A fluorite bead from Bronze Age Tianshanbeilu cemetery, Xinjiang, Northwest China

Abstract

The Tianshanbeilu cemetery is the largest Bronze Age cemetery in eastern Xinjiang, China, and plays important roles in connecting the Eurasian interior to the Hexi Corridor, and further to the Central Plains region. Utilizing micro-XRF and Raman spectroscopy techniques, we identified a fluorite bead at this cemetery. This barrel bead is the earliest record of such a fluorite bead in China, dating back to approximately 1385–1256 BCE. Comparing the unearthed records of fluorite beads in eastern China spanning from the Neolithic Age to the Western Zhou dynasty, we notice that in the early Western Zhou period, fluorite beads found in élite burials are only in barrel or biconical shapes, both of which first appeared in the eastern region of Xinjiang, such as the Tianshanbeilu cemetery in Hami and the Yanghai cemetery in the Turpan Basin. We proposed that the barrel fluorite bead drilled by metal tubular drill first appearing in the Tianshanbeilu cemetery might have spread eastward to the Central Plains region and finally constituted a component of the ritual revolutions during the Western Zhou dynasty.