Preliminary Study On The Cultural Change Of The Minyue Culture During The Warring States Period And The Qin And Han Dynasties

Based on the hitherto published archaeological materials of the Warring States period and the Qin and Han Dynasties in Fujian, the Minyue Culture can be divided into three periods according to the analysis of the shape and structure of tombs, funerary objects and the characteristics of the excavated wares. Through the analysis of the three periods and the study on the cultural elements contained in each periods, the development of the Minyue Culture and its cultural exchange between the local culture and external culture have been revealed.The main body of the Minyue Culture is formed by the local culture developed during the Western and Eastern Zhou Periods and the external Yue Culture. Then it was influenced by the culture of Chu and Yue in the late Warring States Period. By the Western Han Dynasty, the Minyue Culture had been prosperous under the influence of the Han Culture, while it declined in the Eastern Han Dynasty. This part also gives the reasons for writing and research methods of this article, based on the analysis of the archaeological finds of Fujian and the summarization of the former studies.Three time characteristic and typical tombs, Zhuang Bianshan Tombs, Yi Fengshan Tomb and Jin jishan Tomb, have been chosen from the archaeological materials of the Warring States Period and the Qin and Han Dynasties in Fujian as the basis for the division of time. The Zhuang Bianshan Tombs are dated from the late Warring States Period to the early Western Han Dynasty. The Yi Fengshan Tomb is dated from the early to the middle period of the Western Han Dynasty, and the Jin jishan Tomb is dated from the late Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty.The archaeological culture of the Warring States Period and the Qin and Han Dynasties in Fujian can be divided into three periods according to the analysis of the three typical tombs in the preceding chapter and the comparison between them and other archaeological materials of the Warring States period and the Qin and Han Dynasties in Fujian. The first period, the late Warring States Period to the early Western Han Dynasty, typical pottery vessels, bronze and jade wares have been studied with the method of typology and also compared with the objects from the culture of Chu and Yue. The second period, the early to the middle Western Han Dynasty, building materials and the layout of the capital have been added into the study besides the tombs, which are compared with the corresponding parts of the Han Culture and Yue Culture. The third period, the late Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty, comparisons have been conducted between the Minye Culture and the Han Culture after analyzing the shapes of tombs and funerary objects of the Minyue Culture in this period.The diversification of the cultural elements contained in the three periods has been expounded according to the change of groups of the typical objects. The first period of the Minyue Culture contains two kinds of cultural elements, the Chu and the Yue. The main cultural elements in the second period are the Han Culture from the central plain area and the Yue Culture from the northwestern China. The principal cultural element of the Minyue Culture in the third period is the Han Culture, and the cultural presentation of this period is almost indistinguishable as the Han Culture. But there were still a few cultural elements of the MinyeThe in this period. The growth and the decline of the cultural elements in the three periods confirm the history of the Minyue and also elucidate the the cultural exchange between the local culture and external culture.The epilogue makes a conclusion of the study and indicates that the Minyue Culture in Fujian did not vanish and it still influenced the cultural development of Fujian and other neighbor areas in different ways.