Research On Bronze Production Issues In Southwest Tribal Region From The Warring States Period To The Qin And Han Dynasties

During the Warring States Period and the Han Dynasty,the Southwest Tribal Region was divided into two large geographical units: the mountainous area in western Sichuan and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau.These regions had unique resources,such as the Sichuan-Yunnan copper ore belt and the Yunnan-Burma tin ore belt.There are many minerals in the shallow layer of the surface mines,which are easy to mine.They provided the basic conditions for the early mining and metallurgical industries,as well as the production of bronze.A large number of bronzes were excavated in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River in the northwestern mountain region of western Sichuan,the Anning River Basin,the Chenghe River Basin,the Yanyuan Basin in the southwestern mountainous area of Western Sichuan,the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in western Yunnan,the area around Lake Dian,southeastern Yunnan,eastern Yunnan,and western Guizhou.In recent archaeological excavations,a large number of bronze items have been excavated in this region,and the remains of early smelting and bronze casts have been discovered.These remains are mostly related to "Hanshu Geography","Hanshu",and "Huayang Guozhi." They correspond to the early mineral deposits recorded in ancient documents.The transition from the Warring States Period to the Han Dynasty involved the transformation of society in the Southwest Tribal Region.This change was reflected in the social structure and political system,as well as the bronze production system.The original tribal bronze production system was changed due to the strong influence of the Han Dynasty’s culture and technology.Previous archaeological scholars have mostly focused on the analysis of bronze wares and cultural factors,deducing the cultural evolution of the bronze wares.Previous metallurgical research scholars have completed a lot of scientific and technological analysis.They have highlighted many of the technical attributes of the bronzes from the Southwest Tribal Region,and obtained a large amount of data.This study focuses on information about the alloy composition,production process,material characteristics of the minerals,and other scientific and technological data obtained from current metallurgical study in the Southwest Tribal Region.It combines this with methods such as archaeological typology,floristic theory,and cultural factor analysis.In offers an in-depth study of the bronze production technology system in Southwest China from an archaeological perspective.In Chapter Ⅱ of this dissertation,the early bronze archaeological excavations in the Southwest Tribal Region are separated into different areas.Studies have shown that,in terms of the cultural aspects of bronzes,the weapons,ritual vessels,living utensils,horse gear,and decorations of the various bronze cultures in the Southwest Tribal Region not demonstrate the cultural features of local ethnic groups,many of which have certain similarities.While the bronze production processes in each region have distinct characteristics,they also have a lot in common.The upper reaches of the Minjiang River in the northwestern Sichuan mountains are affected by the bronze production technology of the Bashu Region and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Region.In this process,bronze containers such as cauldrons are cast using molds.There are modular casting patterns on the surface of the bronzes.The decorative techniques used include engraving,tin plating,and gilding.The bronze production techniques that seem to have been used in the Anning River Basin,Chenghe River Basin,and Yanyuan Basin in the southwestern Sichuan mountains all employed forging techniques that were widely used in the production of thin-film bronzes.They also used bivalve moulds with cores to produce bronze weapons.The Yanyuan bronzes used hot-tinning techniques that originated in the north,as well as thin-film engraving decoration techniques consistent with the Lake Dian area in Yunnan.The western Yunnan region,the Lake Dian area,the eastern Yunnan region,and the western Guizhou region on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau show similarities in their technology.Both casting and forging techniques were used in the production of bronzes,and stone-based bivalve moulds were used.Some bronzes have been excavated from this region.There were no traces of the mould line on the surface of the bronzes.They were thought to have been cast using the lost-wax method.There are clear links between the decorative processing techniques in these areas.There are techniques for forging thin-film and for using engraving as a form of decoration.The bronzes excavated from high-grade tombs displayed evidence of complex decorative techniques such as gilding and tinning.The southeastern Yunnan region was rich in tin resources,the vast majority of which are high-tin bronzes.They have a relatively brittle texture.Forging techniques were rarely used.The main production processes were double casting and composite casting.Compared with the bronze production systems in the Central Plains region and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River,the bronze production in the Southwest Tribal region used different systems,processes,and alloy ratios.Chapter Ⅲ focuses on six copper smelting sites in the Southwest Tribal Region during the Warring States Period and the Han Dynasty.It summarizes the production and operation chains related to these remains.The six copper smelting sites are the Dongping Copper Smelting Site in Xichang City,Sichuan Province;the Chongzipipo Copper Smelting Site in Gejiu City;the Longbo River Copper Smelting Site in Jinping County;and the Yubeidi Copper Smelting Site in Kunming City,Yunnan Province;the Dashan Copper Smelting Site in Hezhang County;and the Tonggushan Copper Smelting Site in Pu’an County,Guizhou Province.The early archaeological cultures in the area where these sites are located were related to the Qiong,Zuo,Gouding,Dian,and Yelang ethnic groups in the Southwest Tribal region.The six copper smelting sites have collected about 500 smelting relics and early bronze specimens of similar ages in the surrounding area.In this study,68 representative samples are selected for scientific and technological archaeological analysis,revealing the processes used for smelting these copper remains.Many characteristics of craftsmanship and bronze products.By comparing the lead isotope ratios of these six copper smelting relics to those of the early bronzes in the surrounding area,it becomes clear that there were many bronze production chains and supply chains in the Southwest Tribal Region.For example,there were at least two production and supply chains for Yelang bronzes,one from northeast Yunnan and one from southwestern Guizhou.Meanwhile,the production and supply chain of Dian cultural bronzes was relatively complicated.At present,the data used in this dissertation that there were two production and supply chains that can currently be identified.The first was from southwestern Guizhou;the second was from southeastern Yunnan.This article directly studies the copper,lead,and bronze relics excavated in the surrounding tombs produced by ancient smelting.This kind of source-based research has not been done before.It will provide important research coordinates for later researchers.It takes an important and practical step towards constructing a database of bronze wares in the Southwest Tribal Region during the Warring States Period and the Qin and Han Dynasties.In Chapter Ⅳ,to clarify the characteristics of the early bronze production technologies used in the Southwest Tribal Region as a whole,and make its technical outlook clear,the bronze production operation chain is broken down into its different elements: mining technology,smelting technology,forming technology,processing technology,and more.The analysis demonstrates that the bronze technology system in the Southwest Tribal Region was integrated to a certain extent.Based on the data obtained by archaeological excavation and test analysis,the experimental archaeology research of bronze production technology was carried out,and the construction,smelting of the ground furnace and bronze casting process were completed.We conducted discussion on the use of ground furnaces in early smelting techniques in the Southwest Tribal Region,as well as the technical characteristics of the ground furnace and its studies and production organization.This bronze production technology system was characterized by low melting temperatures and low tin content.It combined forging and casting,but this feature made it difficult to develop a smelting technology for pig iron.During the Warring States and Han Dynasty,the "Subsistence Strategies—Technical System—Craft Tradition—Bronze Products" of various ethnic groups in the Southwest Tribal Region formed an organic whole.The subsistence strategies of animal migration and gathering together used by indigenous peoples influenced the corresponding technical system.The bronze products that show characteristics of Southwest Tribal culture,such as plain bronzes,thin-film bronzes,and thin strip-shaped bronze bracelet decorations,reflect the craft tradition of this technical system.This dissertation focuses on the issues involved in the production and circulation of bronze in the Southwest Tribal Region during the Warring States and Han Dynasty.Chapter V discusses the profound relationship between the bronze production technology systems in the Southwest Tribal region and the Indochina Peninsula.There are various connections between the two regions in terms of the bronze production processes: the mining,smelting,forming,and processing.Many early bronze production processes on the Indochina Peninsula can be traced back to the Southwest Tribal region or the crescent-shaped cultural-communication belt.Using analysis of the lead isotope ratios,it can also be seen that there are crossovers between the bronze raw materials and products in the two places,at least in interactive areas such as western Yunnan,northern Thailand,southeastern Yunnan,northern Vietnam,western Guizhou.and central Cambodia.Thus,before the Qin and Han dynasties developed,there was already a complicated exchange in bronze minerals occurring between the Southwest Tribal region and the many bronze cultures of the Indochina Peninsula.An extensive,long-distance trade and exchange network for bronze products had been formed.This dissertation studies the relationship between the characteristics of the bronze minerals found in the two regions,helping to increase understanding of bronze culture and ethnic migration in both of the regions.Chapter Ⅵ discusses the complex situation of the expansion of the Qin and Han dynasties from the Central Plains and the sudden acquisition of resources that the Southwest Tribal Region faced.As well as establishing prefectures and counties in the Southwest Tribal Region,the production and supply system entered the hinterland of the Southwest Tribal Region,heading in the direction of Xiyi Route,Nanyi Route,and Jinsang-Luling Route.Bases for production were established,and the two production and supply systems of the Han and the Southwestern Tribal Region were running in parallel.Three representative bronzes(bronze mirrors,copper coins,and bronze drums)have been selected as the research objects.The study uses archaeological materials and scientific data to analyze the "resources-production-supply" chain formed on the Xiyi Route,Nanyi Route and Jinsang-Luling Route in the Eastern Han Dynasty.Moreover,the study summarizes the diachronic evolution of the bronze production and supply system sin the Southwest Tribal region.It focuses particularly on three aspects that have caused social changes in the Southwest Tribal Region: changes in the organization of bronze production and handicraft within the social structure;monetization in the economic sense;and the emergence of the commodity economy.This also shifted the lifestyle and customs of the Southwest Tribal ethnic group who derived cultural meanings from their concepts of using bronze.The dissertation concludes that the growth and decline of the Han’s and the Southwest Tribal Region’s bronze production and supply systems reflect the Han Dynasty regime’s management strategy in the Southwest Tribal Region.The same is true of the "resource-production-supply" chain on the three channels.The main goal of the Han Dynasty regime’s management strategy for the region was to ensure stable government and maintain economic development.It was through changes in the bronze production and supply system that the Han Dynasty achieved military and economic control,allowing them to govern the Southwest Tribal Region.