Pottery Production In The Zhengzhou-Luoyang Area During The Late Longshan And Early Erlitou Cultural Periods

The Zhengzhou-Luoyang area is one of China’s most important prehistoric regions,with a complete spectrum of prehistoric cultural development.The archaeological and cultural landscape of the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area,from the late Longshan culture to the early Erlitou culture,is complex and diverse,with various archaeological cultures in an intertwined distribution.Given that those mentioned spatial and temporal scales are at the core of the critical processes of social complexity,they are of great importance for understanding the formation and expansion of civilization.They,therefore,need to be sorted out and discussed.To this end,this paper takes the pottery group as an entry point for exploring the level of technology and production organization based on the chronological examination of the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area by the academic community.Through an in-depth study of the pottery group,this paper reveals for the first time the production technology of daily-used pottery in the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area from the late Longshan Culture to the early Erlitou Culture.The selection and preparation of raw materials,the firing of pottery,and the various technical information are ideal materials for exploring the structure of labor organization and social relations in the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area during the late prehistoric period and filling in many gaps in the pottery production process and regional interaction in Zhengzhou-Luoyang area from the late Longshan to early Erlitou cultures.Currently,sites from the late Longshan to early Erlitou cultures in the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area that have undergone systematic archaeological excavation are represented by Erlitou,Xinzhai,and Huadizui.Except for the Erlitou site,the archaeological and pottery reports of the other two sites are in preparation.With the systematic publication of relevant materials,the discussion of related issues will be greatly facilitated.The relevant contents of this paper are prepared in conjunction with the archaeological excavation reports of the Xinzhai and Huadizui sites as part of the contents to help improve the understanding of the pottery related to the late Longshan Culture to the early Erlitou Culture in the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area.The exploration of pottery production at typical sites in the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area is a focus and highlight of this study,which mainly adopts a relatively novel method of combining multiple scientific and technological tools in pottery archaeological research at home and abroad,namely,infrared spectroscopy(FTIR),X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy(XRF),X-ray diffraction analysis(XRD)and petrography.The origin of the pottery and the source of raw materials for pottery making are inferred through the comparative analysis of these specimens with the pottery excavated from the site.The chemical composition analysis is used to group the specimens for analysis by statistically analyzing the primary and secondary elements in the pottery with representative significance.The clever combination and mutual verification of chemical composition and physical phase analysis achieved good analytical results,interesting conclusions,and understanding.In addition,ethnographic materials are the living stones for understanding the departed society.In order to accurately identify and deeply understand the production techniques of pottery excavated in the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area in different periods,the author has carefully observed the production traces of pottery excavated in the study area with the help of previous ethnographic surveys of traditional pottery-making workshops,as well as with the data of traditional pottery-making surveys in other regions at home and abroad,and deeply analyzed the pottery-making techniques in different periods.As a further deepening of the discussion on issues related to pottery production in the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area,the organization of pottery production is mainly based on the more mature qualitative and quantitative analysis methods used in European and American archaeology for the study of the organization of industrial production.Specifically,it explores several aspects of pottery production,including the natural context,social context,direct evidence,and indirect evidence.The natural and social contexts provide the necessary resources,sites,technology,labor,and markets for production activities,determining the possibility of pottery production and the corresponding scale.Direct evidence provides visual evidence for determining the existence of production behavior and the production scale.Indirect evidence,on the other hand,is to determine the level and scale of pottery production specialization indirectly through qualitative and quantitative analysis of raw material types,product sizes,colors,and other attributes,using the degree of standardization as a yardstick,in the absence of productive evidence,starting with pottery products.The following main insights emerged from this study:1.Regarding production technology,the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area,represented by the Xinzhai and Huadizui sites,used raw materials from the vicinity of the site to produce daily-used pottery in the late Longshan Culture,Xinzhai Culture and the first phase of the Erlitou Culture.However,for different vessel forms,all three periods could select and process raw materials selectively.In the pottery forming process,the wheel-made and hand-made were the mainstay,supplemented by the mold-made.Most of the pottery of the late Longshan culture in the Central Plains was made by the wheel-made,and the hand-made made only a small number of larger objects.In the Xinzhai Culture,both the wheel-made and the hand-made were used,but the proportion of the latter is slightly higher.The dominant method is hand-made in the first phase of Erlitou Culture,whether fine-paste pottery or coarse-paste pottery.The pottery decoration of the late Longshan Culture,the Xinzhai Culture,and the first phase of the Erlitou Culture in the Central Plains is both to make up for the functional needs of pottery under the constraints of the technical shortcomings and to add artistic considerations.In the firing of pottery,it is assumed from the excavated artifacts,and pottery-making remains that the potters of the Late Longshan and early Erlitou cultures in Central China could effectively control the color,firing temperature,and atmosphere of the pottery so that they could produce uniformly colored objects according to their needs.Moreover,the firing temperature was generally lower for storage containers and table wares than for cookware.It is assumed that different types of pottery may have been fired in separate kilns at that time.2.As for production organization,the late Longshan Culture at the Xinzhai site shows a high level of standardization in pottery production regarding product size,reflecting a high level of specialized production.It is assumed that large-scale specialized production may have existed.The standardization level of pottery production at the Huadizui and Xinzhai sites of the Xinzhai Culture shows a trend of gradual decline from the early to the late part of the Xinzhai Culture.In the early phase of the Xinzhai Culture,the level of pottery production specialization at the Huadizui and Xinzhai sites was stable at a high level and belonged to the large-scale individual workshop production stage;in the late phase of the Xinzhai Culture,the pottery production activities fluctuated due to the impact of external factors and belonged to the general individual workshop production stage.Erlitou Culture Phase I of the Erlitou site and Xinzhai site,pottery production continues to be disturbed by external factors,pottery production fluctuates significantly,and the general standardization level further declines compared to the Xinzhai Culture and regresses to the level of household production.The changes in pottery production activities from the late Longshan Culture to the early Erlitou Culture in the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area are synchronized with the fluctuating conditions of social relations reflected in other remains from each site,which shows that the social situation was an important factor affecting the economic development of the pottery-making craft industry.In a word,the level of pottery production from the late Longshan Culture to the early Erlitou Culture in the Zhengzhou-Luoyang area has declined.The reasons for this are,on the one hand,the change of times and,on the other hand,the possible close connection with the rise of bronze.In addition,the concept that Longshan society wished to express with the help of pottery changed,a concept that perhaps no longer existed in the early Erlitou Culture.