Zooarchaeological Research of Oracle Bones from Lower Xiajiadian Culture

Summary

Lower Xiajiadian Culture is an early Bronze Age archaeological culture (4,000 BP) in Northern China, located at western Liaoning and southeastern Inner Mongolia. This study explores two different kinds of oracle bones from this cultural period: (1) made of cattle scapular was thought to have been burnt in divination and (2) bone of a mid- to large-sized mammal hoof,thrown during divination. The latter has been scarcely mentioned in the previous research and has not usually been treated as an oracle bone. Through use of zooarchaeological methods, literature comparisons and ethnoarchaeology these two kinds of oracle bones are examined in order to explore human behavior of divination in the Lower Xiajiadian Cultural period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Recent Advances in Chinese Zooarchaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15741