The earliest writing? Sign use in the seventh millennium BC at Jiahu, Henan Province, China. (Research).
Antiquity; 3/1/2003; Wang, Changsui
Introduction
It has long been accepted that writing is the principal attribute of an advanced society. L H Morgan. (1974:31) claimed that civilisation “begins with the invention of the alphabet … and the use of writing”, while for Frederick Engels (1972:92) it was the invention of writing that moved humanity out of an age of barbarism. More recently Daniels (1996:1) stated Humankind is defined by language; but civilisation is defined by writing. We note that writing is commonly held to have originated in the late fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia (Gelb 1963; Schmandt-Besserat 1978). Here we present signs from the seventh millennium BC which seem to relate to later Chinese characters and may have been intended as words. We interpret these signs not as writing itself, but as features of a lengthy period of sign-use which led eventually to a fully-fledged system of writing. So while we do not challenge the primacy of Mesopotamia in human literacy, we do suggest that China, with a potential archaeological record of nine millennia, offers a unique opportunity to observe the evolutionary stages which led to the development of a script. The signs were discovered on tortoise shells which were excavated in graves at the Neolithic site of Jiahu in Henan Province (Henan 1989, 1999, Zhang & Wang 1998, Zhang et al 1999). After introducing the site, its context and dating, we shall describe the signs and discuss the roles that they may have played in Chinese Neolithic society.
Chronological and geographic context of Jiahu
The site of Wuyang Jiahu lies at 33[degrees] 36’ latitude north and 113[degrees] 40’ longitude east on the upper reaches of the Huai River, between the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers (Figure 1); (Henan 1999, 3; Underhill 1997, 113). It lies east of Mount Funiu, and has the old course of the Sha River to its north, the Ni River to its south and is close to a small lake also called “Jiahu”. In this area, around 13,000 years ago, Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers initiated a form of agricultural production, augmenting their diets with the more predictable, more abundant food supplies of millet and rice (Zhang & Wang 1998; Underhill 1997,108-9,114-5,147-8; Chang 1987,71-95; Normile 1997; Smith 1995; Chang 1980,147). The Pleistocene-Holocene transition (11 000-8000 BC) was marked by the extinction of Pleistocene fauna and the emergence of a warmer, moist climate that favoured agriculture in the North China Plain (Winkler & Wang, 1993).
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
There followed the development of increasingly complex societies, which in stages acquired the attributes which characterise the Chinese Neolithic: settled village life (Underhill 1997,117), agriculture and me domestication of animals (Yan 1992), the production or elaborately-decorated ceramics (Huber 1983), jade carving (Pearson & Lo 1983, 131), sericulture (Chang 1987, 113, 210), the beginning of bronze-casting technology (Barnard 1983), music (Zhang et al 1999), written language (Keightley 1978, 1989, 1994; Cheung 1983), and inferentially, divination and the ritualisation of religious practice (Chang 1980, 339; Chang 1983). The period culminated in the first recorded dynasties, the Xia (ca. 2200 BC) and the Shang (ca. 1700-1100 BC).
Exploration of the site–the settlement
Jiahu and its incised signs belong near the beginning of this long period of Neolithic development. The site was discovered in 1962, and excavated from the 1980s. Archaeological opinion currently suggests that it represents a very early pre-Yangshao Neolithic culture corresponding to the earliest Peiligang (Shih 1992). Radiocarbon dates determined by accelerator mass-spectrometry measurements at three different laboratories place the site in the 7-6th millennia BC, within three sub-periods: I: 7000-6600, II: 6600-6200 and III: 6200-5500 cal BC (Henan 1999,515; Zhang & Wang 1998; Zhang et al 1999) (Table 1). Given its early date, relatively undisturbed preservation and wealth of archaeological record, Jiahu presents us with an extraordinary opportunity to probe the earliest aspects of the Chinese Neolithic as it developed during the climatic alterations of the Holocene (Chang 1987; Winkler & Wang 1993).
Archaeological excavation has so far revealed 45 house foundations, 370 cellars and nine pottery kilns, with a large assemblage of pottery and animal bone. The pottery is generally poor in quality, made from clay sheets or slices and fired unevenly within the temperature range 600 to 1000[degrees]C. Sand-tempered red and red-brown pottery characterises the early period while later ceramics were all-red, tempered by rice-husk, clamshell, bone, mica and talc. Decorative patterns were cord-impressed or incised, comb-pointed or comb-drawn. Plain or nipple-shaped appliques were also used. Pottery forms include ding with flat, round, three-footed or ring bottoms, basin and jar-shaped vessels, pots with everted mouths, rolled or folded rims, shallow or deep bowls (Henan 1989, 6; Henan 1999, 200 ff.). Excavators noted that the second- and third-period artefacts roughly correspond to the early and later periods of the Peiligang culture (Shih 1992, 126-7), and we believe that the ceramic repertory resembles that of Guozhuang in Wuyang, and the Zhaizhuang site of Luohe. The ceramic assemblage of the first period at Jiahu, however, is older and distinctly different from that of Peiligang sites (for example Egou) (Henan 1999, 515-8). We have provisionally designated the whole assemblage as the “Jiahu Culture”. One ceramic form repeatedly found at Jiahu is, aesthetically speaking, especially noteworthy: a graceful round-bellied vase that rises from a small round base, swells through the belly and then nips in with a subtle recurving neck leading to a delicate, sometimes everted rim (Henan 1989, 6; Henan 1999, 277-83, colour plate 15, B/W plates 42, 80-90; Figure 2). In the context of links between the Jiahu culture and later developments in the region, it is interesting to note that this graceful shape is still known millennia later in the Song and Qing Dynasties.
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
Among the skeletal remains of many animals are domestic pig, dog, sheep, cattle, buffalo (Bubalus), sika (Cervus sika), river deer, elk, muntjak (Cervus muntjac), racoon, badger, sable, hare, leopard cat and marshy/ aquatic species such as turtle and tortoise, carp and Yangzi crocodile. The last, signalling a warmer climate, is particularly interesting in confirming reported Holocene climatic changes (Chang 1987:71-81). The analysis of the animal bone also confirms the early domestication of animals in China (Yan 1992:122).
The burials
Even more detailed knowledge of the society and its artefacts has come from the 349 graves so far investigated (Henan 1999, 139). Burials at Jiahu are single and multiple, extended, and mostly oriented west or south-west (Figure 3). Most graves contained at least one object but some were furnished with up to 60 objects including items such as tools, ornaments, hunting and fishing equipment and ritual artefacts.
[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]
Fine stone tools included carefully-shaped polished stone axes, stone shovels with curving blades and shoulders, sickles with toothed blades and pairs of querns (Henan 1999: plate 18; plates 121-160). The sickles provide significant evidence of rice harvesting and the grain-grinding stones also suggest cereal cultivation (Zhang &Wang 1998, Underhill 1997, 114-116; Smith 1995, 133-135).
There were also exquisitely made objects of bone (Henan 1999: plates 25-40), including fishing darts barbed on two sides, winged arrow heads, fine needles with tiny eyes, awls, and dagger-like and fork-like objects (Henan 1999:plates 37-40). During the 1984-87 excavation campaign at Jiahu came the startling discovery of a playable 7-hole flute spanning an octave and made from the bone of a crane (Grus japonensis) (Henan 1989,12; Henan 1999,447-9,992; Zhang et al 1999). Twenty five other examples have been discovered since. Given the substantial investment of time required to make these bone objects, their deposit in certain interments puts these graves into a special category. All the richly-furnished graves were males.
Further signals of status were given by the deposition of rare minerals. About 4% of the burials held personal ornaments of turquoise or fluorite (Henan 1999: grave M58, plates 5, 20-24). We are not aware of an earlier occurrence of worked turquoise artefacts anywhere. Because sources of turquoise may be as near as Hubei, Sichuan and Hunan Provinces (Pogue 1915) or as distant as Tibet (Laufer 1913), these finds suggest a seventh-millennium movement of luxury materials, perhaps amounting to a `trade structure’ (sensu Braudel 1972; Weigand & Harbottle 1992). The Dawenkou (4500-2700 BC), who also carved elephant ivory (Pearson & Underhill 1987, 813), made use of turquoise. By Shang times there is abundant use of turquoise, often as a mosaic inlay for bronze. With jade in China (Chang 1980, 88) and also in later Mesoamerica, where there is strong association between turquoise and high status (Carmichael 1970), there is a presumption that prestige possessions found in occasional burials indicate a form of social stratification at Jiahu. However there is also the possibility that the status of these graves refers to religious rather than political leadership–an interpretation to which we will return.
Among the items that seem to denote a special status were tortoise-shells, the plastron and carapace of the tortoise being placed together or severally in graves by the head, foot or thigh of the dead person and often accompanied by small pebbles. Examples were found in some twenty-four graves (Table 2). It was upon these shells that the incised signs were noticed that form the main subject of this paper.
The signs
The incised marks were noted on fourteen fragments of tortoise shell (genus emydidae, species Cuora flavomarginata), and some marks were also found on bone. Initially, some 16 signs were recognised, but intensive scrutiny has reduced the number of definitely incised signs to eleven, of which nine were on tortoise shells and two on bone. In the following presentation of the signs, we indicate where appropriate a Shang-period sign having a formal similarity, drawn from the examples found at the site of Yinxu (see below). We do not, however, wish to imply that the Jiahu sign necessarily had the same meaning as the later Shang (Yinxu) character.
Most of the 11 signs date to the second period (6600 to 6200 cal BC). One of the most important contexts was Grave M344 (dated to 6520 cal BC) which contained an adult male whose head was missing (Henan 1999,colour plate 7, B/W plate 22). Instead of the head were placed eight sets of tortoise shells (i.e. carapace + plastron) and one forked-shape bone artefact (Henan 1999:colour plates 39,40). Of special interest is one nearly complete plastron (Henan 1999:colour plate 47) pierced with a hole which may have been used with a thong to bind the plastron to its corresponding carapace. On the lower middle part an eye-shaped sign:
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
was found, which greatly resembles the character for “eye” in the Yinxu inscriptions. The fork-shaped artefact was also faintly marked. Another plastron was incised with two vertical strokes, fairly similar to the character for “twenty” in the Yinxu inscriptions.
Another grave of an adult male (Grave M387) also contained eight sets of tortoise shells and one fork-shaped object. One of the plastrons (a broken piece, M387:4) is incised with the sign:
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
which is similar to the character for “eight” in the Yinxu inscriptions. On the same plastron is a single downstroke sign resembling the character for “ten” of the Yinxu inscriptions. From this same tomb a broken carapace, the mate of plastron M387:4 (Henan 1999, colour plate 48), carried an incised sign:
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
which is fairly close to a sign in the Yinxu inscriptions and seems to be a person with a conspicuous right hand.
The occupants of grave M335 were two adult males. A broken plastron, (M335:15) was found bearing a sign:
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
with the sign incised in a position similar to that on M344:18 except on the left, rather than right side. The incised sign resembles the sign for “window” in the Yinxu inscriptions. M233 was a tomb of the second period (6600 to 6200 cal BC) which contained an adult male buried with six sets of tortoise shell pairs (each with plastron + carapace). One plastron (M233:11) is incised with a horizontal line while another (M233:15) bears two horizontal lines, resembling the characters “one” and “two” in the Yinxu inscriptions.
Grave M94, also from the second period, was the tomb of a male estimated to be c. 50 years of age and again, on the left side of the head, were placed eight tortoise shell sets, with fork-shaped objects and other furnishings. On a plastron was inscribed a vertical-line-shaped sign, resembling the character for “ten” of the Yinxu inscriptions.
There are several trends and characteristics to which we would call attention.
1 In most cases the signs are prominently displayed, for example at the middle of a plastron, or in the marginalia of a carapace, both of which would facilitate viewing.
2 The signs are obviously intentional and significant. They are not accidental scratches, doodles, or tooth-marks of animals.
3 The signs are consistently oriented to be “read” with the plastrons inverted.
4 In some cases, where more than one incised shell was found in a single grave, the signs are all different, suggesting that they cannot all denote the specific deceased individual, or be his “clan sign”.
5 There are cases where two different signs are found on the same plastron, again inconsistent with the idea that these are all clan signs.
6 Sign-occurrence appears to be correlated with tortoise shells, with musical instruments, with presumed ritual fork-shaped objects and generally rich grave furnishings of carved bone. In several cases, the sign found is the single downstroke.
7 Some pairs of tortoise shells have holes near the edge, through which the carapace and plastron could be linked with a thin cord, forming a “box”. The plastron-carapace “boxes” all contained groups of pebbles, apparently carefully chosen for size and colour. The numbers of pebbles per shell varies widely: no obvious pattern can be seen in the numbers.
Precursors of Chinese writing: mid Neolithic inscriptions on pottery
Ancient texts such as Xunzi and Lushichunqiu agree that one Cangjie, who lived in the time of the legendary Yellow Emperor (ca. 3000 BC) was the inventor of Chinese characters. But the many inscriptions on bronze-vessels, turtle shells and scapulas (“oracle bones”) associated with the Shang Dynasty site of Yinxu (after 1700 cal BC), and their highly-developed writing system involving some 5000 characters (Keightley 1989, 1994; Boltz 1996), forcefully argue that the evolution of written Chinese must have begun considerably earlier. In fact, the accepted “six rules” of Chinese character formation (Boltz 1996:197) are already evident in the Shang writing system. Where, then, should one look for predecessors of the Yinxu inscriptions?
An immediate link might be provided by the signs incised on Chinese Neolithic pottery, which have been the subject of much study and controversy (Chang 1987; Chang 1980, 242-8; Cheung 1983; Keightley 1989, 187-8,202; Boltz 1996; Xi’an Banpo 1963). These sign-bearing potsherds were first found at the Chengziya site, Zhangqiu county, Shandong Province in the 1930’s, but received little scholarly attention at the time. In the late 1950’s, however, excavation of the Yangshao-culture site of Banpo in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province unearthed large numbers of potsherds carrying signs, and this time their publication (Xi’an Banpo 1963) attracted wide notice. Since then, other Yangshao (Banpo-type) sites near the Wei River, ranging in date from 5000 to 4500 cal BC, have produced similarly-marked potsherds; the sites include Xieziling (Changan), Jiangzhai (Lintong), Shenyecun (Heyang), Lijiawan (Tongchuan), Beishouling (Baoji) in Shanxi Province and Dadiwan (Qin’an) in Gansu Province. Although spread over hundreds of kilometres, it has been seen that examples from these sites share some members of the same sign set (Yan 1993). In Jiangzhai (4600-4000 BC) and other contemporary Banpo-type villages, the placement and complex structure of numerous strokes suggest that the markings were purposeful, conventional signs intended to convey significant meaning, at least to a restricted group of elites. In general the signs were incised in a specific position, often on a special band painted around the outside of the opening before the pottery was fired. The formal placement and the wide distribution of the pottery, imply that the signs were intended to convey a generally understood meaning to a dispersed group of users. In short, they were, by this time, conventional.
Following the Yangshao period, pottery signs grow more complex, and begin to be applied with writing brushes. For example, coloured pottery excavated at Liuwan, Ledu, Qinghai Province (Longshan period, 3000-2000 BC) carried more than 50 painted signs, generally on the undersides (Cheung 1983,335). Pottery of other Longshan Culture sites and Erlitou (which may be identified with the Xia Dynasty (Chang 1980, 344) likewise carries many signs (Cheung 1983:369). Broken potsherds from two pits in Wangchenggang, Dengfeng City, Henan Province bear extremely complex signs strongly suggesting “writing”. Do any of these signs find analogues in the corpus of Yinxu inscriptions? In fact they do: a flat pot from the late stage of Longshan Culture at Taosi, Xiangfen (Shanxi Province) is brush-painted with the red sign (Li Jianmin 2000):
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
which is identical to the modern character “wen”. In the Erligang, an early phase of the Shang Dynasty, pottery signs begin to approach, ever more closely, Yinxu script (Cheung 1983, 370-1).
Research has also suggested that the pottery inscriptions of the late Dawenkou culture (4300-2500 BC) may well represent an early form of writing (Cheung 1983:366-7). The Dawenkou populated Shandong, northern Jiangsu and eastern Henan. In 1959 a grey pot bearing a red, brush-painted sign was unearthed at Dawenkou in Tai’an county, Shandong Province followed by sets of grey pottery goblets in Ju county and Zhucheng, Shandong, each with one or two incised signs. Some were filled with red colour, but the positioning and form of the signs bore a striking resemblance to later Shang Dynasty bronze inscriptions. In 1977 a number of these signs was identified by Lan Tang (Cheung 1983:390-1), for example:
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
It is significant that in the Liangzhu culture (ca. 3300 - 2200 BC), distributed south of the Dawenkou through south Jiangsu and north Zhejiang Provinces, analogous signs were found on pottery. The carefully-positioned signs were in some cases within a cartouche or filled for enhanced prominence, and some have been studied by palaeographers (Cheung 1983,368). The finding of common characters in two culture areas, Liangzhu and Dawenkou also suggests that by this period certain signs had become conventional and were understood over a wide area.
These observations suggest that the fully-developed writing system at Shang period Yinxu was preceded by at least two millennia of sign-use on pottery from which it may partially have been drawn. By the discoveries at Jiahu reported here Neolithic sign use in China must now be extended backward another two millennia to c. 6500 cal BC. But the links that reach back from the signs on Neolithic pottery to those found on tortoise shells at Jiahu are less sure, although they may be found in time. Cheung’s tabulation of signs found throughout the Neolithic (1983, 372-3) shows that a rather small set of simple signs persisted, along with increasingly complex additions. Cheung presents a map (1983:381, Map 12.1) which demonstrates that sites with Neolithic sign use cluster in the region of the Huang and Huai Plain, near the Yellow River. Thus Jiahu was well situated to have taken part in early experiments in sign-use in the seventh millennium.
Are Jiahu signs precursors of writing?
Scholars have long wrestled with the slippery concept of what, exactly, “writing” is (Bloomfield 1933; Diringer 1962; Gelb 1963:11-20; Sampson 1985; Daniels 1996). Daniels defines writing as “a system of more or less permanent marks used to represent an utterance in such a way that it can be recovered more or less exactly without the intervention of the utterer” (1996, 3) but Sampson (1985, 32) expands this definition both in the glottographic sense and into non-glottographic semasiographic systems (which communicate meaning rather than words). Amiet (1966) and Schmandt-Besserat (1992, 6) see in the small clay counters (“tokens”, which can hardly qualify as “writing” themselves) of early Sumer the origin of Sumerian script, evolving into the well-studied cuneiform writing system. Sampson (1985, 58) in discussing the Amiet/Schmandt-Besserat interpretation of the Sumerian clay “tokens”, adduces a correlation between early script usage, urban life and sedentary agriculture.
Keightley (1978, 187) has dismissed the argument that “scratches found on Neolithic pots at Yang-shao culture sites such as Pan-p’o” are “the earliest attempt to create a script anywhere in the world” as “unconvincing” because of the unlikeliness that people in 5th millennium Neolithic China “needed a writing system”. Their culture “was not yet sufficiently complex.” Boltz (1999, 108) says that “the sheer extent of time” from “1000 to … 3500 years in some cases” argues against “the possibility that these marks could be direct forerunners of Shang characters”. But our evidence from burials at Jiahu, two millennia earlier, actually suggests a society of unexpected complexity. The correlation between sedentary agriculture, urban life and early script or sign use (cited above) could have obtained at Jiahu in the seventh millennium, since all the elements were present. The present state of the archaeological record in China, which has never had the intensive archaeological examination of, for example, Egypt or Greece, does not permit us to say exactly in which period of the Neolithic the Chinese invented their writing. What did persist through these long periods was the idea of sign use. Although it is impossible at this point to trace any direct connection from the Jiahu signs to the Yinxu characters, we do propose that slow, culture-linked evolutionary processes, adopting the idea of sign use, took place in diverse settings around the Yellow River. We should not assume that there was a single path or pace for the development of a script. After all, the peoples of Mesopotamia needed five millennia to go from their first “tokens” to cuneiform (Schmandt-Besserat 1992:10).
A possible role for sign use at Jiahu
The Jiahu signs mainly occur on tortoise shells placed in graves. Given the careful positioning of the tortoise shells, several in sets of eight, and the groups of pebbles associated with shell pairs (Henan 1999,966, colour plates 41-3), we suggest that they formed part of the apparatus of a very early form of divination. Turtle shells were employed for divination five millennia later by Shang Dynasty rulers (Chang 1980:33-8; Keightley 1978; 1989:171-202; 1994: 71-9), and a recent study holds that the Shang logograph for “to divine” was in fact derived from a picture of a turtle or tortoise shell (Tu Baikui 2001). The rounded pebbles may have had a counting function, implying the possible early practice of numerology, or the casting of auspicious numbers. However, the signs or numerals on the shells do not appear to correlate in any way with the size, the number of pebbles, or the placement of the shell in the burial. An alternative interpretation is that the tortoise-shell “boxes” simply contained the pebbles and were musical “rattles” (Hao Benxing, pers. comm.). In this connection we wonder whether the flutes found in the graves (Henan 1999:992-1016; Zhang et al 1999) might not also have been involved in a divinatory ritual, given the deeply-held, traditional conviction in China that music has cosmic significance (Chang 1983:47-8,55,107; China 1987:260). Perhaps the enigmatic fork-like objects (Henan 1999: colourplates 37, 38) (reminiscent of the stylised forked digging sticks (lei) held by sages in Han-dynasty images (Chang 1980:224; 1987:415)) also had a ritual function.
Regrettably, the austerity of the sign vocabulary at Jiahu, and at later Neolithic sites in China like Banpo, effectively precludes for now any meaningful interpretations, with the possible exception of the numerals. There was a preoccupation with numerals in archaic Sumerian (Sampson 1985:60-1), but in that case the advent of script seems to have been driven by material utility (Gelb 1963:60-72,9). Incontrast we see the role of the early signs at Jiahu as connected with ritual and belonging to the model set forth by Chang, where divination and shamanism draws its power from writing, and creates a “path to authority” (1983:44-55; 81-94).
It is worth noting that Keightley (1998) is sceptical as to the importance of shamanism in Chinese Neolithic societies. But Winkelman (1990:308-352) has extensively discussed the functions of shamans in a wide range of societies and has established that in sedentary agricultural and/or hunter-gatherer groupings the shaman often held important social and political leadership positions as well as being a medico-religious healer and medium of communication with the spirit world. Furthermore, he identifies music as an important adjunct to the shamans rituals (2002:1879-1881): these connections are important to our argument about shamanism at Jiahu in the light of the widespread discovery of playable flutes (Henan, 1999).
Thus we propose that the specially-rich burials, the flutes, the incised tortoise shells and the pebbles, whether used to make musical rattles or as counters to represent auspicious numbers, constitute evidence of ritual activity and divination. We can only guess at the nature of the ritual, or speculate on what was being divined. But this early use of incised signs on tortoise shells in Neolithic China may be showing us the beginning of a long intellectual journey which would lead eventually to writing of a more recognisable kind, and with it religious beliefs incorporating ancestral communication and ritual divination.
Table 1. Carbon-14 dates (Libby, conventional (a)) and
dendrochronologically corrected (b) dates of samples excavated
at Jiahu
Code of
laboratory (c) Sample
and its assigned provenance Assigned (d) Sample
identifying at Jiahu Jiahu material
number excavation sub-period dated (c)
WB83-60 H1 II 5 Charcoal
DY-K0185 H82 I 1 Plant ash
DY-K0186 H29 II 4 Plant ash
DY-K0188 H55 III 8 Plant ash
DY-K0189 H39 II 4 Plant ash
BK91007 H76 1 2 Fruit pit
BK94126 H187 1 3 Charcoal
BK94127 H174 III 7 Charcoal
BK94172 H84 I 1 Plant ash
BK94173 H37 1 2 Charcoal
BK94174 H105 III 8 Charcoal
BK94175 H102 III 8 Charcoal
BK94176 H339 II 6 Charcoal
BK94177 H229 II 4 Charcoal
BK94178 H112 1 3 Charcoal
BK95013 M341 I 1 Bone
BK95014 M375 I 2 Bone
BK95017 M282 II 5 Bone
BK95018 M344 II 5 Bone
Libby C14
Code of age and its Dendro-corrected
laboratory (c) 1 [sigma] dates (b)
and its assigned error (a) based
identifying on [t.sub.1/2] Most probable Calendar age
number 5730 y date (BC) (f) range (BC) (g)
WB83-60 7920 [+ or -] 150 6460 6620-6360
DY-K0185 7561 [+ or -] 125 6170 6280-6020
DY-K0186 7105 [+ or -] 120 5740 5840-5630
DY-K0188 7017 [+ or -] 130 5650 5750-5520
DY-K0189 7137 [+ or -] 130 5750 5930-5650
BK91007 7960 [+ or -] 60 6490 6530-6430
BK94126 8285 [+ or -] 100 7040 7060-6990
BK94127 7450 [+ or -] 80 6050 6160-5980
BK94172 7415 [+ or -] 80 5990 6120-5970
BK94173 8190 [+ or -] 75 7000 7040-6650
BK94174 7825 [+ or -] 80 6410 6460-6350
BK94175 7510 [+ or -] 90 6150 6180-5990
6060
BK94176 7650 [+ or -] 70 6200 6320-6180
BK94177 8090 [+ or -] 110 6620 7000-6500
BK94178 8225 [+ or -] 70 7010 7040-6800
BK95013 7050 [+ or -] 80 5700 5750-5620
BK95014 7240 [+ or -] 70 5840 5940-5760
BK95017 7035 [+ or -] 70 5680 5720-5620
BK95018 8000 [+ or -] 100 6520 6630-6440
Notes:
(a) The conventional, or “Libby” radiocarbon age is measured as years
before 1950 AD The half-life of Carbon 14 is taken as 5730 years.
(b) For dendrochronological correction, data from the following
references were employed: M. Stuiver & G. W. Pearson (1993)
High-precision bidecadal calibration of the radiocarbon time scale,
AD 1950-500 BC and 2500-600 BC. Radiocarbon 35 (1) 1-23. G. W.
Pearson, B. Backer & F Qua (1993) High- precision [sup.14]C measurement
of German and Irish oaks to show the natural [sup.14]C variations from
7890 to 5000 BC. Radiocarbon 35 (1) 193-204.
(c) This identification number also encodes the identity of the
particular laboratory for radiocarbon dating.
WB = Laboratory of the Institute of Cultural Relics of the Chinese
Bureau of Cultural Relics.
DY = Laboratory of the Institute of Crustal Stress of the Chinese
Earthquake Bureau.
BK = Laboratory of the Archaeology Department of Beijing University.
(d) There are three archaeologically recognisable sublevels at Jiahu
(see text of the article). The assignments listed are preliminary.
(e) The twentieth sample, a broken grain of carbonised rice, yielded
a discordant date which is not listed in this table.
(f) This is the most probable date (BC) taking into account the
irregularities of the radiocarbon dendrochronological correction
curve and the error in the conventional (Libby) C14 age.
(g) The calendrical age range is taken from the different [sup.14]C
calibration curves after folding in the error in the determination
of the conventional radiocarbon age. This operation can be performed
by various computer programs: see, for example “OXCAL”, C. Bronk
Ramsey. This program is available online from The Research Laboratory
for Archaeology and the History of Art at Oxford University, Oxford,
UK. Address: rlaha.ox.ac.uk/oxcal.
Table 2. Tabulation of Graves containing Turtle/tortoise Shells with
associated Pebbles
Number of Number of
tortoise turtle Number of pebbles B=black
Burial Number M: shells shells W=white in the burial
55 2 8 B 2 W
94 8 173 B 138 W (rock crystal)
121 2 30 B
125 8 19 B 65 W
233 6 48 (colour not specified)
253 2 47
263 1 none
268 1 none
277 1 3
282 2 at least 17
290 1 none
325 1 none
326 3 1 none
327 8 169 (colour not specified)
334 1 none
335 3 none
341 1 none
344 8 47
363 8 97
382 1 none
387 8 3
M15 4 at least 17
M16 4 121
M17 6 98
Acknowledgements
This project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and based on excavation and research by the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Henan Province. Radiocarbon dating by AMS was carried out by the Institute of Cultural Relics of China, the Institute of Crustal Stress of the Chinese Earthquake Bureau and the Archaeology Department of Beijing University. C. W. was supported by the Department of Science and Technology of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Structure Research Laboratory at USTC. Research at Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the US Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC02-98CH 10886. We thank Mr. Xiaolin Ma of The Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Henan Province, Hao Benxing, former superintendent of the Cultural and Archaeological Institute of Henan Province, Ms. Jie Shan and Mr. Ping Qiu of USTC, for their help, Professor Ye Xiangkui for faunal analysis and David N. Keightley and Robert W. Bagley for very helpful suggestions. Finally, we thank two anonymous referees for their generous suggestions toward strengthening the manuscript.
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Xueqin Li (1), Garman Harbottle (2), Juzhong Zhang (1), Changsui Wang (1)
(1.) Department of Scientific History and Archaeometry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China 230026
(2.) Department of Geosciences, State University of New York at Stony Brook, NY, 11790 and Chemistry Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973. (garman@bnl.gov)
Received: 2 November 2000; Accepted and Revised October 2002.
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