Studies On The Production Crafts And Provenances Of Olished Thin Black Pottery From Yuhui Site And Some Relevant Issues

Yuhui site is located at the south of Yuhui village, Bengbu City, Anhui Province, the AMS dates placed the age of this site from4,300to4,150a BP. According to the cultural remains uncovered in the site, the excavator infers that this site is a temporary base for some unknown ritual ceremonies which might relate to the event of "Tushan Alliance" recorded in ancient books Shiji and Zuozhuang that occurred in the late Longshan era. It is noteworthy that two obviously different types of potteries were unearthed from Yuhui site, one is the common pottery with loose and fragile bodies which includes common thick pottery, thin red pottery, thin grey pottery and thin white pottery, the other is polished thin black pottery with very high-quality body and polished outer surface. For the temporality nature of this site, the excavator think that the common potteries might be fired massively in the open air at the site, however, the polished thin black potteries could not be fired at Yuhui site because no pottery kilns were found at the site. At the same time, potteries unearthed from Yuhui site possess multi-culture factors which came from both south and north China, considering the complexity of cultural features of Yuhui potteries, the polished thin black pottery found at Yuhui site is probably not the local production, but from other places. In this thesis, analyses of chemical elements and microstructure of polished thin black pottery and common potteries respectively from Yuhui and other sites were carried out using the methods of Wavelength Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry, Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectrometry, Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry and Petrographic Analysis. Unpon these basis, production crafts and provenances issuses of polished thin black pottery from Yuhui site were discussed. Meanwhile, the provenances of eggshell black potteries and their differences with thin black potteries from different sites are also be analyzed and discussed, the main conclusions are as follows:1. The major element composition analysis of polished thin black pottery and common thick pottery from Yuhui site show that the major element contents of the two types of pottery are obviously different, demonstrating that these two types of potteries were made by different clay or crafts. The analysis also show that different polished thin black pottery samples of Yuhui site have differences in major element compositions, this phenomenon might be caused by different crafts or different raw materials used for making those potteries. Results of microstructure analysis indicate that a kind of fine and weathered-heavily clay was used to make polished thin black pottery, at the same time this clay might have been processed by cleaning, washing, precipitation and stale. Minerals in Yuhui polished thin black potteries appear arranged in alignment which is likely related to the crafts of fast wheel pottery making. In addition, only a very small amount of fine black carbon particles were found at the edge of outer surface of Yuhui polished thin black pottery, indicating that the carburizing crafts level of polished thin black pottery of Yuhui site is not as advanced as that of eggshell black pottery.2. Yuhui common red thin pottery is consistent with thick-body pottery in major element compositions, microstructures and firing temperatures, the trace element analysis results show that these two kinds of potteries are made by a same raw materials, however the thin white pottery was produced using another kind of pottery raw materials and these three types of potteries should be produced in Yuhui locality. Considering the characteristics of thin red pottery and white pottery, these two are likely the imitations of polished thin black pottery made by Yuhui ancient humans. Furthermore, Yuhui thin grey Pottery are basically same with polished thin black pottery in essence and it can be considered as a non-carburizing "polished thin black pottery".3.The principal component analysis and REE patterns analysis of Yuhui pottery trace elements showed that Yuhui polished thin black potteries have different provenances compared with the common thick body pottery, they should be imported from other sites, and their provenances are more than two localities at least. In addition, according to the results of trace elements analysis of Yuhui polished thin black pottery and eggshell black pottery unearthed respectively from Liangchengzhen, Xizhufeng and Tongling in Shandong as well as the thin black potteries from Yuchisi site in Anhui, Yuhui polished thin black pottery did not come from those sites.4. Jugging from the REE patterns of the eggshell black pottery samples from Liangchengzhen site, Xizhufeng site and Tongling site in Shandong, potteries from different sites have their own regional characteristics, which means they are not from a possible eggshell black pottery production center. However, analysis results of eggshell black pottery samples from Xizhufeng indicate that a small amount of eggshell black pottery exchage among different sites might exist. The PCA of trace element compositions, REE patterns and petrographical analysis of eggshell black pottery and thin black pottery unearthed from Liangchengzhen showed that these two types of potteries were made from completely different clay raw materials.