Page 530 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

finds demonstrated that the early Shang culture was closely related to the Erlitou culture found
at Yanshi, Henan province. In other words, the Xia developed from a pre-dynastic Shang influ-
ence in northern Henan and assimilated elements of the more advanced Erlitou culture. Chi-
nese archaeologists now recognize Phases I to IV of the Erlitou culture as the Xia culture. 2
The Erlitou culture, or the Xia culture — names that we can now begin to use inter-
changeably— extended over western Henan and southwestern Shanxi provinces, a region cor-
responding to the heartland of the Xia kingdom and its domain as related in the ancient texts.
The Shang city at Zhengzhou has been identified as the capital Bo; Erlitou cultural remains
have been found beneath the Shang city, leading to the logical conclusion that the Erlitou cul-
ture predated that of the early Shang. Carbon-i4 testing has dated Phases I to IV of the Erlitou
culture to between 1600 and 2000 BCE, a period corresponding roughly to that described in
the ancient texts.
The Erlitou culture is the earliest Bronze Age culture discovered in China. Although the

excavated examples are limited, bronzes objects recovered include ritual vessels such as tripod
cauldrons (ding), drinking vessels (jue) fowl-shaped wine containers (yi), and weapons such as
daggers (ge), axes (yue), and arrows (zu). These bronzes were cast using relatively simple tech-
niques with simple patterns — testimony to an early stage of bronze metallurgy. Jade ritual ob-
jects such as axes (yue), scepters (zhang), and stem-shaped ornaments have also been
discovered at these sites. A considerable number of pottery vessels—a fowl-shaped wine con-
tainer (yi) and a tripod drinking vessel (jue), a footed vessel (dou), a basin (pen), and a container
decorated with the sculpted image of a human head (zun) — are similar to, but not identical
with, early Shang examples of pottery. The most exciting find at Erlitou was the discovery of the
large foundations of palaces, the largest of which extended over 10,000 square meters. The
presence of these massive palace-remains suggests the existence of an established sovereign, a
fact corroborated by the ancient texts. 3

A R C H A E O L O G Y O F T H E S H A N G D Y N A S T Y
The Yinxu excavations of 1928-1937 confirmed the importance of the Shang dynasty. The dy-

nasty's capital at Yinxu, relocated by King Pangeng, however, dates to the late period; from the
standpoint of the archaeological record, what constituted the early phases of Shang culture
still remained a mystery. The large number of bronzes from Yinxu, for example, provided evi-
dence of an advanced level of bronze metallurgy, and oracle bones testified to an advanced
stage in writing, but these finds also raised questions about origins of Shang material and intel-
lectual culture. Prior to 1949, the beginnings of the late period of Shang culture, though a
point of lively discussion among historians, remained a mystery.
In 1952, the site of Erligang at Zhengzhou was discovered. The site's stratigraphy and the
types of artifacts recovered indicated unambiguously that the Erligang culture predated the

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