A Study On The Herbivore Animal Style Of Chinese Northern Zone During The Shang And Zhou Dynasty

As one of the three elements of “Scythians Art”,animal style is the representative feature in North steppe culture.In the academic study of Chinese Northern Zone,animal style is one of the issues that scholars have been concerned about.In this paper,the research object is the herbivore animal style during the Shang and Zhou Dynasty in Chinese Northern Zone,including sheep,horse,deer and cattle.As the most frequently encountered animal species in Chinese Northern Zone,herbivores play a very important role in the nomadic economy.For their own love or animal worship and other factors,the northern population usually decorated the herbivorous animal style in various types of weapons and tools,decorations,carriages and containers.This article mainly takes the utensils with clear location as the research foundation,refer to a small amount of the utensils found in the records,on the basis of typology analysis,to explore their stage and regional characteristics,combing the development vein of each kind of decorative pattern.We will further discuss the connection between the Chinese Northern Zone and the Central plains region,Xinjiang and the vast Eurasian steppe.In the end,this paper will makes a preliminary estimate of the ideology behind the herbivore animal style.