Xindian culture

Xindian jar with two lug handles, Gansu, around 1,000 BCE, painted earthenware, Honolulu Academy of Arts

Xindian culture (Chinese 辛店 文化, Xindian Wenhua) was a Bronze Age culture in the Gansu and Qinghai provinces of China. Xindian culture is dated ca. 1500–1000 BCE, a radiocarbon testing of an artefact produced a date around 1000 BCE,^[1] which roughly corresponds to the Western Zhou period of the Central Plain (Zhongyuan) area (in the middle and lower course of the Yellow River).

Geography

Xindian culture is named after a site discovered in 1923-24 in Xindian Lintao. The culture was mainly located in Gansu in the middle and lower course of the Tao He 洮河 and Daxia He 大 夏河 rivers, and in Qinghai in the basin of the Huang Shui 湟 水 river.^[2]

Cultural context

Xindian culture was predominantly agricultural, with breeding pigs and cattle, at the sites of the culture were found bronze castings and traces of copper smelting production.^[3] Some small bronzes have been discovered at Huizui in Lintao county. They include knives, awls and buttons.^[4]

Xindian culture belongs to the painted pottery cultures found in Central Asia, India, and China, among others.^[5]

Xindian culture postdates the Qijia culture; the pottery evidence demonstrates a cultural continuity,^[6] though genetically it is not related with it.^[7]

The shape of some Xindian culture pottery vessels, as well as the decorative patterns on pottery reveal correlations with the Tangwang culture.^[8]

In the same area in close proximity are distributed early sites of the contemporary neighboring Siwa culture, though Xindian culture and Siwa culture followed their own paths of development. The later Xindian culture expanded westard and came closer to the Kayue culture, it was possibly absorbed by the Kayue culture.^[9]

External links

• Xindian wenhua - (In Chinese)
• A rare large Neolithic painted pottery jar Xindian culture, c. 1500 - 1000 BC
• Xindian Culture Painted Pottery

Literature

The Cambridge History of Ancient China, M. Loeuwe, E.L. Shaughnessy, eds., Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8

Notes

1. Cihai ("Sea of Words"), Shanghai cishu chubanshe, Shanghai 2002, ISBN 7-5326-0839-5, p. 1885
2. Cihai ("Sea of Words"), Shanghai cishu chubanshe, Shanghai 2002, ISBN 7-5326-0839-5, p. 1885.
3. Great Soviet Encyclopedia, (In Russian)
4. An Zhimin, THE BRONZE AGE IN EASTERN PARTS OF CENTRAL ASIA. (PDF) Unesco.org
5. Great Soviet Encyclopedia, (In Russian)
6. Nicola Di Cosmo, The Northern Frontier in Pre-Imperial China//The Cambridge History of Ancient China, p. 901
7. Great Soviet Encyclopedia, (In Russian)
8. An Zhimin, THE BRONZE AGE IN EASTERN PARTS OF CENTRAL ASIA. (PDF) Unesco.org
9. Nicola Di Cosmo, The Northern Frontier in Pre-Imperial China//The Cambridge History of Ancient China, p. 901