CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

TOMBS OF
THE LOWER
XIAJIADIAN
CULTURE AT
DADIANZI,
AOHANQI,
INNER MONGOLIA
The Lower Xiajiadian culture, dating to the early Bronze Age, was located far to the northeast of
the Erlitou metropolitan centers in the area roughly coinciding with the territory once populated
by the earlier Hongshan culture (cats. 10-22). It is represented in the exhibit by ceramic
vessels from the Inner Mongolian site of Dadianzi, in the vicinity of Chifeng, but its wider distribution
extended both north and south of the Yan mountains, well into what are now Hebei
and Liaoning provinces. 1
The Xiajiadian sites are situated for the most part on the table lands above the rivers that
wind through the region. Often these sites seem to occur in pairs, facing each other across the
rivers, or in clusters near the mouths of rivers. The settlements with closer access to the rivers
were apparently the preferred location, while those situated at a greater elevation tend to be
smaller and less rich in artifacts. Dadianzi, itself a large and important site, was surrounded
by smaller settlements and guarded by a sentry post built in the mountains overlooking it.
One of the most renowned features of the more sizable Lower Xiajiadian settlements
are the defensive walls that surround them, which were constructed of pounded earth or of
stone. A series of walled settlements stretching along the Daling and Laoha Rivers provides a
very early prototype for the Great Wall, erected in this same area during the Warring States
period. At Dadianzi, the walls seem to have been largely of pounded earth, although the gateways
were faced in stone. Walled enclosures also surround the mud-brick dwellings at some of
the Xiajiadian sites.
The Xiajiadian cemeteries, including the one at Dadianzi, were located beyond the defensive
walls. The burial field at Dadianzi was unusually large, and the well-preserved graves found
there, nearly 800 in all, can be considered as typical for the culture as a whole. While most of
the graves are relatively small, the larger burials of the elite members of the community, which
are dug to an exceptional depth, are the more interesting for the artifacts they contained and
for what they reveal about the Dadianzi society and its connection with other, often distant
cultures.
M 612, the tomb from which all but one of the pottery vessels in the exhibition were
recovered, is an example of a fairly typical large, high-status burial at Dadianzi (fig. i). It was
located at the northern edge of the cemetery. The burial pit measured over two meters in
length and almost a meter in width, but its most surprising aspect was its depth of fully six
meters. Preserved in the walls of the pit were the foot holes used for climbing up and down it.
At the bottom of the pit were the partial remains of a skeleton, identified as a male, approximately
forty-five years old. Under his left ear lay a pair of turquoise beads, and between
his thighbones were some forty stone beads, perhaps once sewn to the ends of a sash tied at
his waist. Traces of a fabric belonging to his garment or to his shroud were also detected. Although
the wooden coffin had disintegrated, its imprint was left in the soil.
The burial objects were found not in the burial chamber but on the ledges of a niche cut
into the sides of the pit more than two meters above the floor of the chamber. In the side of the
150 BRONZE ACE CHINA