The archaeometallurgy team of Sichuan University published new findings in the Journal of World Prehistory.
Recently, the Journal of World Prehistory published a research paper titled 'Reassessing Bronze Age Metallurgy in Upland Southwest China on the Basis of Excavations at Longbohe, Yunnan'. This study systematically reconstructed the metallurgical production "operation chain" represented by the Longbohe site in Jinping, Yunnan, as a typical case. It re-examined the existing discoveries in metallurgical archaeology in the mountainous areas of Southwest China from a new perspective, proposed a new understanding of the "mountain tradition" of metallurgy in the Bronze Age in the mountainous areas of Southwest China, and discussed the dissemination ages and paths of Bronze Age metallurgical technology in the mountainous areas of Southwest China and mainland Southeast Asia on this basis.
The Longbohe site is located on the southeastern edge of Jinping County, Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan Province, in the Sino-Vietnamese border area. From 2017 to 2019, the School of Archaeology and Museology of Sichuan University and the Yunnan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology conducted several surveys of the site, discovering a total of 12 site locations and more than 20 ancient mine娲瀞. In 2019, sites 1, 2, and 3 were excavated, revealing remains such as smelting furnaces, house foundations, ash pits, and material storage pits. Metallurgical production tools such as concave stones, stone pestles, stone grinders, stone casting molds, ceramic casting molds, and crucible fragments were unearthed. Most importantly, 28 subterranean smelting furnaces were cleared. The Longbohe site dates from 1400-50 BC and integrates mining, smelting, and casting. It is currently the earliest metallurgical site discovered in the mountainous areas of Southwest China and mainland Southeast Asia with the most complete metallurgical "operation chain".
Schematic diagram of the geographical location of the Longbohe site
The "mountain metallurgical tradition" proposed based on the archaeological discoveries at the Longbohe site provides a new perspective and method for observing the metallurgy of the Bronze Age and the bronze culture of the southwestern mountains in China. Metallurgical archaeological work in the Central Plains region has shown that during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the region had formed a "Central Plains metallurgical tradition" characterized by official control and vertical furnace smelting and composite mold casting. The characteristics of the "mountain metallurgical tradition" mainly include mountain site selection, stone mining tools and processing techniques, subterranean furnaces and refractory technology, double molds and crucibles, and their melting and casting technology.
Furnace cluster at the Longbohe site
This study re-examined the dissemination ages and paths of Bronze Age metallurgical technology in the mountainous areas of Southwest China and mainland Southeast Asia. For many years, international academia has been debating this issue, gradually forming two major theoretical models. One is the "long chronology" led by Joyce White, which, based on the dating data from the Ban Chiang site in northeastern Thailand, proposes that copper metallurgy technology was introduced into northwestern China by the Seima-Turbino people from southern Siberia between 2000-1800 BC, and then entered the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and Southeast Asia via the "mountain route", i.e., the eastern foothills of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The other is the "short chronology" led by Charles Higham, which, based on the dating data from several sites such as Ban Non Wat in north-central Thailand, believes that copper metallurgy technology was introduced into the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and Southeast Asia from the Shang Dynasty in the Central Plains via the "coastal route", i.e., the Lingnan region, between 1100-1000 BC. The author team, through the analysis of the existing materials in the mountainous areas of Southwest China and the "Crescent-shaped marginal cultural communication zone", believes that the "long chronology" is more reasonable in terms of path. In terms of age, combined with the new dating data of the Jicha site and the Longbohe site, it is believed that the mountainous areas of Southwest China should have entered the Bronze Age between 1600-1400 BC. In addition, through the comparative analysis of ancient metallurgical remains in the mountainous areas of Southwest China and mainland Southeast Asia, the author team proposed that metallurgy entered mainland Southeast Asia from the mountainous areas of Southwest China through north-south rivers such as the Irrawaddy River, the Nujiang River, the Lancang River, and the Red River, which further deepened the research on the dissemination routes of metallurgical technology.
Two theoretical paths for the introduction of metallurgy into the mountainous areas of Southwest China and mainland Southeast Asia
Theoretical paths for the spread of metallurgy from the mountainous areas of Southwest China to mainland Southeast Asia
The first author of the paper is Fu Jie, a doctoral student at the School of Archaeology and Museology, Sichuan University, the second author is Professor Li Yingfu of the School of Archaeology and Museology, Sichuan University, and the corresponding author is Associate Professor Li Yuniu of the School of Archaeology and Museology, Sichuan University. Hu Changcheng, Associate Researcher of Yunnan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Wan Yang, Associate Researcher, Yang Fan, Researcher, Zhu Yunsheng, Researcher of Honghe Autonomous Prefecture, Vincent C. Pigott of the University of Pennsylvania, and Charles Higham, Emeritus Professor of the University of Otago, New Zealand, are co-authors of this article.
After the publication of this achievement, it has attracted the attention of scholars in related fields. Joyce White, a well-known Southeast Asian archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania, sent a congratulatory email. Oliver Pryce of the French National Centre for Scientific Research wrote to express his hope to jointly carry out metallurgical archaeology in the southwestern mountains with scholars from China, France, and Vietnam.
'Journal of World Prehistory' is a journal indexed by SSCI and AHCI, with 4 issues per year. Each issue generally publishes 3 papers, mainly including comprehensive research results in East Asia, Eastern Europe, and other regions. The impact factor is 3.6, and the journal citation index ranks among the top three in the fields of anthropology and archaeology.