An Analysis of Mortuary Ritual at the Dawenkou Site, Shandong, China

Abstract

For over twenty years, scholars have regarded the cemetery at the Dawenkou site in Shandong as providing important evidence for social ranking and other aspects of social organization during the Neolithic period. Most studies have focused on reconstructing status levels within speci c time periods. Recent studies of burials in different areas of the world have shown the utility of examining change over time in mortuary ritual from the perspective of both the individual site and the region. They also demonstrate that it is necessary to consider the ideology and strategies of living people mourning the deceased. This paper examines change over time in the following aspects of mortuary ritual at the Dawenkou site: the mortuary population (total number of graves, age, sex, number of bodies per grave), body disposition, orientation of graves, and variation in characteristics that may be symbolic of status differences: size of grave, kind of grave, and prestige goods. It suggests how scholars can examine change over time in mortuary ritual at Dawenkou sites from a regional perspective. This procedure could reveal insights about change over time in sociopolitical organization and ideology. Burials from the Dawenkou Culture are very important, since habitation remains are not abundant or reported in as much detail. Data from the Chinese Neolithic period can make an important contribution to theoretical and methodological debates among archaeologists in many areas about analysis of burials.

Craft Production and Social Change in Northern China

“…Analyses of burials are especially informative when they can be linked to regional studies of social, economic, and political change (e.g., Bradley 1984;Cannon 1989;Charles 1995;Curet and Oliver 1998;Savage 1998). This study differs from my earlier work on burials (Underhill 1993(Underhill , 2000, and from other contributions (Fung 2000;Kim 1994;Liu 1996a), in that it assesses how changes in mortuary ritual can cause changes in craft production. There are few other studies of changes in production of mortuary pottery (see Costin 1999).…”

“…At Jianxin, for example, several of the richest graves from the last phase (III) are located in a small area within the eastern section of the site. At Dawenkou, rich burials tend to be concentrated in the northern spatial area (Underhill 2000; see also Han 1994). However, there is no dominant regional elite mortuary tradition, and mortuary ritual is not prescribed by rank.…”

Changes in regional settlement patterns and the development of complex societies in southeastern Shandong, China

“…Findings from reconnaissance surveys in more westerly areas of Shandong indicate three-tiered settlement hierarchies . Social ranking is clearly evident from marked variation in Dawenkou period burials in several areas of Shandong, including Ju County, about 60 km west of modern Rizhao city (Allard, 2000;Chang, 1986;Fung, 2000;Luan, 1996Luan, , 1997Shandong Province, 1991;Underhill, 2000Underhill, , 2002Underhill and Habu, 2006).…”

Social stratification during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty of China (771–476 bce): Mortuary and stable isotopic analyses of the Shangshihe cemetery

“…Differences between elites and commoners have been found, in which elites had larger and more complex tombs along with richer grave goods than commoners or human sacrifices (Cheung et al, 2017;Dai, 2019;F. Wang, 2006;Flad, 2001;Shelach, 2001;Underhill, 2000;L. Zhang, 2020b).…”