Ningxia Unearthed In The Northern Department Of Bronze Comprehensive Study

With the great efforts of the scholars, the research of northern bronzeware in China has made enormous progress, and it develops with great depth and breadth. NingXia, located in the northwest Loess Plateau, is characterized with northern bronzeware, which highlights its special status in the culture of northern line bronze. The archaeological work in NingXia has the history of 90 years, which helps to accumulate abundant information, and it is necessary to systematically sort out those resources.This paper with six chapters, titled as "A Comprehensive Study on northern bronzeware excavated in NingXia", makes an analysis on northern bronzeware and its related problems.Chapter one, the introduction, makes an introduction of the Spatial and temporal scales of this paper, Ningxia geographical environment and history, the overview of bronzes unearthed in Ningxia, research status, the naming of the archaeological culture, as well as the theory, methods and aim of the paper.Chapter two is devoted to the typological analysis of the northern bronzeware unearthed in Ningxia. It, based on the diverse functions of the northernware bronzes, classifies them into five types, namely, bronze vessel, traveling tools, weapons and decorates. And each type is further divided into several subtypes, which is employed to understand the evolutional relationship of combination of bronze burial artifacts in Ningxia and to sort out the characteristics of the northern bronzeware unearthed in Ningxia.Chapter three focuses on the phases and sub-regional research of the northern bronzeware unearthed in Ningxia. It, according to the development and changes of the artifacts as well as their focused emergence, divides the development of these artifacts into four periods. The first three periods mainly refers to the time from the mid period of Spring and Autumn to the late Warring states periods. And the third period is further divided into the early and late phases. The forth period refers to remains of Huns of Han dynasty, which, based on the current archaeological information, is referred to the periods from the mid -to-late time of western Han dynasty to the early one of east Han dynasty. By the regional divisions, it classifies them into three regions, namely, south part of YingChuan, central part of Ningxia, and southern part of Ningxia. Besides, it approaches the regional intercultural context.Chapter four mainly discusses relationship between the culture of the northern bronzeware in NingXia and the ones around it, and reasons of the decline of northern bronzeware. As for the relationship with its boundary cultures, it makes a comparative analysis of the northern bronzeware culture with the ones of central plains area, Inner Mongolia (Taohong Bala culture), the eastern part of Gansu Province (Qingyang district, Tianshui yongdeng regions). On resona of its decline, it makes a tentative analysis of the development of iron, its own reason of bronze, the integration and the assimilation of the nomadic nations by cultures of the central plains.Chapter five analyzes the burial shapes and customs, family attribution and tendency of the northern bronzeware of Ningxia. Different burial shapes and customs can be found in different regions in Ningxia. The burial shapes are mainly characterized with erected pit tombs and cave pit tombs and the burial customs are mainly featured with the custom of animal-sacrifice and the diversity and locations of the funerary objects. As regards the family attribution and tendency, based on the fruits of previous researches, it gets through the historical search, and reference of Di wang, the south part of Yingchuan is home of the Qu Yan, the bronze culture of southern part of Ningxia is created by the collaboration of the Yi Qu and Wu Zhi, with the main role played byYi Qu. The central part of Ningxia is home to the culture of Hun who was surrendered to Han.Chapter six discusses the economic change of the northern nomadic in Ningxia. It, from three aspects, tentatively analyzes the economy of Ningxia region in the mid and late Neolithic. The analysis tells that small stone culture, with the animal husbandry as its main economy, took form in southern part of Yingchuan and central part of Ningxia, and the settled farming culture, in which agriculture played the main role followed by animal husbandry as well as running the animal-raising and hunting, took shape in the southern part of Yingchuan. After the late period of Neolithic, it was difficult to undertake the simple agriculture due to the dry climate, population pressure, and so on. Subsequently, there existed the gap of the cultures. Until the mid period of Spring and Autumn, high degree of nomadic culture appeared in southern part of Yingchuan and Ningxia, in which the nomadic lived by the raising horse, cattle, and sheep. After the ages of Spring and Autumn and the Warring states, there emerged the gap of the northern bronzeware in Ningxia, which phenomenon lasted until fromthe mid and late periods of west Han dynasty to early east Han dynasty, during which the remains of Huns came to birth. Though parts of the unearthed relics has the inherited relations with the Yanglang culture, Huns who surrendered to Han, had partly been assimilated by Han culture and they lived by mainly raising cattle and sheep with which they exchanged living necessities. As for the aspect of reasons for the economic change of the northern nomadic in Ningxia, the paper makes a discussion from the following four aspects, namely, changes in the climate and environment, the development of the diversity of the grassland animal husbandry and the raising technology, the emergence of horse-raising and Yu Ma Qi, and the establish of the Great wall.