jade items consist mostly of half-circle rings ( huang 璜 ), rings with a small gap called jue 玦 , and pierced jade beads ( chuankong yuzhu 穿孔玉珠 ) . The fact that these items are ornaments rather than tools may indicate that by this time jade was used to make prestige goods.

Bone, antler, tooth, and shell tools of the Beixin culture are highly developed and carefully worked, most being ground over the entire body. Bone tools are made from either domesticated or wild animal bones, while antler comes mostly from deer. Tools made from teeth mostly make use of boar/pig canines, or roe deer ( zhang 獐 ) teeth. Shell tools are made out of freshwater clams or snails. Most of these tools went through the production steps of cutting, chopping, scraping, shaving, pecking, and grinding in the process of becoming fi nished ground tools. The form of the tools is


quite standardized, as is seen from forms such as fl at-bodied and long bone chisels, hoes formed out of antlers, fl at, thin shell shovels, and wide-ended serrated-blade shell sickles with pierced holes. Other tools such as bone, horn, and shell projectile points with tapered end ( zhuixing 锥形 ) or shaped like a willow leaf ( liuyexing 柳叶形 ); fi shing darts with barbs, sharp awls made from bone, horn, and tooth, and various-sized, highly polished bone needles have also been uncovered. Excavators also found some carefully manufactured ornaments, including hairpins ( ji 笄 ), daggers ( bi 匕 ), rods ( bang 棒 ), and tubes ( guan 管 ). In particular, the manufacture of bone hairpins is highly sophisticated: in addition to being worked to a high polish, bone hairpins are fi nished by a decorated, round hat-shaped top. Even for the later Long-shan 龙山 culture (Chapters 21 and 22 ), such delicately worked pieces are not common.

A large quantity of pottery vessels have been found at Beixin sites. By this time pottery production had clearly become an important type of craft production. Analy-sis of pottery texture indicates that the technology of washing clay had already been mastered, and people were capable of producing pottery with a fi ne clay body. There was a clear distinction in the assemblage between vessels that were coarse ( jiasha ) wares which were sandy in appearance (the majority), and fi ne paste vessels. Different types of clay were selected to make the body in accordance with functional specifi ca-tions; this signals a turning point in the history of pottery production. In addition to sand, clam-shell fragments were often used as temper. In the Shandong peninsula area and the offshore islands, pottery with sandy inclusions takes precedence over fi ner clay pieces. Mica and talc are also added to the sandy inclusion pottery as tempers. Another technological improvement was in the realm of fi ring. The fi ring temperature of Beixin pottery was noticeably higher than that for the Houli culture.

There also is an observable increase in the quantity of pottery types in comparison with the Houli period. The degree of complexity of vessels also increased. A large number of three-footed vessels began to appear. The number of tripods ( ding 鼎 ) increased, and their manufacture was increasingly complex. These tripods are the most representative forms of the Beixin culture, along with the common fu cauldrons, jars ( guan 罐 ), necked jars ( hu 壶 ), lids ( qigai 器盖 ), vessel stands ( qizuo 器座 , not for use over a fi re), and zhijiao supporting legs for use in hearths . In addition, a rather large change occurred in the decoration of pottery. Aside from vessels with decora-tion on the surface increasing in number and in type, a new breakthrough was the appearance of painted pottery at the sites of Beixin ( Zhongguo Shandong 1984 ) and Dadunzi 大墩子 ( Nanjing 1981 ). This marks the beginning of the tradition of painted pottery in the Haidai region.

To date, there have been few studies on pottery production and circulation in the Beixin culture. We can see that in the later Beixin period the types of pottery increase as well as their degree of standardization and production technology. It is plausible that in this later period semi-specialized or totally specialized pottery production had already begun. Pottery kilns have also been discovered in the Beixin period; however, none of these are well preserved and their scales are small. Therefore, the unit and scale of production were not large. Pottery was likely produced for local consumption and was only involved in exchanges over short distances. There is no evidence for the control over production by elites or control over regional distribution of materials or vessels.

404 WANG FEN

BEIXIN SETTLEMENT PATTERNS AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

The settlement data suggest that social organization still was based on blood ties and was relatively egalitarian. There is a much larger quantity of Beixin settlements in the Haidai area than Houli settlements. There are over 100 settlements in south-central Shandong province, the Shandong peninsula, northern Shandong and northern Jiangsu province. Settlements appear to be more numerous in the Shandong penin-sula area. Here there are approximately 80 settlements, the majority of which include shell middens dating to the late Beixin culture. There are very few early and middle-period sites in the vicinity of the Taiyi mountain chain and northern Jiangsu, but there are about 50 late-period sites. In the Tengzhou, Zhangqiu, and Qingzhou areas of south-central and northern Shandong, the density of sites is somewhat higher. In other areas, the settlements appear to be randomly scattered, but in these three areas during the late Beixin period there are small clusters of three to four contemporary settlements referred to as “settlement groups” ( juluo zu 聚落组 ).

We have good information about internal settlement organization during the Beixin period from the sites of Dongjiabai and Dawenkou (see Chapter 20 for later remains at this site). Today the visible surface area of Dongjiabai is 4 ha. This site is surrounded by a moat, which is mainly situated to the south of the settlement and runs from east to west, composed of two sections that join together ( Zhongguo Shandong 1993 ). As only a partial excavation has been carried out, the relationship between the moat, the settlement, and the cemetery have not yet been elucidated. Dongjiabai as well as the sites of Dawenkou and Erjiancun reveal a pattern of resi-dential areas separated from burials in cemeteries. Archaeologists also have uncovered pits, kilns ( Shandong 1997 : 30–31), wells ( Jining 1996 : 1–2) as well as ritual pits, 1 indicating diverse functional areas of settlements.

Dawenkou is the only site yielding Beixin remains for which we can perform an analysis of the distribution of houses within a settlement ( Shandong 1997 : 4–26). A total of 2,000 sq m was excavated at Dawenkou in 1974 and 1978, revealing 18 late Beixin culture houses from three different phases. Phase I contained 12 houses which can be divided into four spatial groups, each group including three or four houses. There are only three houses from phase II and three from phase III. This small quantity precludes further analysis for these phases. We can conclude from the spatial organization of houses, however, that there were three different levels of social organization. These were divided into groups including individual houses, house groups consisting of three or four houses each, and the housing zone containing several house groups. As the area excavated was limited, the number of house zones is uncertain.

Over 30 Beixin houses have been excavated so far, providing a good sample for analysis of individual characteristics. One can see a big change in the types of housing from the Houli period. Beixin period houses are either semi-subterranean pit houses or shallow pit houses ( qianxueshi jianju 浅穴式建筑 ), either oval or round in shape. The surface area of the houses is relatively small, less than 10 sq m in size. Large houses several times this size, common during the Houli period, are no longer seen. Most Beixin houses have a long entryway constructed with a slope or earthen stairway. There is no fi xed orientation of the entryways. House interiors contain only one


hearth, located in the center. The earthen fl oors were prepared by fi ring or by scat-tering burned wood and plant ash. The remains of postholes are visible around the walls or interior of the houses. Many houses contain a small quantity of pottery vessels, production tools, and animal bones.

As all Beixin houses have a surface area of less than 10 sq m, they could only accom-modate a total of two to four people. Since each identifi ed house group consists of three to four individual houses, there would have been about ten people in one house group, provided that all of the structures were used as houses. It does not seem likely that each small structure constituted an independent consumption and production unit. Archaeological evidence in support of this argument lies in the distribution of artifacts at the Dawenkou site. Among the four relatively well-preserved structures from period 1 and area I (one of the four spatial groups from Dawenkou phase I as mentioned above) only F205 contains a hearth and spindle whorls, but three other structures contain no hearth or production tools but have living surfaces. We infer that Beixin house groups which consist of three to four individual houses represent the most basic social unit in the community, the extended family. Larger house zones including three or four extended families would represent a social scale corresponding to a clan.

Analysis of burials Archaeologists have excavated over 100 burials from the Beixin culture. Most of these burials were found in the northern Jiangsu region and the Wensi river valley of south-central Shandong, although a few other discoveries were made in northern Shandong and the Shandong peninsula. The excavated sites with the largest quantity of burials are Dayishan in Guanyun county, northern Jiangsu ( Lianyungang 1988 , Nanjing et al. 1991 ) and Dongjiabai ( Zhongguo Shandong 1993 ).

The majority of burials from the Beixin culture are rectangular pit burials. The surface area of each burial is small, and most burials face east. In addition to single primary burials ( danren yici zang 单人一次葬 ), a few multiple ( he zang 合葬 ) and secondary ( erci zang 二次葬 ) burials also have been discovered. The skeletons are in either a supine or fl exed position. The burials in northern Jiangsu have clear regional particularities. Many burials in this region are stone cist burials, in which the four sides and roof of the burial pit are covered with stone slabs. At the site of Dayishan, 61 of the 62 burials in total are stone cist burials. This kind of burial has also been found at the Dawenkou site in Shandong (Figure 19.2 ).

There is variation in burial practices for infants by region. At the site of Beixin, archaeologists noted the practice of burying infants in ceramic urns. However at the site of Dongjiabai in south-central Shandong, infants are treated in the same way as adults and buried in earthen pits. It is evident that burial traditions had begun to take on strong regional characteristics. In all regions, although the grave goods are more numerous in comparison to the Houli period, the quantities are still relatively small. Most burials contain fewer than fi ve objects, primarily items used on a daily basis such as production tools and personal ornaments. Some burials at Dayishan contain a few, small jade (nephrite) ornaments.

As mentioned above, there are formal cemeteries for burial of the dead in Beixin sites, separated from residential areas. We can use the site of Dayishan to explore

406 WANG FEN

internal organization of a cemetery. Because the site suffered from heavy destruction, Dayishan only retains a surface area of 3,000 sq m. It was excavated in 1985 and 1986, and yielded 62 Beixin period graves in the excavated area of 550 sq m ( Lian-yungang 1988 ; Nanjing et al. 1991 ). 2 We can identify two spatial groups of graves, located in the northeast and southwest parts of the cemetery. Each of these groups can be further divided into two clusters of graves. Each cluster consists of about ten graves, neatly aligned along an axis. The Daiyishan cemetery therefore reveals three levels of social organization within the cemetery with increasing degrees of inclusive-ness: the grave cluster, the grave group, and the whole cemetery. It is likely that the grave cluster represents the extended family. It is possible that the grave group rep-resents either a small group of extended families or a large kinship family. The groups which make up the entire cemetery probably constitute a clan. It is diffi cult to say whether an even more inclusive type of social organization existed within Beixin communities. Given the likely existence of a large social group such as a descent group during the Houli period, such groups probably existed during the Beixin period as well.

If we compare the burials with the house remains from Beixin culture sites, then we can see some similarities in spatial groupings. We can see that the group of houses identifi ed from the Beixin culture remains at the Dawenkou site is equivalent to the

Figure 19.2 Beixin culture stone cist burial M1011 from the Dawenkou site. (After Shandong 1997 : 34, Figure 22.)

(1)(2)

(3) (5)

(4)

(6)

(7)

(10)

(12)

(11)

(13)(9)

(8)

(a)

(b)

N

(a) Stone Cover ( (1)–(13) Stone Slabs) (b) Plan Sketch after Removing the Cover

1–3. Projectile Points Made of Teeth


tomb cluster at Dayishan, each representing an extended family. Also, the zones of houses at Dawenkou correspond to the Dayishan groups of graves, each representa-tive of a large kinship family. Individual houses at sites such as Dawenkou might be representative of smaller social units that are not visible from the layout of the cem-etery. This could mean that the majority of production activities took place at the level of the extended family or a large kinship family represented by more than one structure. The existence of small structures and small groups within cemeteries indi-cates some kind of smaller social group as well. It is possible that the nuclear family had begun to appear. These small families, however, would have been dependent on the extended or large kinship families for production activities.

The mortuary and residential remains from Beixin sites tell us that the level of production was still relatively low and that there were no marked differences in wealth. Individual structures and graves are small, and no grave contains a wooden coffi n. In addition, the total number of grave goods is never higher than seven or eight items, most of which are simple tools that would have been used on a daily basis. The few, simple jade adornments from Dayishan are likely the result of some kind of cultural interaction involving a southern area such as the Yangzi river valley. These few items were found only in the lower strata of the cemetery. Therefore, the Beixin culture must have been in a relatively egalitarian stage of development, with blood ties as the main factor responsible for social cohesion.

BEIXIN SOCIAL CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS

Some of the particular cultural practices from the prehistoric period in the Haidai region are fi rst seen in Beixin sites, especially in burials. First, tooth extraction is a practice which is known both archaeologically and ethnographically ( Yan 1998 ). People intentionally extract or break specifi cally targeted healthy teeth. From eastern China to the southeastern coast, this practice has a long history. To date, the earliest archaeological evidence for tooth extraction comes from the Beixin culture. At the Dongjiabai site, 10 of the 17 adults (over 60%) had their two side (maxillary lateral) incisors extracted. This same practice continued in the later Dawenkou and Longshan periods of the Haidai region.

There also is evidence for the beginning of certain ritual practices in the Haidai region. An example is the use of animals as sacrifi cial offerings in burial and resi-dential contexts. It appears that dogs and pigs were used most often. Beixin period burials at Dayishan contain animal teeth, a kind of grave good that continued in later periods, too. At Beixin sites in south-central Shandong such as Dongjiabai, archaeologists found remains of round ritual pits, some of which contained whole pigs. These features probably were the result of ritual activities associated with the burials.

Other ritual practices identifi ed at Beixin sites did not continue in later periods. One involves turtleshells, possibly representing worship of turtle spirits. Some pits at Dongjiabai contain an orderly array of turtleshells placed together ( Zhongguo Shan-dong 1993 : 483). Also, in the Lianyungang area of northern Jiangsu, there was a common practice of using a bowl to cover the head of the deceased.

408 WANG FEN

CONCLUSIONS

In sum, the Beixin culture played an important role in the process of cultural develop-ment in the Haidai region. During the thousand-year developmental period, there were signifi cant changes in the subsistence economy. The main crops were foxtail millet and broomcorn millet, but rice began to appear at sites in the southern region. Hunting, gathering, and fi shing were still indispensable subsistence activities, provid-ing important sources of food. Improvements were made in the production of craft goods made from clay, stone, and bone. The quantity of settlements increased sig-nifi cantly over time, and some small-scale settlement groups even emerged in some regions. In comparison to the Houli culture, Beixin structures were smaller. Also, small burial clusters appear, indicating that the basic unit of society was getting smaller. Both the Houli and Beixin cultural remains laid the foundation for the sub-sequent Dawenkou culture. They provide important materials for studies of settle-ment patterns, the evolution of social organization, and the development of religious beliefs in the Haidai region.

NOTES

1 At sites such as Dongjiabai and Beixin, pits containing whole pigs, pig heads, and lower mandibles as well as turtleshells have been found. We believe these features are related to ritual.

2 A few graves such as M32 at Dayishan might be as late as the early Dawenkou period.

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Shandong Daxue and Shandong [ 山东大学东方考古研究中心、山东省文物考古研究所 ] . 2005 . 山东济南长清区月庄遗址 2003 年发掘报告 (Report on the 2003 Excavations from

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Yantai Bowuguan [ 烟台博物馆 ] . 2000 . 烟台白石村遗址发掘报告 (Report on the Excavation at the Site of Baishicun, Yantai City) . In 胶东考古 (Archaeology of the Jiaodong Area) , ed. 北京大学考古系 , 烟台市博物馆 : 28 – 95 . Beijing : Wenwu .

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–– 1993 . 山东汶上县东贾柏新石器时代遗址发掘简报 (Brief Report on Excavations at the Neolithic Site of Dongjiabai in Wenshang County, Shandong Province) . Kaogu 1993 ( 6 ): 481 – 487 .

Documents

A Companion to Chinese Archaeology (Underhill/A Companion to Chinese Archaeology) || The Houli and Beixin Cultures