Western Guanzhong Longshan Era Pottery Technology

The study on the pottery manufacture techniques is a main aspect of the research on the development of handicraft industry and economy.However,there was no one who studied the pottery manufacture techques in Longshan period in Shannxi until now.With the ceramic vessles from the third culture period of Anban site,the second period of Miaodigou culture and the second period of Keshengzhuang culture of Xiaweiluo site as research objects,by the method of observation on ceramics and reference on enthnograpy information,we try to summarise overall characteristics of the pottery manufacture in Longshan period in western part of Guanzhong region in five aspects including materials,forming and shaping,finishing the surface,decorative techniques and firing.We can come to conclusions that potters in that period often used sand as temper,but in some sites they also chose grog,the most important forming method was coil construction and added with molding sometimes,paddling and rolling with tools were the major shaping methods,potters decorated ceramics by plastic techniques.Meanwhile,there were differences between pottery manufacture techniques of the two sites.For example,using grog as temper was very often in Xiaweiluo site in the second period of Miaodigou culture,which we have never seen in Anban site;coil construction in spiral was usual in Anban site,but construction in rings was more often in Xiaweiluo site;gray ceramics were the majority in Anban site,but in Xiaweiluo site,there were many red ceramics.The pottery manufacture techniques in this region in the later Longshan period inherited the techniques in the early Longshan period in overall aspects,but they were developed and changed in some aspects.For instance,grog was insteaded by sand as temper,molding technique was developed, atmosphere in later period of firing was often reducing.And according to the standardization of the ceramics and kilns in the two sites,we may speculate that household production and household industry were the pottery manufacture organization forms in Longshan period in the western part of Guanzhong region.