Scientific Study On The Late Bronze Age Bronzes From Chifeng Region

The Upper Xiajiadian Culture is one of the most developed Late Bronze Age archaeological culture in North Great Wall Zone, China. The unearthed ancient bronze artifacts of this culture and Dajing ruins have attracted the attention of many scholars. Since the1960’s, a large number of bronze artifacts of this culture have been unearthed, and the reports showed that about3000pieces of bronze artifacts unearthed by2006. The scientific research on these bronze artifacts of the Upper Xiajiadian Culture, could make up for the loss of the bronze production technology, and provide new information for the interaction between regional bronze cultures.Based on the long-term field investigation and the archaeological typology, the cultural attributes of these bronze artifacts in Chifeng area can be identified as the Upper Xiajiadian Culture, and the characteristics of the smelting and casting technology can be revealed by metallurgical microscope and scanning electron microscope combined energy dispersive spectrometer (SEM-EDS). The experimental results of the lead isotope and trace elements combining with the previous research results can be used to explore the possible mineral sources of the bronze artifacts of the Upper Xiajiadian Culture.Laboratory studies showed that the knife, buckle, ring in these paper were composed of12kinds of materials, with the main elements of copper, tin, lead, arsenic, iron. And some kinds of materials were not seen before in this area, such as Cu-Sn-As-Pb and Cu-Sn-As-Fe-Pb.This phenomenon was similar with the ore of the Dajing copper mine site, so we initially speculated that the bronze artifacts might be made of multi-mineral ore. The alloy composition of the same type of objects was not unified, which reflected that the smelting technology level was relatively low. Lead isotope ratio analysis showed that the ore source of most of the bronze artifacts is from the Dajing copper mine site. From supplies the distribution of smelting sites of Dajing ancient ruins, it could be seen that multi-mineral ore of Dajing supply the whole Upper Xiajiadian Culture residents. Overall, the metallurgy technology structure of the Upper Xiajiadian Culture was relatively backward, that the multi-mineral ore of local area was used directly for bronze artifacts smelting. So the ability of changing society of local area was very limited, it was difficult to strength and to improve the organization mechanism. By the analysis of bronzes, hard evidences could be obtained for the judgment of the transformation of bronze industry pattern was actually a step backward from the early bronze age to the late bronze age in western Liaoning province.