Chapter 34 Chapter 6 The Bronze Culture of the Border Areas in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties

The Lower Xiajiadian Culture is a local bronze culture distributed in the north and south of Yanshan Mountains in western Liaoning, eastern Inner Mongolia, northern Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin and other regions. 2000 BC to 1500 BC.Archaeologists named it the Lower Xiajiadian Culture because it was first discovered in the lower cultural layer of the Xiajiadian site in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia.According to the record in "Zuo Zhuan Nine Years of Zhaogong": "The king of Wu in the past conquered business,... Sushen, Yanhao, and my northern land." The lower culture of Xiajiadian may be the ancient culture of the Yanhao tribe in the Xia and Shang Dynasties.Xiajiadian lower culture has entered the Bronze Age, and large bronze ritual vessels imitating the Central Plains have appeared.For example, in May 1981, a bronze jar and two bronze tripods were unearthed in front of Aobao Mountain, the head brand brigade of Jiefangyingzi Commune in Ongniute Banner, Zhaowuda League, Inner Mongolia.Among them, the jar is 66 cm high and 41 cm in diameter. There are three string patterns on the outside of the abdomen, and the inscription "Storage Yong" is cast on the inner wall of the abdomen.One of the tripods is round, with animal face patterns on the neck and the upper part of the three legs. It is 54 cm high and 38 cm in diameter.Another tripod is also round, with string patterns on the neck and feet. It is 67 cm high and 37 cm in diameter.However, their casting process is still relatively primitive, and their texture is relatively rough.At the same time, many bronze earrings, finger rings, and stick heads were unearthed from the lower Xiajiadian culture, which have distinct local characteristics.In addition, exquisitely crafted gold earrings, jade huang, jade beads, jade tubes, jade plaques, agate beads, turquoise beads and other decorations are often found in the lower Xiajiadian culture.

Residents of the lower Xiajiadian culture were mainly engaged in agriculture, and their production tools mainly included ground stone shovels, hammered girdle stone hoes, stone picks, stone sickles, stone axes, stone chisels, fine stone tools, stone arrowheads, scrapers, etc.Most of the settlements at that time were located on the high ground on both sides of the river; they were often grouped, consisting of a larger settlement and several smaller settlements around it.Around the settlement, defensive facilities such as walls built with stones or rammed earth and trenches were found.Larger settlements, such as the Dadianzi site in Aohan Banner, Inner Mongolia, have a perimeter of more than 500 meters, and there are remains of stone-built gate sites with earthen walls.Generally, there are dozens or more than a hundred houses in the village. The houses are semi-crypt or built with stone or adobe walls. Most of them are circular with a diameter of about 213 meters.There are cemeteries next to the settlements. For example, there are nearly a thousand tombs in the cemetery of the Dadianzi site in Aohan Banner.Most of them are small tombs, but there have been a few large tombs with rich burial objects, such as exquisitely crafted stone axes to indicate their status, which shows that the polarization between rich and poor and class has already occurred at that time.In the large tomb, there are also exquisitely painted pottery girdles, jars, and wine vessels such as jue and gills.The pottery body is mostly orange-red, the surface is black and polished, and the top is painted in white and red with exquisite cloud patterns and animal-mask patterns.The animal-mask patterns on these painted pottery, as well as the shape of the wine vessel Jue and Li are very similar to those unearthed in Erlitou, Yanshi, Henan Province.In addition, there are oracle bones unearthed from the lower culture of Xiajiadian. Small round nests were first drilled and then scalded.These are obviously strongly influenced by the Xia and Shang culture of the Central Plains.

Furthermore, according to the current archaeological findings, the cultural features of the lower Xiajiadian culture in the south and north of Yanshan Mountain are different.In the area north of Yanshan Mountain, sand-filled gray pottery is the main type, and tube-bellied Li, tripod, bowl, etc. are common, and painted pottery is more developed.In the area to the south of Yanshan Mountain, red-brown pottery with sand is the main type, and bulging-bellied Li, folded-shoulder jars, and high-circle-footed guis are common.Therefore, the current archaeological circle may divide the Xiajiadian Lower Culture into two types: Yanbei and Yannan.The Yanbei type can be subdivided into several types.

In the Daling River and Xiaoling River Basin in the west of Liaoning, north of Yanshan Mountain, the bronze culture that emerged after Xiajiadian Lower Culture is Weiyingzi Culture.This is named because this culture was first discovered in Weiyingzi, Chaoyang, Liaoning in 1970, and its era roughly corresponds to the Western Zhou Dynasty.The Weiyingzi site is located on a platform in a bay of a tributary of the Xiaoling River, with a length of about 500 meters and a width of about 200 meters.The unearthed pottery is mainly sandy red pottery and reddish-brown pottery, most of which are plain, some are decorated with cord patterns, and there are band patterns composed of embossed triangular patterns.The types of utensils include Li, pots, tripods, jars, beans, and jars with lace-like piles on the mouth.Larger tombs were found, such as M7101, which is a rectangular vertical pit tomb with a length of 3.25 meters and a width of 2.76 meters, with a built-in wooden coffin.Unearthed are bronze luan, jia, danglu, round and rectangular copper bubbles, trapezoidal copper armor pieces, vertically carved sheep's head car decorations, gold arm bracelets, turquoise beads, etc. Bronze helmets were unearthed from M7606. In 1979, unearthed at the cemetery M1 at Point A of Kazuo Heshanggou, there were bronze you (with nearly a hundred seashells inside), one pot each, and two golden bracelets.A bronze mirror and copper earrings were unearthed from the Daohugou Tomb in Xiaodonggou Village, Kazuo County.It is particularly worth mentioning that the Weiyingzi culture discovered many important bronze burials, some of which may be cellars, and some may be related to sacrifices.It is characterized by the coexistence of Shang and Zhou bronzes in the Central Plains and local bronzes in the north.For example, 14 bronze wares were discovered in Xiaobo Taigou in Kazuo, including typical Central Plains bronze wares tripod, gui, and plate, as well as a northern-style bell head spoon and a lid decorated with sawtooth and millet patterns.The Houhou Yu unearthed from Kazuomachanggou shows that the type of Weiyingzi has a very close relationship with the Yan culture of the Western Zhou Dynasty.Unearthed from No. 1 Kazuo North Cave, there are bronze pots with inscriptions of "Yawei, Guzhu, Fuding", etc., indicating that the Weiyingzi culture may be the cultural relics of the Guzhu Kingdom recorded in ancient documents.

In areas such as Beijing and Jixian in Tianjin to the south of Yanshan Mountain, the bronze culture following Xiajiadian Lower Culture is Zhangjiayuan Culture.This is named after it was first discovered in Zhangjiayuan, Ji County, Tianjin in 1965.Its era roughly corresponds to the late Shang Dynasty to the middle Western Zhou Dynasty.The pottery is mainly reddish brown, mostly decorated with Jomon.The most distinctive feature is the ge with a high collar and bulging belly with additional pile patterns. In addition, there are deep-bellied pots, retorts, bowls, and urns with closed mouths.Important discoveries include the tombs of the late Shang Dynasty at Liujiahe in Pinggu, Beijing and the wooden tombs of the Western Zhou Dynasty in Baifu, Changping.Unearthed from Liujiahe tombs are the Central Plains-style bronze square tripod, round tripod, 鬲, 甗, jue, 斝, 卣, 罍, gou, pan, 盉, and iron-edged copper axe.It is particularly noteworthy that many gold products such as gold rods, gold armbands, gold leaf and gold earrings were unearthed.Among them, the gold earrings, the upper part is bent into a half-moon shape, and the lower part is an oblate pendant, with a height of 3.4 cm, a long diameter of 2.2 cm and a weight of 6.8 grams.After inspection, the gold content reached 85%.In addition to bronze ritual vessels and oracle bone inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty, bronze bell daggers, bird-head knives, bird-head daggers, horse-head daggers, and Guan Qi Qi were also unearthed from the Baifu tomb in Changping.According to the "Book of Rites · Music Book", after King Wu of Zhou defeated Zhou, he "sealed the Queen of the Yellow Emperor to Ji".The Zhangjiayuan culture may be the remnants of the Xuanyuan Yellow Emperor clan who lived here long ago.

The Upper Xiajiadian Culture is a local bronze culture that was distributed in Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, and Hebei to the north of Yanshan Mountain during the Middle and Late Western Zhou Dynasty, Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Discovered and named.Carbon 14 dating is about 1000 BC to 300 BC.The copper mining and smelting site of the upper Xiajiadian culture was discovered in Dajing, Linxi, Inner Mongolia. More than 40 open-pit mining pits were found within an area of ​​two square kilometers, and mining tools such as stone picks and stone hammers were unearthed.A row of eight copper smelting furnaces was found near No. 5 mining pit, and terracotta blast pipes, smelting slag and pottery molds were unearthed, indicating that the bronze smelting and casting industry here had reached a certain level at that time.Therefore, the number of bronze wares in the upper culture of Xiajiadian increased greatly, and the production tools included bronze axes, chisels, knives, awls, etc., and had obvious local characteristics.For example, a copper ax is a 銎 axe, with a round 銎 in the middle to secure a wooden handle, and narrow blades on one or both sides of the upper and lower sides.Among the weapons, the bronze short sword is the most characteristic. The hilt and sword head are often cast with animal-shaped patterns, and the sword body has two types of curved blade and straight blade.Bronze decorations include bell-shaped, bird-shaped, double-tailed and bead-shaped copper ornaments, which are full of local characteristics.In particular, many bronze tripods, li, bean-shaped vessels, etc., which were cast in imitation of the bronze ritual vessels of the Central Plains, appeared, and their shapes also had obvious local characteristics.For example, the tripod has a closed mouth and a shallow round belly. There are small semicircular ears on both sides of the mouth and three slender pointed feet at the bottom.At the same time, bronze ritual vessels such as tripods and guis produced in the Central Plains were also found.All these indicate that the relationship between the northern region and the bronze culture of the Central Plains at this time was much closer than that of the lower Xiajiadian culture.

Most of the settlements at this time were located on the high ground by the river, and the houses were still semi-crypt, but some were built on the ground.The cemetery is next to the village, and some coffins or coffins are built with stones.At this time, some tombs were larger in shape.For example, tomb No. 101 discovered in Nanshangen, Ningcheng, Liaoning in 1963, is 3.8 meters long, 1.8-2.23 meters wide, and 2.4 meters deep.A total of more than 500 bronze wares were unearthed, including production tools such as knives, axes, chisels, and hoes; weapons such as daggers, spears, swords, arrowheads, helmets, and shields;Bronze sacrificial vessels include locally cast tripods, li, gou, goblets, bean-shaped vessels, double pots, spoons, etc., as well as tripods, gui, and 簠 made in the Central Plains.In addition, there are bronze mirrors, various copper plaques, a gold ring and two small rings made of gold wire.Another example is the stone-chambered tomb in Xiaoheishigou, Ningcheng, which was excavated in 1985. The unearthed bronzes with local characteristics include: a six-linked bean, 15.6 cm high.In the middle is a round basin surrounded by six stalk beans as feet.There are also bronze double jars, quadruple jars, ancestral handle spoons, double scabbards, ancestral-shaped copper rod heads, animal-shaped bronze medal decorations, etc.In addition, gold medal decorations and gold thread rings were unearthed.Also from the Central Plains are the Central Plains bronzes Xu Jijianggui and the gatekeeper Fang Ge.The above shows that they are all tombs of noble leaders.It is in sharp contrast with the general small tomb with only a few pieces of pottery buried there, indicating that slavery in the northern region had developed to a certain extent at this time.According to research, the upper culture of Xiajiadian may be the culture of the ancient Donghu people.

From 1985 to 1989, several cemeteries that may belong to the ancient Shanrong people were discovered and excavated at the southern foot of Jundu Mountain in Yanqing, Beijing, from the Spring and Autumn Period to the early Warring States Period.Among them, the Yuhuangmiao cemetery is the largest, with an area of ​​about 22,000 square meters, and a total of 407 tombs were discovered.Most of the tombs are rectangular vertical pits.Most of them are small tombs, and there are also a few large tombs, among which tomb No. 250 is the largest.The deceased was a 25-year-old male, with spring-shaped gold earrings on both ears, a half-moon-shaped golden crown under his neck, and a straight-bladed bronze dagger and copper sharpener on his waist.There is a bronze harness on the left, and a quiver and arrows on the right.In the inner coffin, there were bronze ritual utensils Ding, Dun, Pan, Yi, (釒和) made in the Central Plains, as well as locally made bronze catkins [fu father] and so on.There are horses, cattle, sheep, dogs and so on buried in the filling soil of the tombs.This may have been the burial of a noble chief.A large number of bronze wares have been unearthed in the entire cemetery. The production tools include knives, adzes, chisels, and copper cones with bone handles. Among the weapons, the straight-edged bronze dagger is the most distinctive and widely used. It has been unearthed in hundreds of tombs.The decorations include copper earrings, bell-shaped, herringbone-shaped, and bead-shaped pendants, etc.Judging from its cultural appearance, it is relatively similar to the upper class culture of Xiajiadian, and is also closely related to the culture of the Central Plains, especially the culture of Yan and Qi.

The Zhukaigou Culture is mainly distributed in the south-central part of Inner Mongolia. It was named after the excavation of Zhukaigou in Yijinhuoluo Banner, Ikezhao League, Inner Mongolia since the 1970s.Its age ranges from the Longshan Culture to the mid-Shang Dynasty.Zhukaigou culture is divided into three periods.In the second period (about the Xia Dynasty), small pieces of bronze wares (needles, cones, earrings, finger rings and armbands, etc.) began to appear.In the third period (about the middle of the Shang Dynasty), rectangular and square houses were found, such as F5002, which is 5.1 meters long and 5.6 meters wide. .It was also discovered that there were joint burials of men and women, with the men leaning forward and straight, and the women bending sideways, facing the man.The pottery is mainly lace ge, snake pattern ge, button jars and three-legged urns with local characteristics, but there are also found ge, bean and cloud thunder pattern guis similar to those in the middle Shang Dynasty (Erligang period) of the Central Plains. .Especially important are the unearthed bronze tripods with animal-mask patterns, jue and zhinege similar to the Shang culture of the Central Plains, as well as bronze short swords with straight handles and straight blades, ring head knives and round medal decorations with distinctive local characteristics.It shows that the Zhukaigou culture is not only a local bronze culture in the south-central Inner Mongolia, but also closely related to the Xiashang culture in the Central Plains.

From the late Shang Dynasty to the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Lijiaya culture was distributed in the northeastern part of Shaanxi Province and the northwestern part of Shanxi Province on both sides of the Yellow River. It was named after the excavation of the Lijiaya ancient city site in Qingjian, Shaanxi Province in 1983.The ancient city site is located on the east bank of the Wuding River, with an irregular rectangular plane, 495 meters long from east to west, 122-213 meters wide from north to south, and an area of ​​67,000 square meters.The city wall is made of rammed earth and stones, with a width of 2.6-3.25 meters at the bottom, and the highest existing one is 3.1 meters.There are housing sites found in the city, such as F1 in Area C, which is slightly rectangular in shape, facing southeast from northwest, with a front width of 3.07 meters and a depth of 2.95 meters.There is a doorway in the west-central part of the front, the living surface has been rammed and grilled, and there is a low wall in the middle of the rear, and the northwest may be a stove site.In addition, round and rectangular bag-shaped ash pits and urn coffins were also found.The unearthed pottery includes lace ge, beans, gui, zi, pots, basins, bowls and three-legged urns.In particular, a stone skull figure was unearthed, which is made of pea-green sandstone, slightly trapezoidal, with an upper width of 24 cm, a lower width of 31 cm, and a residual height of 42 cm. The skull figure was carved flat on both sides, which may be related to sacrifice.

In Shilou, Liulin, Yonghe, Xixian, Lingshi, Xinzhou, Baode, Pianguan of Shanxi, and Qingjian and Suide of Shaanxi, many burials of burial bronzes dated to the late Shang Dynasty were found. Bronze sacrificial vessels of the Shang Dynasty coexisted with local bronze weapons such as bell-headed straight-edged swords, snake-headed daggers, and horse-headed knives.For example, in the two vertical pit tombs excavated in Jingjie Village, Lingshi in 1985, tomb No. 2 has one coffin and two coffins.There is a martyr in the filling.There are ten bronze jues, four goblets, one you, one gou, one tripod, one gui, as well as 11 Ge, 19 spears, 1 animal head knife, 2 bow-shaped utensils and 1 bell.Another example is a tomb cleared in Zheyu, Baodelin in 1971, unearthed two bronze tripods, two bell beans (with a copper ball inside the ring foot), one you, two ampoules, one straight-edged dagger with the head of the bell, and two axe 1, 2 chariots, 2 bells, 2 stone congs, 112 seashells, 109 copper shells, and 2 gold bow ornaments (95% gold content, 215 grams in weight), etc.According to research, the above-mentioned discoveries may belong to the remains of Guifang, the Northwest Kingdom of the Shang Dynasty.