A Research On Periodiation Of Xiaqiyuan Culture

A kind of remains of the period of Erlitou Culture has been discovered in North Hebei and South Henan in 1950s. At first it was named as Pre-Shang Culture by some early scholars since its activity sphere is quite identical with Early Shang Culture and earlier than that of the ancestors of Shang People. Latter, some scholars argued that it should be named as Xiaqiyuan Culture according to the research approach of archaeological culture. Then, many a scholar has probed into its cultural nature and some different views have been proposed. In this thesis, the name, Xiaqiyuan Culture, has been preferred. Through more than fifty years' archaeological work, the sites of Xiaqiyuan Culture have been discovered massively. Although researches on periodiation has been done by some scholars, the early views seem to be out of date with the increase of new materials. This thesis is going to make a new research on this issue based on all materials excavated up to now.There are six chapters in this thesis.Chapter 1: A brief introduction of the discovery and research on Xiaqiyuan Culture.Chapter 2: Definition of Xiaqiyuan Culture and its classification: Zhanghe Type, Huiwei Type and Baobei Type.Chapter 3: Research on Periodiation of every type. First of all, it is going to organize the dates of typical sites of them. Secondly, Typological studies on typical Pottery vessels will be carried out. Lastly, Zhanghe Type will be divided into four stages, Huiwei type, three and Baobei type, two.Chapter 4: The corresponding relation between types and dates will be found through analogy of typical pottery vessels. Xiaqiyuan Culture will be thus divided into four phases. Chapter 5: The date of Xiaqiyuan Culture is going to be discussed in reference to Erlitou Culture and Dongxiafeng Culture.Chapter 6: Conclusion.