A Study On Graves Excavated In Danjiangkou And Xichuan During Warring States And Western Han Dynasty

During the construction of Danjiangkou Dam,archaeologists have discovered a great number of graves dating from Eastern Zhou to Han Dynasty in reservoir area.It remains to be a big issue in the field of archaeology in terms of how to conduct a systematic study on these graves,establish a chronological framework,and to clarify the archaeological features of the local cultures.Meanwhile,these discoveries offer a good opportunity to explore the process and background of the culture evolution in this area during Eastern Zhou and Han Dynasty.As such,we can learn more about the revolution during the transition of the two dynasties from an archaeological perspective.On the account of these,graves of Warring States to Western Han Dynasty exacaveted in Danjiangkou City and Xichuan County are chosen as research objects;stratigraphy,typology and chronology are the methodology to analyze the archaeological materials in order to advance our knowledge about related questions.This dissertation is organized into five parts.The first part includes chapter one and chapter two.This part is the analysis of the buried goods with typology,which provides the chronological framework.By typology,the evolution clews of some kind of bronze vessels and potteries are found.According to the coexisting relations between these buried goods,all graves can be divided into six phases and fourteen stages.After identifying the culture features and connotations of each phase and stage,we date all stages on basis of other studies on bronze vessels and coins.The dates of all fourteen stages are: the later stage of the Late Spring and Autumn;the early stage of the Early Warring States;later stage of the Early Warring States;the early stage of the Middle Warring States;the later stage of the Middle Warring States;the early stage of Late Warring States until Qin State occupied this area;the middle and the later stage of the Late Warring States dating from Qin State Occupied this area to Qin Dynasty;Qin Dynasty;the period from Emperor Gaozu to Queen Gaohou in Western Han Dynasty;the period of Emperor Wendi and Jingdi in Western Han Dynasty;the period of the early stage of Emperor Wudi in Western Han Dynasty;the period of the later stage of Emperor Wudi and Emperor Zhaodi in Western Han Dynasty;the period of Emperor Xuandi or later in Western Han Dynasty;the period of Emperor Yuandi in Western Han to Xinmang.The second part includes chapter three.This chapter focuses on the structures of the graves.According to the structure,all the graves are grouped into four types:vertical earthen shaft tombs,cave tombs with vertical tunnel,vertical earthen shaft tombs with stone and carbon deposits,brick-chambered tombs.Each kind can be further divided into different types in the light of wall,niche,tunnel and the place of stone and carbon deposit.Besides,we present how different types of graves changed diachronically in all phases and stages.At the end of this chapter,all kinds of tomb structures are interpreted as follows: the steps were built to prevent collapse of tomb wall;most of immature soil platforms and mature soil platforms were nonexistent;niches were used when the tomb did not have enough space for buried goods;cave tombs with vertical tunnel were imported from the region of Guanzhong;the stone deposits above the Guo coffin functioned as the protection of the tomb from looting;the stone and carbon deposits around the Guo coffin served as the outer Guo coffin;brick-chambers were in reality brick-Guo coffins,and they had same function as wooden Guo coffin.The third part includes chapter four,where the arrangements of the cemeteries are discussed.In particular,Xujialing Cemetery and Yanganling Cemetery are discussed in this chapter.Xujialing was a family cemetery of elite group in Warring States.It presents the decline of public cemetery and the rise of family cemetery for elite class in this area.It also shows the internal consistency and external exclusivity in a family cemetery of elite group,which means kinship still played a very important role in elite class.In addition,the dead buried in Xujialing Cemetery can be distinguished into high status and low status.People of high status had more rights to choose the location of their graves.Yanganling was a commoner cemetery lasting from Warring States to Western Han Dynasty.It contained many families,which signified that while the kinship was not totally disassembled,the geopolitical relationship were getting increasingly important.The continuation of family cemeteries demonstrated that some people of lower class remained stabilized when regime changed.The tombs of one family may have some differences on buried goods and tomb structures,indicating a certain degree of diversity within one family.The fourth part includes chapter five,the main purpose of this chapter is to discuss the social transformation from the Warring States to the Western Han Dynasty according to archaeological culture change.In this area,a gradual and initiative funeral reform occurred within the underclass society during the Warring States period.The thoughts of this funeral reform had two aspects: to address the distinction between the living and the dead,and to build an underground world for the dead by imitating the living life of elite class and in hope that the dead can live a better life in another world.The Qin regime pushed transformation of social traditions in this area after its occupation,which was reflected in archaeological material as a cultural mutation.This transformation of social traditions was the extension of social reform of the Qin State during the Warring States period and the core thought was strengthening the social class by dividing people into twenty classes.During the Western Han Dynasty,the archaeological cultures in this area kept a great extent of diversity,implying that the political power deregulated the funeral customs.Chapter six is the last part.In this chapter,methodologies in historical archaeology are discussed based on the studies in former chapters.By reviewing the development process of archaeological culture and the challenges it faced,and combining the study of anthropology,we defined it as this: archaeological culture is a specialized concept in archaeology.It represents a group of remains frequently appear together and sometimes called assemble,which reflect some kind of patterned behavior caused by cultural mechanism.We also point out that there are many problems in historical archaeology when name archaeological cultures,and suggest that when we use the concept of archaeological culture,we should return to the archaeological remains and name them after the assembles.Moreover,the relationship between archaeology and texts should be cognize from different levels.On the macro level,texts benefit for understanding and interpreting the archaeological phenomena,while on the micro level,archaeology and texts are separate and independent,and no matter on whichever level,archaeology-oriented study must be emphasized.