The Settlement Remains of Sanxingdui -- A Preliminary Study of Chronology and Site Development

Summary

From its initial discovery in 1929, much research has been conducted on the site of Sanxingdui, making it the most famous and most important Bronze Age site in all of Sichuan if not Southwest China. While the sacrificial pits with their singular bronze objects have already been discussed in great detail by many scholars, the settlement of Sanxingdui, its structure and development are still poorly understood. Based on a consideration of the stratigraphic sequence and comparative analysis of the content of the various layers, this paper argues that considerable changes took place throughout the development of the site, especially between Phases I and II and also between Phases III and IV. Considering the limited amount of published material currently available, this paper cannot completely solve the issue of the chronology and development of the settlement of Sanxingdui, but it points out some of the major unresolved issues and suggests potential avenues for further research.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Recent Advances in the Settlement and Landscape Archaeology of (South)west China and Southeast Asia Part II: The Micro Perspective of Internal Settlement Organization and Object Production

Keywords

Spatial Coverage