The Study Of The Shang And Zhou Dynasties Archaeological Culture In The Upstream And Midstream Of Xiangjiang River

The archaeological culture face of the upstream and midstream of the Xiangjiang River inShang and Zhou Dynasties remained extremely undefined. The publicity of the fieldwalking andexcavation materials of Shang and Zhou Dynasties’ cultural relics in the upstream of Xiao Riverand Xiang River in2008laid a solid foundatoion for the preliminary research in this field. Thispaper based mainly on the newly obtained archaeological materials, with the on-the-sceneobservation of the entire unearthed relics and in accordance with clues provided by the originalreport, sorted these materials again in strict accordance with the principles of archaeologicalStratigraphy and Typology and did statistical work on ceramic type, decoration, kind, combinedwith the Shang and Zhou Dynasties’ archaeological materials and research achievements thatalready had, made comprehensive study on some key issues of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties’archaeological culture such as cultural pedigree, phase division, subarea division, age and culturenature and so on.The main conclusions of this paper were listed as follows：1. According to the current materials, the archaeological culture of Shang and ZhouDynasties in this region should be categorized into two types represented by “Wangzigang PhaseⅠcultural relics” which has the characteristic of the Upper Neolithic’s culture tradition and“Zuoguoshan cultural relics” whose native Bronze Culture were mainly based on its native culturetradition and affected by the cultural relics of the same age from the downstream of XiangjiangRiver and so on, the two types’ age were equivalent to Xia Dynasty to Earlier Period of ShangDynasty, Later Period of Shang Dynasty to Spring and Autumn Period in Central Plainsrespectively;“Yue ethnicity Burials” was the type of cultural relics represented by the burials ofSpring and Autumn Period which had typical native features, academia all agreed that the burials’possessors were exactly the natives in Xiangjiang River Basin——the Ancient Yue ethnicity, suchkind of cultural relics should be one element of “Later Zuoguoshan cultural relics”. Based on this,the Shang and Zhou Dynasties’ archaeological culture in this region could be divided into twosuccessively developed types of cultural relics, that would be Wangzigang PhaseⅠcultural relics——Zuoguoshan cultural relics.2. By comparative analyses of the main elements between Wangzigang PhaseⅠculturalrelics and Zuoguoshan cultural relics, it was found that the two types of culture relics not onlyremained successive in chronological age, but also kept in intimate relationship on culturetradition, their culture face both had the characteristics of mainly basing on its native culturetradition, they were two types of inherited, successively developed archaeological cultural relics in the same culture system. This conclusion differed with someone’s viewpoint that thearchaeological culture of Shang and Zhou Dynasties in this region belonged to two types indifferent culture systems, namely, the Southeast Asia Pacific rim system and the Dongting Lakearea system. Even the conclusion of subarea division in this paper showed that the archaeologicalculture face in the upstream and midstream of Xiao River had some differences from the XiangRiver, the midstream of Xiangjiang River and the downsream of Xiao River’s, it was still far fromenough to refute the high consistency of entire culture face of the two subareas, they were in thesame ranges of the same archaeological culture, maybe they could be divided into two area typeswith more archaeological materials in future.3. The ethnicity of Shang and Zhou Dynasties’ archaeological culture in this region was onebranch of Yue ethnicity——Yangyue.4. The archaeological culture of Shang and Zhou Dynasties in this region had certaincommunication and influence with its adjacent area’s and the Earlier stage and Later stage ofnative’s.5. The bronzes of Shang and Zhou Dynasties in this region were one of the elements of thelater stage of Zuoguoshan cultural relics, its bronze culture experienced a gradual progress underthe influence of Tanheli Culture from the downstream of Xiangjiang River, and it reached its peakin Spring and Autumn Period.The research achievements mentioned above can provide key clues and evidences for thecompletion and chronological framework’s creation of the pre-Qin period’s local history in theupstream and midstream of the Xiangjiang River, it can be served as a individual case andexample for the study of human civilization in certain region.