Sub-Project MC 8.2 Bronze Age Management in China: “Acting” in a Complex Cultural Landscape

Project Leader: Sabine Linder

This research focused on the introduction and appropriation of the bronze technology in China, whereby it differentiated several regions of interest (Northwestern China, North Central China, Southwestern China and Sichuan) and time periods (late 3rd, early 2nd, mid 2nd millennium BCE). It demonstrated the complexity of the translation and appropriation of knowledge in the different regions, which must not be understood as linear or uniform processes. After the relevant knowledge of bronze casting technology, ores, alloys and mines was transmitted from Central Asia to Northwestern China, local groups started producing small tools or bronze ornaments around 2000 BCE. Soon afterwards, alloyed metal artefacts are present in the archaeological context further to the south. Immediately, the consumption of cast bronze objects played a major role in the social practices during the second millennium BCE. The project especially elaborated on the translation of ceramic shapes into bronze shapes as a technique of upholding established practices and accepting change at the same time. Cross-craft interaction (Brysbaert 2011) between potters and emerging metallurgists seem to have been a crucial factor in the process of appropriation of the new technology as well as the ability of the metallurgists in North Central China to get access to sources of fine clay material necessary to construct the casting moulds. Accepting the diversity and multilinearity of bronzization (Vandkilde 2016) thus enables a much better understanding of China in the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BCE.