Taming the Flood: Religious Response to Climatic Crisis and the Cult of the Great Yu in Early China

Summary

This paper deals with changes in religious practices during a period when 'Nature' is least stable in early China. It focuses on the rapid spread of new ritual practices and emergence of new ritual networks during the Longshan period (ca. 2300-1800 BCE) as evidence for religious responses to the extraordinary climatic crisis of the late third millennium BCE. It explores the diverse manifestations of the ecological crisis in geomorphological evidence and their implications for a changing perception of ‘Nature’ in the Longshan society. The choices of sacred places and ritual forms used for prehistoric ritual engagements with the violent forces of nature reveal that the legacy of the Longshan religious tradition had significant contribution to the emergence of the cult of the Great Yu in early China.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Exploring Prehistoric Perceptions of "Nature": Can We Go Beyond Economic Human-Environment Interactions?

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15053