Salt Archaeology Research Of The Southwestern Bank Of Bohai Sea In Northern Dynasty And Sui&Tang Period

The southern bank of Bohai Sea is one of the earliest areas of Chinese salt industry research.The past decades field work has revealed several salt-industry sites;however,the past research mainly focused on pre-Qin period,the historical study is quite rare.In recent years,I organized the excavation of one salt workshop during Sui&Tang Dynasty and the followed-up field survey,during which I have got a comprehensive understanding on the salt industry in this area between the Northern Dynasty and Sui&Tang period.This time range is one important turning point in the history of salt industry on the southern bank of Bohai Sea region,while due to the lack of historical documents,there are few research on this time period.This thesis intends to take the salt industry between the Northern dynasty and Sui&Tang period as the research object,trying to reconstruct the salt industry history from the archaeological perspective,filling up the research gap,providing some new research aspects for salt industry history.Salt industry is one of the important manufacture industries in ancient China.A complete slat industry includes three parts:production,transportation and consumption.When the salt production is relying on the natural resources,the transportation and consumption concerns more on both natural and social background.The theory framework of this thesis combined the landscape archaeology,manufacture archaeology,and settlement archaeology,by demonstrating the archaeological evidence,firstly reconstruct the regional setting of the southern bank of Bohai sea between the Northern Dynasty and Sui&Tang period,and then interpret its productiontransportation-consumption from the upper industry chain to lower,respectively.Chapter 1 reconstruct the regional and social setting in southern bank of Bohai Sea and nearby regions.Section 1 is the general geographical background,including the distribution of rivers,agricultural and artificial industry.Section 2 mainly reconstructs the sea salt,lake salt and local salt manufacturing locations on the southwest shore of Bohai Sea.Its western border of the sea salt units is the maximum range of Holocene transgression,while the eastern border is the shell bank formed in 2000 BP.,which makes this sea salt location a highland tendency.Chapter 2 proposes three standards on identifying the historical slat workshop basing on this region’s own characteristic:(1)situated in the locations mentioned in Chapter 1;(2)the found of related facilities;(3)the found of salt-producing waste.Except the salt producing workshop,a salt industry site should also include the organizing bureau,settled villages,other handicraft workshops,etc.According to the above standards,there are 32 salt sites being identified during Northern and Sui&Tang time period,including 10 salt producing workshops.The stratum sequence can divide them into three sub-phases:Late Northern dynasty,Sui dynasty-early Tang dynasty,and Mid-Late Tang Dynasty.Salt producing workshop is one kind of the typical sites,it can represent the salt producing technology directly.Considering from the manufacture archaeology and the producing chain perspective,the reconstruction of a salt workshop should be composed of the reconstruction of salt producing technology,distribution of salt workshop,and the production network.Therefore,Chapter 3 analysis the Dazuozhuang site in Huanghua,Guangbeiyidui site in Dongying,and Bamianhe site in Shouguang.After reviewing from the currently archaeological findings,anthropological survey and the historical documents,the past popular brine producing approaches are direct and undirect two ways.The above three sites all belong to the undirect brine salt making or lime paste technology,and all use underground brine salt as the raw material.This indica the salt making tradition starting from Shang&Zhou period,and also correspond with the Sui&Tang inscriptions.The development of salt making technology is also related with the level up on the specialized production.Considering from the workshop function,distribution and further development,the above three salt site may indicate two different salt management mode:Dazuozhuang might be a privately owned workshop under governmental supervision,while the rest two sites might be the direct official workshops.The Bohai Sea Southern Bank salt sites group is composed by three sub-groups with similar framework but independent functions,each group has their own complete livelihood and manage mode.Chapter 4 adopts the methodology from settlement archaeology,analyzed the spatial form,functional hierarchy and diachronic development of the salt settlements,focusing on the manage mode on salt industry.From the spatial form aspect,the choose of salt settlements usually prefers to the higher place with better water availability and good water-road transportation.The southern bank of Bohaiwan Bay and southwestern bank of Laizhouwan Bay two site groups all exhibit the functional hierarchy,while the concrete forms are different.The Bohaiwan Bay group is composed by three similar but independent subgroups,each subgroup have complete subsistence and management strategy.There is one site with higher class,could be the management bureau.The Laizhouwan Bay group is composed by two subgroups,the eastern group is mainly salt making workshop,while the excavation and survey only reveal the brine taking and making facilities,but no salt stove;the eastern subgroup has no workshop found yet,but one site with higher class could be the manage bureau.According to the inscriptions and Chapter 3,the above two sites’ groups could correspond to two different salt management mode,the former one is the privately owned workshop under governmental supervision,and the later one is the direct official workshop.Considering from the diachronic aspect,the development of these salt settlements could be related with the political situation.thedividing the southern bank of Bohai Sea into three settlements,analysis the development on the salt management of different settlements from the spatial form,function and time range aspects.The site with better water availability and land-water transport is more superior to others who don’t.The joint settlements all showed functional and class differentiation,while the details are quite different.As the extension of salt settlement,the inland cities in the salt making location display an obvious corresponding relationship,which can be seen from both historical inscriptions and spatial distribution.The Corona satellite aerial photo took in the 196070s proved this relationship and made further discoveries:except the administration subjection,it also represents the economic connection between inland cities and coastal salt settlements,the inland city can be either a hub of salt outward transportation,or the meeting point of material input.Chapter 5 reconstructs the salt transportation route from the archaeological and historical evidence.The salt transportation route in this chapter doesn’t narrow down to certain salt production,other material may also be found along the route.There are a large number of porcelain sherds from the inland mountain cities found in the salt sites and other contemporary sites in the salt making location on the southwest bank of Bohai Sea,when the mountain cities are the major sales back-land for salt.,which could indicate the material exchange net between inland and coastal,and then the salt transportation route could be reconstruct by recovering the porcelain trade route.Referring the transportation history,the research on historical geography and other documents,recovering the land&water route,combine with the sites with porcelains,it can be conducted that Zhangshui River and Huotuoshui River are the most commonly used water route in the North China Plain,while the eastern Taihang Mountain corridor is the mostly preferred on the land route.These routes are the important porcelain outward and salt inward routes,the Song&Yuan documents also proved that both land and water routes are commonly used for material transportation.Chapter 6 analysis the consumption of Bohai sea salt.The reconstruction of the consume can be based on the salt production and demand quality.According to the number of the salt stoves in Dazuozhuang site,the unit output of each stove can be estimated;the direction of the stoves represents the producing in spring,summer and autumn.The producing amount is obviously enlarged in the late Dayanzhuang site.Then combining with the historical records,slat history,finial history and the research of historical population geography,the demand quantity of salt from several individual time period in Bohai region can be conducted.Therefore,the variation of salt settlement from Chapter 4 can be explained by the increase and decrease on the demand quality and the variation on the unite output,which may inspire more research aspects on the salt industry study during Northern and Sui&Tang time period.