Chapter 5 Section 4 Jiangzhai, Wangyin, Liuwan and other primitive clan cemeteries

Hundreds of primitive clan cemeteries have been discovered in my country, the largest of which are the Jiangzhai cemetery, Wangyin cemetery and Liuwan cemetery excavated in the 1970s. In 1975, a large cemetery for the burial of more than 2,000 people was discovered on the square where the original village of Jiangzhai, Lintong County, Shaanxi Province was located. Later, it was found out that the cemetery began to form after the original village was abandoned, and its age is about 6,000 years ago. Before and after, it belongs to the late Banpo type of Yangshao Culture.This cemetery covers an area of ​​about 1,000 square meters and is well preserved, with more than 180 tombs discovered.The tombs are all rectangular or square pits with different sizes. The largest one is 3.4 meters long and 2.4 meters wide, and the smallest one is 0.51 meters long and 0.37 meters wide.The distribution of tombs is extremely dense, and in the center of the cemetery, there are countless tombs overlapping each other.Most of the human bones in the tomb are secondary burials where the main bones are picked up and reburied after being temporarily buried for a certain period of time.Among them, more than 130 tombs are joint burial tombs, ranging from two people to more than 80 people, usually about 20 people, regardless of gender, regardless of generation, men, women, old and young are buried together.There are more than 50 single-person burials, of which 32 are single-person burials at one time. Most of the burials are in the supine and straight posture.The burial objects are generally one set per tomb, and some more than two sets are buried in multiple tombs. The types are mainly pottery, and there are also stone tools, bone and horn tools, etc. Most of them are daily necessities and production tools, and some of them are buried with A set of drawing tools, such as a stone inkstone with a lid, a small pestle, a water cup, and hematite pigment blocks, etc. Nearly 2,200 people were buried in more than 180 tombs, which is the cemetery of a primitive society with the largest number of buried people discovered so far in my country.

Among the nearly 100 cemeteries of the Yangshao Culture that have been discovered, the Huayin Hengzhen cemetery in Shaanxi excavated in 1958-1959 is the one that best shows the relationship between the deceased.The Hengzhen cemetery is located in the southeast of the residential site. Within the preserved 200 square meters, three compound tombs with large pits and small pits were found. There are eight common tombs in between. The three compound tombs were grouped according to kinship at that time. Main evidence.For a compound joint burial tomb, a large pit with a width of two to three meters from east to west and a length of more than 10 meters from north to south is first dug. Several small pits are dug in the large pit in a north-south direction, and the bones are buried in the small pits.There are seven small pits in one of the large pits, five small pits in the other large pit, and a part of the large pit has been destroyed, leaving only three small pits.There are 4-12 human bones buried in each small pit. These human bones are all secondary burials. Men, women, old and young are buried together in one pit, with their heads facing west, and one or two sets of pottery for daily use are built in as burial objects.Accumulatively, about 40 human bones were buried in a compound tomb.The people in the three compound tombs should be buried in the entire village at that time, and the people in the small pits should be buried in the members of each family; after a certain period of time, the people who died later were buried in the village The second collective burial formed another compound burial tomb; after a certain period of time, it was held again, forming a third compound burial tomb.This burial custom reflects that the village at that time was formed by several big families.

The Wangyin cemetery is located in the south of Wangyin Village, Yanzhou City, Shandong Province. During the excavation between 1975 and 1978, 899 tombs were found. It is a prehistoric cemetery with the largest number of tombs found in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. From 6000 to 5500, it belongs to the early stage of Dawenkou culture.Most of the tombs are rectangular shallow pits, about 1.7-2.3 meters long and 0.5-1.3 meters wide.About 20% of the tombs were buried with daily utensils and imitation Ming vessels. The burial objects were mainly pottery, and some tortoise shells and deer teeth were also buried with special meanings.Most of the burials are single-person upright burials.About 30 tombs are joint burials with the body upright and upright. The joint burials range from two people to as many as five people. Most of them are same-sex joint burials.There are about 200 secondary burial tombs, which are divided into two types: single person and multiple people. The burial form of the second multiple person burial tomb is the same as that of the second multiple person burial tomb of the Yangshao Culture in the Guanzhong area. 24 people, but most of the joint burials here are of the same sex, and there are generally no burial objects.Prehistoric same-sex joint burial tombs were first discovered in the Yangshao Culture in the Guanzhong area, and the largest number discovered so far is the Wangyin cemetery located in the lower reaches of the Yellow River.The upper incisors are usually removed from the adult bones in the tomb, and the occipital and jaw bones are also artificially deformed. This is a reflection of a strange custom popular among residents of Dawenkou culture during their lifetime.

From 1974 to 1978, more than 1,700 tombs were discovered on the hillside behind Liuwan Village, Ledu County, Qinghai.The cemetery is located on the Xiangyang hillside on the north bank of the Huangshui River. It is divided into three cemetery areas according to the east-west direction of the mountain. The east and middle areas are dominated by the Majiayao culture Banshan type and Machang type tombs, which are about 4500-4000 years ago. Years ago, the western area was dominated by tombs of the Qijia culture, which dated back about 4,000 years ago. There are more than 1,100 tombs in the Majiayao culture, most of which are rectangular vertical pit tombs, and some are cave tombs; and the tombs are of different sizes, the largest tomb is about four meters long, and the small tomb is about one meter long.In cave tombs, rows of wooden sticks or planks are often inserted between the tomb passage and the tomb chamber to seal the tomb chamber.In some tombs, wooden coffins or backing boards are used as burial utensils. The tombs where one person is buried are mainly buried with the body upright, and some are secondary burials.Many joint burials have been found, ranging from two to seven people in one tomb, all of which were buried at one time, or buried side by side, or buried one above the other.Most of these joint burials are joint burials of husband and wife, or family members.Most of the funerary pottery in the tomb is painted pottery. In some tombs, the pottery is piled up in the pit, far exceeding the actual needs of individuals, and it is a symbol of wealth.There are more than 10,000 pieces of pottery unearthed from the tomb. Among them, the painted pottery pot whose outer wall was shaped like a nude woman was a fine art at that time. This kind of symbol shows the simple way of recording things at that time.

There are more than 360 tombs of the Qijia culture, and these tombs are also divided into two types, namely, rectangular vertical pits and cave tombs.The burial utensils of most tombs are wooden coffins dug from round logs, which are generally about 1.7-2 meters long and about 0.5 meters wide.Most of the tombs are single burials.About 20 tombs are joint burials for two to seven people.Most of the joint burial tombs are adult men and women buried together. The man is buried in the coffin with his body upright and his limbs upright, while the woman is buried outside the coffin with her legs bent sideways.In joint burial tombs, the male skeleton inside the coffin is generally relatively complete, while the skeleton outside the coffin is mostly incomplete, and some only have the skull left.Most of the tombs have funerary objects, including pottery, stone, bone and other daily necessities, production tools and decorations.Usually, tombs with wooden coffins have richer burial objects, as many as more than 30 pieces, while those without wooden coffins have fewer burial objects, and some even have no burial objects.These phenomena indicate that there was already a clear gap between the rich and the poor at that time.