Intricate ceramic bronze-casting moulds are among the most significant archaeological remains found at Bronze Age metallurgical workshops in China. Firing temperature was presumably one of the most important technical factors in mould making. However, it has proven difficult to determine the firing temperatures of excavated moulds using existing analytical methods. This study establishes an innovative new method for using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to estimate the firing temperature of clay-containing remains. The method is based on the finding that the infrared absorptivity of fired clay minerals, measured at the Si–O–Si stretching resonance band, is negatively correlated with firing temperature. Moulds and mould cores dating to the Early Shang period (sixteenth to fourteenth century BCE) are found to have been fired at extremely low temperatures—as low as 200–300 °C in many instances. These results provide critical new data for understanding the metallurgical technology of ancient China.
Buried underneath modern Zhengzhou city in Henan Province, China, lies the archeological remains of one of the ancient capital cities of the Shang dynasty (1766 – 1122 BCE). Although it is likely that people planned this Shang capital city according to the demands of the surrounding environment, there is no clear relationship between the current environment, such as the hydrology and topography, and the ancient city’s layout. To better understand the relationship between planning principles used during the Shang dynasty and the nearby environment at Zhengzhou, we measured and sampled stratigraphic exposures at excavation locations throughout Zhengzhou. Through these excavations we obtained both absolute and relative chronological data from each culture layer, enabling us to use geospatial interpolation and analysis methods to reconstruct the ancient landscape. The results show that ancient city’s different activity areas had a close relationship with their environmental context. For example, the Shang dynasty palace was located on high ground and workshops were located down below along the courses of ancient rivers. In conclusion, we argue that research that merges geomorphology and archeology is a necessary prerequisite for understanding the development of urban areas.
Exploring the influence range of early cities is significant for understanding the mechanisms behind ancient settlement systems and human-environment interactions. Due to a lack of effective research methods, the evolution processes and impact mechanisms of the influence ranges of prehistoric cities are still ambiguous. In this study, we chose the Songshan Mountain region for research, which witnessed the origin and development of Chinese civilization. Using GIS spatial analyses such as the ‘average nearest neighbor’ and ‘Thiessen polygon’, we explored the spatial-temporal distributions and influence ranges of Neolithic-Bronze Age cities in the region. The roles of human culture and the natural environment in the process were also investigated. The results indicated that the spatial distributions of early cities were random during the Yangshao (7000–5000 BP) and Longshan (5000–4000 BP) cultures. During the Erlitou culture (3800–3500 BP) and Shang Dynasty (3600–3046 BP), the spatial distributions changed into dispersed models. During the Zhou Dynasty (3046–2256 BP), the spatial distribution model was random again. Correspondingly, the influence range of early cities during the Erlitou culture is the largest, followed by those of the Longshan culture, Yangshao culture, Shang Dynasty, and Zhou Dynasty. This is different from the conventional view that the ancient city’s influence range continuously expands as time advances. Both the natural environment and human culture are believed to impact this evolutional process. Specifically, the Holocene climate variation and the consequent cyclic river downcutting and silting affect the city site selection and thus the spatial-temporal distribution and influence range of early cities. The enfeoffment system occurring during the Erlitou culture should also have played a vital role in this evolution. In general, the natural environment is more important for the spatial distribution and influence range of early cities during Yangshao, Longshan, and Erlitou cultures, while human culture represented by the enfeoffment system plays a dominant role during Shang and Zhou Dynasties when the natural environment is relatively stable.
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