Page 134 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

Cat. 35, incised and carved rings, drilled along the short edge so that they
decoration. After Zhejiang could be joined at the perforations. 2
46, fig. 35:3.
b,
1988B, 46. fig. 35.3.
Although varied in shape and decoration, jade
bracelets are ubiquitous among prehistoric cul-
tures, and their distribution spans the Liao River
valley in northeastern China to the Zhujiang River
3
valley in the far south. It is still too early to assign
a common origin to jade bracelets; pottery and
bone antecedents dating back much earlier than
the jade forms have been found among many of
these cultures, and these exhibit a wide variety of
idiosyncratic formal features; bracelets of the Late
Yangshao culture, for example, have a triangular
cross section. The fact that in later periods brace-
lets were made of other materials (including gold,
silver, agate, ivory, and lacquer) apparently did not
diminish the value attached to jade: for thousands
of years after the Liangzhu culture — even to the
present day — jade bracelets have been the most
prevalent and favored items of personal adornment
in Chinese society, zs

1 Excavated in 1987 (M 1:30); reported: Zheijiang 19883, 48.
2 Shanghai 1984, 2, pi. 1:7; for a detailed photographic
reproduction, see Shanghai 1992, pi. 83.
3 Liaoning 1986,11-13, figs. 14,16,18, 20; Zhongguo 1963,
194; Xi'an 1988, 315-316; Zhongguo Shandong 1979,12-
13; Sichuan 1961,18, fig. 35; Zhongguo 1965!}, 67; Anhui
19823, 313-315; Anhui 1989,1-9; Zhu 1984, 90-95; for a
full bibliography, see Sun Zhixin 1996,137-166.

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