Ceramic Production at the Stone-Walled Citadel of Shimao: Initial Results of Petrographic Analysis

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Scaling Potting Networks: Recent Contributions from Ceramic Petrography " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the last 10 years, excavations at the early Bronze Age site of Shimao (2300–1800 BC), in northern Shaanxi Province, have transformed our understanding of the archaeology of early China. What was previously seen as an area that was peripheral to the development of early dynastic centers is now being heralded by some scholars as the precursor of Chinese civilization. However, despite incredible finds of large-scale stone architecture, bronze working, jade artifacts, and elaborate stone carvings, our overall understanding of the economic and political organization of the inhabitants of Shimao is still very limited. In this presentation I examine the most common artifact class at the site, pottery, using petrographic analysis, in order to explore production methods, as well as potential production organization and exchange. The results demonstrate that most of the pottery used at Shimao was produced locally, likely by multiple production groups at or near the site, but was not particularly standardized in regard to paste recipes. Thus, ceramic production was likely not tightly controlled or formalized, but instead took place in local households or workshops, and is not significantly different from ceramic production organization at sites across northern China at this time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Scaling Potting Networks: Recent Contributions from Ceramic Petrography   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32319