{"title":"High tin or high lead: distinctive alloying practices of the pastoral Yuhuangmiao culture in Northeast China during the first millennium BCE","authors":"Wenxun Ren, Ruiliang Liu, Yanxiang Li, Xiaojia Tang, Rubin Han, Fengyi Jin, Limin Huan, Mark Pollard","doi":"10.1111/arcm.13068","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Jundushan cemetery, located on the northern boundary of the present-day Beijing, sits at a crucial nexus between the Yan and Taihang mountains linking northern and central China. This strategic location provides an interesting case for examining interactions between pastoralism and agriculture around the early half of the first millennium BCE. Under this light, this paper aims to illustrate the local metallurgical development, exemplified by the key metal assemblage discovered at the Jundushan cemetery of the Yuhuangmiao culture. It contains wider social implications on the unique aspect of the Jundushan people and their broader communication network. The new alloying and lead isotopic analyses of 39 bronzes reveal a series of changes in both metallurgical practice and metal supply network. Jundunshan is characterized by the use of both high-tin and high-lead bronzes, with tin playing a particularly essential role. They are probably the result of two different alloying processes, one with almost pure copper being alloyed by pure tin, the other with pure copper combining with a specific tin-lead mixture (Sn: Pb ≈ 45:55). Lead isotopic data reveal a clear change during the transition between the mid and late stage of Jundushan. The major type of lead used in the last stage at Jundushan (ca. 6th–5th century BCE) appears not widely circulated in the states of central China, indicative of a local lead source accessed by Jundunshan. The new data bridge an important gap in our knowledge of the metallurgical practice and flow of metal around the early first millennium BCE in northeastern China, a region where agriculturalists and pastoralists were interacted.</p>","PeriodicalId":8254,"journal":{"name":"Archaeometry","volume":"67 4","pages":"1040-1056"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/arcm.13068","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Archaeometry","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/arcm.13068","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ARCHAEOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The Jundushan cemetery, located on the northern boundary of the present-day Beijing, sits at a crucial nexus between the Yan and Taihang mountains linking northern and central China. This strategic location provides an interesting case for examining interactions between pastoralism and agriculture around the early half of the first millennium BCE. Under this light, this paper aims to illustrate the local metallurgical development, exemplified by the key metal assemblage discovered at the Jundushan cemetery of the Yuhuangmiao culture. It contains wider social implications on the unique aspect of the Jundushan people and their broader communication network. The new alloying and lead isotopic analyses of 39 bronzes reveal a series of changes in both metallurgical practice and metal supply network. Jundunshan is characterized by the use of both high-tin and high-lead bronzes, with tin playing a particularly essential role. They are probably the result of two different alloying processes, one with almost pure copper being alloyed by pure tin, the other with pure copper combining with a specific tin-lead mixture (Sn: Pb ≈ 45:55). Lead isotopic data reveal a clear change during the transition between the mid and late stage of Jundushan. The major type of lead used in the last stage at Jundushan (ca. 6th–5th century BCE) appears not widely circulated in the states of central China, indicative of a local lead source accessed by Jundunshan. The new data bridge an important gap in our knowledge of the metallurgical practice and flow of metal around the early first millennium BCE in northeastern China, a region where agriculturalists and pastoralists were interacted.
期刊介绍:
Archaeometry is an international research journal covering the application of the physical and biological sciences to archaeology, anthropology and art history. Topics covered include dating methods, artifact studies, mathematical methods, remote sensing techniques, conservation science, environmental reconstruction, biological anthropology and archaeological theory. Papers are expected to have a clear archaeological, anthropological or art historical context, be of the highest scientific standards, and to present data of international relevance.
The journal is published on behalf of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford University, in association with Gesellschaft für Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie, ARCHAEOMETRIE, the Society for Archaeological Sciences (SAS), and Associazione Italian di Archeometria.