A Preliminary Study On The Funerary Tools Of The Dawenkou Culture In The Wen-Si River Basin And The Yi-Shu River Basin

The tools unearthed from the tombs are the basic materials for restoring the prehistoric social division of labor and displaying the prehistoric funeral concept.And the tools unearthed from the Dawenkou culture tombs present a unique archaeological culture in the downstream basin of the Yellow River in the Neolithic Age.Thus they take an important role in exploring the development of prehistoric society and the change of social consciousness.The Wen-Si River Basin and the Yi-Shu River Basin deserve to be called the core areas of distribution of the Dawenkou culture.In view of this,we take the tools unearthed from the Dawenkou culture tombs in such areas as the study object to analyze the characteristics and causes of the evolution of funerary tools by using the typological analysis and quantitative statistics combined with previous studies.This paper is organized as follows: Section 1 clarifies the study object and scope of this paper,outlines the study status of the tools unearthed from the Dawenkou culture tombs in the Wen-Si River Basin and the Yi-Shu River Basin,and expounds the study objective and methods of this paper.Section 2 combines the original materials to conduct the typological analysis and statistics on the funerary tools again.Section 3 divides the said downstream basin into two parts,namely,the Wen-Si River Basin and the Yi-Shu River Basin.This section segments the funerary tools in accordance with the stages of typical cemeteries,and then delves into the staging evolution rules of funerary tools within the river basins by integrating the segments of the two areas.Section 4 analyzes the causes for the evolution of funerary tools from three perspectives: the ecological and environmental change,the cultural exchange and interaction,and the change of social value orientation.Section 5 presents the conclusion.Through the typological analysis and statistics,the funerary tools of the Dawenkou culture in the Wen-Si River Basin and the Yi-Shu River Basin experienced three stages: early stage,middle stage,and late stage.In the process of their development,bone,antler,shell,tooth,and ceramic tools gradually declined and stone tools sprang up day by day.The three dominant factors that determine the stage of funerary tools are the ecological and environmental change,the cultural exchange and interaction,and the change of social value orientation,among which the third one potentially drives the evolution of funerary tools.