Archaeometallurgical studies in China: some recent developments and challenging issues

Mei, Jianjun; Wang, Pu; Chen, Kunlong; Wang, Lu; Wang, Yingchen; Liu, Yaxiong

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2015.02.026

Cited by 57 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Discussion of the origin of the Erlitou bronze technology is beyond the scope of this paper; suffice it to say that there is ongoing debate among scholars about how the impetus from the Eurasian Steppe influenced the development of metallurgy in the Central Plains (see the reviews by Li ; Linduff and Mei ; Mei et al . ; Liu et al . ).…”

Section: Shang Bronze From Africa?mentioning

confidence: 97%

Did China Import Metals from Africa in the Bronze Age?

Liu

Chen

Mei³

et al. 2018

Archaeometry

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The origins of the copper, tin and lead for China's rich Bronze Age cultures are a major topic in archaeological research, with significant contributions being made by archaeological fieldwork, archaeometallurgical investigations and geochemical considerations. Here, we investigate a recent claim that the greater part of the Shang-period metalwork was made using metals from Africa, imported together with the necessary know-how to produce tin bronze. A brief review of the current status of lead isotopic study on Shang-period bronze artefacts is provided first, clarifying a few key issues involved in this discussion. It is then shown that there is no archaeological or isotopic basis for bulk metal transfer between Africa and China during the Shang period, and that the copper and lead in Shang bronze with a strongly radiogenic signature is not likely to be from Africa. We call for collaborative interdisciplinary research to address the vexing question of the Shang period's metal sources, focusing on smelting sites in geologically defined potential source regions and casting workshops identified at a number of Shang settlements. KEYWORDS: LEAD ISOTOPES, HIGHLY RADIOGENIC LEAD, SHANG BRONZE, PROVENANCE INTRODUCTIONMost major Bronze Age civilizations developed in the catchments of large rivers that were sustaining a high population density through intensive agriculture. These areas, however, are almost always devoid of mineral resources, which are typically exposed only in mountainous areas, remote from the centres of agricultural civilization. Thus, these centres were dependent on distant areas to provide their strategically important metals, primarily copper, tin and gold, but also lead and silver. Substantive research has identified major copper sources for Egypt, Mesopotamia and Chen et al. 2009Chen et al. , 2016Pollard et al. 2017). Among these, Shang-period bronzes dated between the 16th and 11th centuries BCE stand out due to their highly distinctive isotopic and chemical compositions. The identification of the geological source(s) of this metal is a long-standing issue in Chinese archaeology, which has attracted considerable research interest from many scholars of various disciplinary backgrounds. A recent paper by Sun et al. (2016) is a new, but unconvincing, attempt to answer this question. It not only claims that 'the Yin-Shang people may have learned bronze technology elsewhere and brought it to China ' (Sun et al. 2016, 5), but it also concludes that 'both the Yin-Shang and the Sanxingdui bronzes were obtained in Africa, bearing the highly radiogenic lead isotopic signatures of Africa's Archean cratons. Alternatively, some ancient people might have come to China from Africa, carrying tin and/or bronzes with them' (Sun et al. 2016, 6). These hypotheses are undoubtedly bold and eye-catching, but unfortunately are also fundamentally flawed. In this paper, we offer a brief summary of currently available research on highly radiogenic lead found in ancient Shang bronzes, clarifying a few key issues that were m...

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Section: Shang Bronze From Africa?mentioning

confidence: 97%

Did China Import Metals from Africa in the Bronze Age?

Liu

Chen

Mei³

et al. 2018

Archaeometry

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“…Forestless landscape stretched toward North FIGURE 8 | Historic spread of copper metallurgy in Eurasia. This map displays the locations of earliest regional centers of smelting copper ores-according to the available archaeological research on the earliest metallurgy (Chernykh, 1966(Chernykh, , 1992(Chernykh, , 2012Sunchugashev, 1975;Zhuravlev, 1977;Sergeyeva, 1981;Prakash and Tripathi, 1986;Rybakov, 1987;Kon'kova, 1989;Thiel, 1989;Mishra, 1994;Reedy, 1997;Kiriushin, 2002;Tylecote, 2002;Nguyen, 1986;Baipakov and Taimagambetov, 2006;Simukhin, 2006;Yanin, 2006;Ciarla, 2007;Hauptmann, 2007;Kaniuth, 2007;Park and Gordon, 2007;Subbotina, 2008;Herva et al, 2009;Roberts et al, 2009;White and Hamilton, 2009;Radivojević et al, 2010;Erb-Satullo, 2011;Higham et al, 2011;Wan, 2011;Potts, 2012;O'Brien, 2014;Garner, 2015;Gelegdorj, 2015;Mei et al, 2015;Hung and Chao, 2016;Huo, 2016;Tripathi, 2018). The routes and timeline of its spread suggests the spread of metallic JHs along with the new homophonic tradition of JH music.…”

Section: Example-56mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Overlooked Tradition of “Personal Music” and Its Place in the Evolution of Music

Nikolsky¹,

Alekseyev²,

Alekseev

et al. 2020

Front. Psychol.

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This is an attempt to describe and explain so-called timbre-based music as a special system of musicking, communication, and psychological and social usage, which along with its corresponding beliefs constitutes a viable alternative to "frequency-based" music. Unfortunately, the current scientific research into music has been skewed almost entirely in favor of the frequency-based music prevalent in the West. Subsequently, whenever samples of timbre-based music attract the attention of Western researchers, these are usually interpreted as "defective" implementations of frequency-based music. The presence of discrete pitch is often regarded as the structural criterion that distinguishes music from non-music. We would like to present evidence to the contrary-in support of the existence of indigenous music systems based on the discretization and patterning of aspects of timbre, rather than pitch. This evidence comes mainly from extensive ethnographic research systematically conducted in eastern European and Asian parts of Russia from the 1890s. It involved the efforts of thousands of specialists and was coordinated by dozens of research institutions, and it has included not just ethnomusicology but linguistics, philology, organology, archaeology, anthropology, geography, and religious, and social studies. Much of the data has not been translated into Western languages. Although some Soviet-era publications were tainted by Marxist ideology, many researchers strove to provide accurate information (despite at times having been prosecuted for their work), and post-1990 research undertook a substantial revision of ideologically compromised concepts. Timbre-based tonal organization (TO) differs from that based on frequency in its personal orientation: musicking here occurs primarily for oneself and/or for close relatives/friends. Collective music-making is rare and exceptional. The foundation of timbre-based music seems to have vocal roots and rests on "personal song"-a system of personal identification through individualized patterns of rhythm, timbre, and pitch contour, utilized like a "human voice"-whose sound enables

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“…; Mei et al . ) and for copper‐smelting by humans, as demonstrated by the accumulated sediment pollution (Yang et al . ; Zhang et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic Change in the Prehistoric Hexi Corridor (4800–2200 bp), North‐West China

et al. 2019

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It is widely known that the Hexi Corridor in North‐West China lies at a hub of trans‐Eurasian cultural exchange. Its role became increasingly important during the late prehistoric period, particularly as the ancient Silk Road began to be used. While the profound transformation of local cultural characteristics in the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age is well documented, the detailed economic dynamics of cultural evolution have not yet been clearly illustrated. In this paper, we report on significant new zooarchaeological and faunal isotopic data from the Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in the Hexi Corridor. The primary objective is to systematically reconstruct the prehistoric economic context of this area by combining these new data with previous archaeological studies and radiocarbon dates. We argue that the primary economic activities of local inhabitants changed dramatically in the prehistoric Hexi Corridor. This was marked by agricultural production at c.4800–4000 bp, agro‐pastoral production at c.4000–3000 bp and animal husbandry at c.3000–2200 bp, respectively. The major subsistence strategies of these three periods show considerable variation. It is very likely that these transformations of economic patterns in the prehistoric Hexi Corridor were primarily triggered by transcontinental cultural exchange and, to a lesser extent, by climate change.

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Archaeometallurgical studies in China: some recent developments and challenging issues

Cited by 57 publications

References 25 publications

Did China Import Metals from Africa in the Bronze Age?

Did China Import Metals from Africa in the Bronze Age?

The Overlooked Tradition of “Personal Music” and Its Place in the Evolution of Music

Economic Change in the Prehistoric Hexi Corridor (4800–2200 bp), North‐West China

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