Research On The Cemetery Of Zhangze Culture

The Songze culture is an important archaeological culture which locates on the downstream Changjiang River in the late Neolithic age. Burial, as a part of the Songze culture, is always a significant focus in academic circles. Further research on burial is very helpful to understand the development, the regional characteristics, the cause and the sociality of the Songze culture, and it is also providing some basic information for the insight of the civilization process in the downstream Changjiang River.According to the location and the culture feature of the Songze culture cemetery, this paper divide it into four regions which are the north region of Taihu, the east region of Taihu, the southeast region of Taihu and the south region of Taihu. Based on the division, considering the layer relationship of the burial units, the feature changes of earthenware, jade ware, stoneware, this paper divide the Songze culture into early period, mid period, late period and last period.With the period-division premise, this paper researches on the regional characteristics and the level of the cemetery in the Songze culture, which include the form, the direction, funerary objects, special feature and etc. and makes a brief explanation for the cause of region differentiation. There is a change process from south to north during the early period to last period in burial region of Songze. This change matches the evolutionary process of Songze culture which is from the north region of Taihu to the southeast and south region of Taihu, and it exhibition the non-equilibrium between different burial regions of Songze. The major reason for the difference between burial regions is maybe the geographical factors and the archaeological discussion among the interior and peripheral regional.According to the analysis of burial regions, there is a conclusion to future understands the social status of Songze culture:1. There are two kinds of social structure.(1). There is a strict region boundary between burial and residence, big burial and small burial.(2). Big burial can be divided into small parts. There is one or more core burial among small parts.2. Social differentiation is already a common existence in Songze age, and it is different between burial regions and single burial.3. The layout of Songze burials is different, it reflects the structure of the social. To the last period of the Songze culture, different regions have been changed in the form of settlement evolution.