| This paper aims to analyze and explore the pottery-making crafts of Xuecheng site by archaeological traces observation methods.By combining pottery process drawings and text descriptions,the author analyzed and summarized the pottery-making crafts of the selected specimens from many aspects,such as material,forming,trimming,decoration,firing,redecoration and traces of used and repaired,and thus get the features of pottery-making crafts of the site.The full text contains five chapters as follows.Chapter Ⅰ:Introduction.According to the Region Types Theory,this chapter reviews and analyzes the research history and current situation of prehistoric pottery-making crafts,and expounds the research methods and writing significance of this paper.Chapter Ⅱ:A brief introduction of Xuecheng site.This chapter describes the geographical environment,archaeological excavations and stratigraphic accumulation of Xuecheng site,then expounds its culture property,dating and some related disputes.Chapter Ⅲ:Cases analysis of the pottery-making crafts of Xuecheng site.This is the basic chapter of this paper.First,according to the excavated status,all artifacts can be divided into intact objects and shards.Then,grouping all pottery shards as rim,piece of belly,rim of waist,grate,flat bottom,leg of the tripod,ring foot,handle,ear and so on.In order to provide a basis for further research,the writer analyzes the production process of each pottery by combining pottery process drawings and text descriptions.Chapter Ⅳ:Summarizing the features of the pottery-making crafts of Xuecheng site.This is the core of this article.(1)On the selection of raw materials,people of Xuecheng site had gone through a progress as follows:in the earliest period,there were many clam-mixed pottery,then sand-mixed pottery,only few clay pottery;in the middle period,clam-mixed pottery and sand-mixed pottery still held a dominant position,but the amount of clay pottery increased;in the late period,the proportion of clam-mixed pottery decreased significantly,sand-mixed pottery held the main position,and the sorting degree of admixture also improved obviously.The people of Xuecheng site had got rid of blindness in the choice of material,they had taken type,function and the function of admixture into account.(2)The pottery of Xuecheng site were all hand-made,most used clay-piling method,a small amount used clay slices-laminating and pinching methods.Some even used two methods:clay-piling and clay slices-laminating.Clay-piling method includes spiral building and circle building,the latter is the main method.Different types and parts uesd different molding methods.(3)much of the pottery of Xuecheng sites are terracotta which roasted in oxidation atmosphere;carburizing process had been maintained from early to late,and mainly used in clay pottery,restrained rim and ring-foot wares like dou and alms bowl.The carburizing pottery were mainly roasted in oxidation atmosphere,only a few in deoxidization atmosphere.However,the sites basically had no pure gray pottery.(4)the trimming methods mainly were smoothing,scraping,pinching and wiping,calendaring.Most of the traces were narrow strips.Fossa patterns and fingerprints which made from hand-trimming are also common.Individual wares of late period had round-trimming traces.The trimming techniques of Xuecheng sites mainly were shape-trimming,there nearly had no spank traces and pad marks.(5)the pottery mainly had no decoration.The decoration and trimming of early period were convergent.There were many decorative methods like stamped,carved,hollowing,fossa,red-coating,and a small amount of calendaring,additional heap,laminating,Imprinting,embossing,jabbing,tick and carving.Rims and shoulders mostly imposed by string-patterns,abdomens imposed by additional heap patterns,the ring-foot imposed by round holes and triangles with arcuated edges.Complex ornamentation was not formed in one time,however,it was a combination of multiple ornamentations which made by the same method.(6)decoration after firing,traces of used and repaired were rare.Chapter V:conclusion.This chapter aims at investigating the cultural installments of Xuecheng sites through the foregoing analysis of the pottery-making crafts.The middle period of Xuecheng site can be treated as its strong period,then the site slightly declined in the late period.At the same time,involving the discussion about the sources of Xuecheng site. |
