Preliminary Study On Yuhuangmiao Culture

Yuhuangmiao Culture is a typical Late Northern Bronze Culture which spreadamong mountainous region in the northern part of Hebei Province. This thesis picksYuhuangmiao Cultural relics as the object of study and discusses division and datingof this culture specifically on the base of comprehensively researching the data. Thepaper tries to construct the chronological system of this culture and focus on itssource, also take Yuhuangmiao Cemetery as an example to discuss social conditionof this culture summarily.This paper includes six chapters.Chapter One: IntroductionFirstly, I give a definition of Yuhuangmiao Culture.“Yuhuangmiao Culture”referred in this paper is represented by the burial remains of Eastern Zhou Dynastywhich have been excavated from Yuhuangmiao cemetery in Yanqing county, Beijing.There are more than twenty other major sites, including Hulugou cemetery andXiliangguang cemetery etc. The data we can get is primarily from cemetery relics.As far as we can tell from excavations we have had today, this culture spread amongthe mountainous areas in the north part of Hebei Province, of whch the sites are allon the northwest side of the line mordern city Pingquan—Jixian—Yuxian. The dateis between mid-late period of Spring and Autumn Period to early-middle period ofWarring States Period. Secondly, after reviewing documents about the discovery andresearches condition of Yuhuangmiao Culture, I have summarized relevantresearches and analyzed deficiencies of those studies in the past. And at last, presentthe target of my research aiming at those deficiencies mentioned above.Chapter Two: Periodization of Yuhuangmiao CemeteryThis part is the foundation of this thesis. I research in sequence as below:choose typical implements to divide some tombs remains into groups briefly; groupthe cemeteries thoroughly according to their space distribution; observe changes ofimplements in consideration of the grouping; and finally combine different groups’ outcomes if necessary. And at last divide the Yuhuangmiao cemetery into fiveperiods, seven sections. Then deduce the date of each period by taking otherreferences of bronze vessels from relevant cemeteries into consideration andcomparing with relics which have known date. These five periods are mainly at thetime of mid-late period of middle Spring and Autumn Period, early period of lateSpring and Autumn Period, middle period of late Spring and Autumn Period, lateperiod of late Spring and Autumn Period, and early period of early Warring StatesPeriod.Chapter Three: Periodization of Yuhuangmiao CultureOn the base of dating study of the Yuhuangmiao cemetery, I also discuss datingof other kinds of relics of this culture elaborately. At last, divide YuhuangmiaoCulture into four periods, which represent its early period, middle period, late periodand final period respectively, and their dates are mainly at the time of mid-late periodof middle Spring and Autumn Period to early period of late Spring and AutumnPeriod, middle period of late Spring and Autumn Period, late period of late Springand Autumn Period to early period of Warring States Period and early period ofmiddle Warring States Period.Chapter Four: The Source of Yuhuangmiao CultureThis part emphasizes on the source of Yuhuangmiao Culture. After comparisonwith other relevant relics (those spread in northern area, during the time around theperiod between the Western Zhou Dynasty Period and the Eastern Zhou DynastyPeriod) and material of early period of Yuhuangmiao Culture, I come to theconclusion that Upper layer Xiajiadian Culture is one of the most important sourcesof Yuhuangmiao Culture. The convert of these two among the mountainous areas innorth of Hebei Province is probably because the change of ethnic group who livedthere. The relics from Xibozi Remain shows that it’s highly possible thatYuhuangmiao Culture originates indigenously, but the direct of its source still needsto be found. Another important part of the source of Yuhuangmiao Culture is theculture distributes among middle-west part of the district around the Great Wall, thesimilarity between relics of this culture and Yuhuangmiao’s may mean that they havebeen made by the same ethnic group. Besides, bronze wares relics from the EurasianSteppe are also source of some wares of Yuhuangmiao Culture.Chapter Five: Social Condition Reflected by Yuhuangmiao Cemetery This part provides information about social conditions reflected by materials ofYuhuangmiao Cemetery, from the angle of sex, age, rank and social organizationstructure. Information about sex carried in the burial objects show that, there obvioushas division of labor between different ages and genders, in which adult male takemore social responsibilities. On account of the differences presented in aspects suchas tomb’s shape and structure, funeral objects and sacrifices buried together, I divideYuhuangmiao graves into three grades. Hierarchy exists, upper class include leaders,noble ladies married into this place and exclusive soldiers. Leading class of thesociety displays their supreme status on purpose, and has it presented and guardedeven after they are dead. In some rare cases, noble ladies who married into this placecan possess high rank still, but only when they had their own unique socialbackgrounds. Force is important in that society, it helps keep social condition steady,and also forwards soldier class to get higher social ranks.The social organization structure is basically studied by researching spatialarrangement of the cemetery and it shows that there have been groups divided by sexamong people at that time. Considering identities of the people, we can see that thereclearly has some kind of social relationship based society structure. Tomb Clustersmay represent communities formed by people of different rank and sex, also the sizeof those communities can be various, and so are their types. Tomb Districts, on theother hand, can be result of combine, expand or split of communities. At last, thewhole cemetery may represent a tribe.Chapter Six: ConclusionThis part contains summary of several major conclusions in my humble opinion,statement about deficiency of this research and some immature thoughts about issueswhich need profound discussion in the future.