Exploring the Lower Xiajiadian in Northeast China (ca. 2000-1300 BC)

This thesis investigates the Lower Xiajiadian culture (ca. 2000-1300 BC) in northeast China, with a focus on two major questions: first, what were the principal cultural features of the Lower Xiajiadian culture; second, how did it emerge in China’s northern borderland. Three groups of archaeological materials are analyzed and presented: the settlement data from excavated Lower Xiajiadian sites and regional surveys in northeast China, the burial evidence from the Dadianzi cemetery, and the material remain in the Chinese Central Plains of the same period. It argues that the Lower Xiajiadian’s cultural distinctiveness reveals strong local characteristics as well as many features that can be attributed to the Yellow River area in the south and the Eurasian steppe to the north and west. These include the introduction of mudbrick constructions, lime-floor plastering, stone buildings, bronze metallurgy, animal husbandry, and tripod vessel types of the 3rd millennium BC. It is also revealed from the mortuary data at Dadianzi that the status manifestations of the Lower Xiajiadian society were structured to emphasize a higher value on foreign artifacts than local grave goods in northeast China. Overall, a wide range of new materials, technologies, and activities were brought into the Lower Xiajiadian area after 2000 BC and were employed in a local fashion that was different from other contemporary borderland communities. With benefits from contacts with a variety of regions, what we see from the Lower Xiajiadian archaeological records is a society that was deeply engaged with its southern predecessor—Longshan, as well as in contact with cultural entities in the north and west