Determining The Provenance Of Pre-Qin Turquoise Artifacts In Central China

The research to the provenance of cultural relics can make us understand the early people’s scope of activities, means to obtain resources and other important problems.There are a large number of turquoise artifacts unearthed in China, but the research to the provenance of turquoise artifacts is not enough.This research use Color Analysis,Raman, XRF, LA-ICP-AES, TIMS to test 128 pieces of turquoise artifacts unearthed in 8 pre-Qin sites in China. Then compare the test results to 5 turquoise mines data. The results showed that the turquoise artifacts from Xiajin Tomb,Linfen,Shanxi Province at least have three different sources, and two point to the area of Zhushan County and Luonan County. The turquoise artifacts from Taosi site,Xiangfen County,Shanxi Province are special and complex,and most of them are unknown. Most of the turquoise artifacts from Erlitou site,Yanshi point to the area of Luonan County. The provenance of turquoise artifacts from Panlongcheng site, Runlou site, Yejiashan site are complex. The turquoise artifacts from Zhonghuo tomb,Dingxiang County at least have three different sources, two point to Zhushan and Luonan County.Combine the turquoise sample data with its archaeological context, we can come to the conclusion that the pre-Qin"turquoise transportation" has two different forms:the road transportation and waterway transportation. The former one is represented by "the west way of Taihang Mountain" and the second one is represented by "the way of Luo River". The turquoise artifacts have a characteristics of level of identity representation in pre-Qin and they play an important role in the origins of civilization.