Consumption, exchange and production at the Great Settlement Shang: bone-working at Tiesanlu, Anyang.
Campbell, Roderick B. ; Li, Zhipeng ; He, Yuling 等
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Introduction
King's City (Chang 1985), pivot of the four quarters,
centripetalizing ceremonial center (Wheatley 1971) are all names and
descriptors for the Bronze Age mega-site located at Anyang, China, long
the source of social evolutionary counter-narratives (Chang 1980, 1983,
1985, 1990). Shang civilisation, according to the reigning paradigm, was
founded on political and religious rather than economic innovation and
its economy, unlike that of West Asian polities, was under-developed and
essentially tributary (Chang 1990; Liu & Chen 2003; Underhill &
Fang 2004). Yet if one looks more closely at the empirical foundations
of this paradigm it is clearly an edifice built on sand. Social and
economic research has not been on the agenda of Chinese archaeology
until very recently and it might be safer to say that outside of certain
aspects of elite practice we know almost nothing of Shang production,
exchange or consumption.
Bronze casting has been the flagship of ancient Chinese production
study (indeed is virtually the only ship in the fleet). Claimed to be
indexical of early Chinese civilisation (Bagley 1999), it was central to
the elite symbolic economy and the ancestral- sacrificial complex,
involving multiple, large-scale resource flows and sitting at the
pinnacle of technology. The nature of this economy, moreover, is widely
held to be redistributive and tributary, defined by inter-elite
exchanges and close control of production (Liu & Chen 2003; Li 2005;
Underhill & Fang 2004). This view, stemming from both elite- biased,
post-Shang textual sources and anthropological models of wealth
economies, creates the paradox that Shang China seems to have had a
chiefly gift-exchange economy yet, considering the kilo-tonnage of cast
bronze, on a scale precocious even for an 'early state' (Chang
1980). Despite this tendency to interpret the Central Plains Bronze Age
economy in terms of this one industry, there is reason to believe that
this is not the whole picture. Chen (2005), for instance, despite being
a prominent proponent of the bronze elite redistributive production
model, notes, based on stone tool crafting at Huizui, that there may
have been separate economies for non-elite goods. Campbell (2007) has
argued, based on epigraphic evidence, for expansive, ad hoc, as well as
routine and intensive Shang economic networks, not all of which were
directly controlled by the court.
The large bone-working areas discovered at Anyang present an
interesting and understudied window into Shang production. Previous
research (ZSKY 1987, 1994; ZSKYAG 1992; Meng & Xie 2006) suggests
that their main products were hairpins, an artefact not necessarily
destined for elites. On the other hand, the most common raw material
used in this production, the limb bones of cattle, derived from an
animal of immense royal and ritual importance. Moreover, the location
and scale of the bone-working areas mimics the patterns of
bronze-working at the site: massive, multiple, redundant production
sites located within apparent production zones (Figure 1). These
apparent contradictions and broad linkages between different facets of
Shang society suggest that Anyang's bone-working areas may offer
novel perspectives on Shang social economies.
Up till now, archaeologists have reconstructed Shang civilisation
largely from mortuary deposits, or the afterlife of things. Production
studies, on the other hand, afford an opportunity to focus on the birth
of things and the effects engendered by their entry into the social
matrix. While much of the literature on production has been centred on
neo-evolutionary attempts to make production serve as a proxy for social
complexity, more recently interest has shifted to such topics as
production traditions (Lemonnier 1986; Feinman & Nicholas 2004),
philosophies of technology (Sillar 1996; Boivin 2008) and ritual
economies (McAnany & Wells 2008), at the same time that artefacts
are increasingly seen as things with agency (Gell 1998; Latour 2005).
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Bone-working at Anyang
The excavations at Tiesanlu in Anyang provided an opportunity to
study intensively a vast assemblage of production debris and its varied
depositional contexts. In 2006 a road repair salvage excavation revealed
a large bone-working area consisting of hundreds of middens, 151 tombs,
12 structures and over 34 000kg of animal bone (Figure 2), most of it
worked and all of it dating between Anyang phase II and phase IV (c.
1200-1050 BC) corresponding with the zenith of the Shang mega-centre
(ZSKY 2003). Although this excavation produced one of the world's
largest archaeological collections of worked bone, it was essentially a
10m wide trench through a much larger site and, in turn, is only one of
at least three major bone-working areas at Anyang (ZSKY 1987, 1994;
ZSKYAG 1992; Meng & Xie 2006) and probably not the largest (Li et
al. forthcoming).
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
Due to the size of the assemblage, a dual scalar approach was
adopted to obtain an overall understanding of the distribution of bone
debris and finished artefacts over the entire site and to analyse
intensively a single, deeply stratified excavation unit. The goals of
the tine scale of analysis were to work out reduction paths, taxa,
element, part and product ratios and their potential changes over time.
After sorting bone from ceramic and lithic assemblages and weighing the
bone according to context, the distribution of bone debris could be
plotted across the site (Figure 3). Observation during this phase of
work suggested that the assemblage was dominated by worked cattle limb
bone fragments. The bone deposits occurred both in middens and
unassociated with features and showed three major (units 1-4, 6, 8-11)
and one minor concentration (units 15-19) extending approximately 200m
north-south. An analysis of all finished and semi-finished artefacts
collected during excavation (n = 571) showed that they also occurred in
concentrations but not isomorphic with each other or the distribution of
general bone debris.
Unit 5-especially stood out as an area with relatively little in
the way of dump remains and a disproportionately high degree of finished
and semi-finished products. It also contained portions of two building
foundations and it is possible that unit 5 was an early phase (II-III)
workshop area. Unit 5 included portions of 21 large and small middens,
sections of two rammed earth structures, 18 tombs and two layers of
deposit dating from Yinxu phase II-IV.
[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]
[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]
The majority of the bone deposits were located in the early
contexts (Layer 5 and midden H21) with phase IV middens (H1 & H7)
next in terms of quantity (Figure 4). Of the 8153 fragments analysed, a
high percentage showed evidence of sawing and/or grinding (42% by
fragment; 51% by weight). Large bovines, deer and pigs comprise the
majority of the mammalian taxa (Table 1) as well as the total
assemblage, and were virtually the only taxa that were worked.
Medium mammals include fragments identified only to size and class:
dogs, sheep and goats. Other includes tiger, buffalo, horse and human.
The small mammal fragments include those identified only to size and
class and small cervids. Deer and pig were almost entirely represented
by head elements, over 99% of which was antler in the case of deer, and
mandibles (remains of tusk extraction) in the case of pigs (Figure 5).
Cattle element distribution (Figures 5 & 6) shows an overall
predominance of metapodials, especially metacarpals, reflecting a
probable opportunity cost trade-off between food (grease and marrow) and
bone-working utility. Thus, distal elements were favoured over proximal
and forelimbs over hindlimbs. The cattle head elements were nearly all
mandibles, apparently for spade production (Figure 7; Table 2).
[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]
[FIGURE 6 OMITTED]
Provision for sacrifice
Cattle, pigs and deer reached their points of consumption by
different mechanisms, but especially via sacrifice. Pigs, prominent in
domestic economies since the Neolithic in China, were likely raised
locally, in close proximity to humans, consuming their refuse and in
turn being consumed by them (Yuan & Flad 2002). The ritual use of
pigs had gradually declined in the centuries before Anyang's
construction (Yuan & Flad 2005) and their mention in oracle-bone
divinations concerning royal sacrifice declined markedly after phase II
(Campbell forthcoming). The Tiesanlu pigs then, need not have been
involved in elite ritual and were possibly from a variety of local
sources.
The deer, on the other hand, were hunted, some possibly at distant
locales (Keightley 2000), either on a small scale or in the frequent
large-scale hunts enjoyed by the Shang kings such as this oracle-bone
records:
Wu Wu day cracked, Ke Divined: We (should) hunt at Gui, (for if we
do, we will capture (game). On this day (the King) hunted, and
indeed captured (game). (We) [caught] tiger, one; deer, forty;
"foxes", [two] hundred and sixty four; "antler-less deer" one
hundred and fifty nine. (heji 10198)
While the Shang kings may not have held a hunting monopoly as some
have claimed (Fiskesj6 2001), it is the case that wild animals make up a
tiny proportion of residential faunal assemblages at Anyang but appear
in great quantity and variety in the palace-temple area (Li 2009),
suggesting that deer and other wild animals were largely consumed by
elites.
[FIGURE 7 OMITTED]
The cattle, though domestic, were probably not all of local origin
as the following oracle-bone inscription indicates:
Yi Hai (day) cracked, (Diviner) Zheng divined: "(We should perform
the) Yousacrifice (with) the cattle brought by the Wei Fang from
(Ancestor) Shang Jia (on down). First Month. (heji 10084)
This inscription not only shows the king divining about a gift of
cattle, but those sending them in are long-time enemies of the Shang
court. What is more, aside from human captives, cattle were the
kings' most frequently divined form of tribute (Campbell 2007,
2009) while the oracle-bones refer to lao (penned cattle), which may
have been fattened on millet and became the most common sacrificial
victim in the phase IV royal ritual. At the same time, a study of the
inventory notations on the cattle scapulas used in royal divination suggest that they--sometimes in the form of live cattle--came to the
Great Settlement as requisitions from nearby places securely under royal
control (Campbell 2007, 2009).
The potential scale of sacrifice is suggested by the following
inscription:
Divined: (In performing) the exorcism ritual, it should be cattle,
three hundred (that we offer). (heji 300)
The symbolic significance of cattle is further indicated by its use
as one of two media of royal divination with the royal consorts
themselves sometimes preparing the scapulas, as in the following
oracle-bone inventory notation:
Consort Jing prepared thirty (scapula). (Signed, Diviner) Zheng.
Nevertheless, recent work (Li 2009) has shown that beef consumption
was widespread at Anyang suggesting massive redistributive mechanisms
for royal sacrificial flesh--the above sacrifice would have produced
around 75 000kg of meat--more localised consumption of lineage-owned
cattle--perhaps also in sacrificial feast--or, most likely, both.
The bone industry: acquisition
The subsequent paths of pigs, deer and cattle partially converged
at the TSL bone-working area. They only partially converge, because the
element ratios above show that the animals were butchered elsewhere and
only selected elements where taken to TSL. The relative quantity of
unworked riders such as phalanges, carpals and tarsals suggests that, in
the case of cattle, at least 5% of the time, articulated limbs were
brought in. Since 15.5% of joint elements and phalanges show rodent
gnawing, as opposed to 1.7% of the long bones, the riders were either
exposed in a way that the worked bone was not prior to deposition, or
they were deposited uncleaned. In either case, it appears that the
cleaning and degreasing processes took place at the work site.
Looking at the issue of the kind of exchange that brought the bone
crafters their raw materials, there are several lines of evidence to
consider. First, the widespread use of cattle scapula in elite
divination across Anyang (Flad 2008) and the paucity of non- oracle-bone
cattle scapula at TSL, or other loci at Anyang, suggest that there were
well- developed mechanisms for post-butchery bone distribution apart
from the bone artefact industry. Second, although pigs were widespread,
the large-scale use of antler and cattle bone may suggest a connection
to royal practices of hunting and sacrifice. Nevertheless, the multiple,
redundam distribution of large industrial areas around Anyang argues
against direct, centralised management (Li 2005; Campbell 2007). Indeed,
the current understanding of the Great Settlement as being composed of
an amalgamation of lineage settlements (Tang 2004) and burial grounds
would suggest that industrial areas or individual industries were likely
in the hands of particular lineages, as later texts suggest, perhaps
managed on behalf of the king. Moreover, there is evidence for domestic
bone artefact production suggesting that access to bone was widespread
and not monopolised. Given these things, it seems likely that there was
a large centralised distribution mechanism for royal activity-related
animal by-products, smaller ones for lesser lineages and ad hoc bone
collection as well.
Production
The most remarkable aspect of the bone-working at TSL is its scale.
The chief excavator of TSL, He Yuling, conservatively estimates the main
bone-working area was approximately 17 600m2 (Figure 1) based on the
2002 and 2006 excavations. Estimating the number of cattle used at the
site, unit 5 had a Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) of 155 and
contained 1% of the total 2006 assemblage by weight, yielding a total
MNI of 15 500 for the 2006 excavation. Extrapolating over the estimated
bone-working area yields (15 500/2400[m.sup.2]) 17 600[m.sup.2] = 113
667 head of cattle, or roughly two per day for the 150 years of
bone-working activity. Using the element distributions worked out for
unit 5 this would mean a minimum of 14 cattle bones to be cleaned,
degreased, sawed into blanks, ground into shape then polished,
perforated or carved with bronze and stone tools, not including antler
or tusk working.
To understand how many artefacts could have been created from those
bones, however, we must determine what was being created from them.
Beginning with the 571 finished and semi-finished artefacts collected
during excavation, perforators (including decorative pins and awls)
dominate the assemblage (90%), as was expected based on previous studies
of Anyang bone-working sites (ZSKY 1987, 1994; Figure 7; Table 2).
Nevertheless, factors such as ease of breakage during manufacture
might create a bias in favour of more fragile or difficult pieces.
Indeed, looking at the manufacturing debris for unit 5, (debitage 87%;
blanks 6%; finishing 7%; finished <1%), and despite the comparatively
large number of semi-finished artefacts, debitage still comprises the
vast majority of the worked bone. Systematically comparing the debitage
to the blanks, the most common reduction sequences for each element can
be reconstructed (Figure 8).
Comparing blanks to semi-finished artefacts it was also possible to
deduce which artefacts were produced from which raw materials and
estimate how many could be produced per element, or in the case of
antler, per unit equivalent (Figure 8; Table 2).
[FIGURE 8 OMITTED]
Combining this with the Minimum Number of Elements (MNE) for each
element, a Maximum Production Estimate from Debitage (MPED) was
calculated. To see how well these figures agreed with the deposition of
artefacts at the site, bone artefacts recovered from 11 034[m.sup.2] of
excavations at a variety of residential loci (ZSKY 1987, 2004) as well
as 1424 lineage cemetery tombs (ZSKY 1979, 1987, 1998) at Anyang were
tabulated and plotted against the MPED for unit 5 and the total finished
and semi-finished artefacts recovered from TSL (Figure 9).
Looking at Figure 9, the MPED for perforators (the combined score
for decorative pins/indefinite perforators/awls) is 65%, and though
likely to be biased toward production sequences that produce large
quantities of debris, it agrees well with the figure for perforators
recovered at Anyang (decorative pins [45%] + awls [21%] = 66%), but is
lower than the perforator score for TSL recovered artefacts (decorative
pins [48%] + indeterminate perforators [35%] + awls [7%] = 90%). The
high TSL figure for recovered perforators may be due to the relative
fragility of decorative pins and thus the higher likelihood of breakage
and discard during production. The high MPED measure for awls stems from
the fact that the different forms of perforator are all produced from
the same kind of blank and thus are not distinguished in the MPED
calculation.
The difference between the TSL and Anyang awl scores is likely due
to the fact that awls are also domestically produced and are less likely
to break during manufacture than ornamental pins. The MPED and TSL
under-representation of spatulas is likely related to the fact that when
produced from ribs they leave little debitage and are unlikely to break
during production. Tusk ornaments present the opposite scenario in being
over-represented by the MPED. Since the MPED calculation was based on
counts of nearly complete pig mandibles, however, it is likely to be
accurate and means that either unit 5 is not representative of the TSL
production as a whole or that tusks were used in contexts outside the
scope of our Anyang residential and mortuary sample. The 210 pieces used
as inlay on a lacquer vessel in royal tomb 1001 (Kao 1976), or the
hundreds of tusk plaques used to decorate horse fittings in some chariot
burials (Yue Hongbin, pers.comm.) gives some credence to the latter
possibility. The discrepancy between the recovery of artefacts in the
category of other at TSL and other sites at Anyang is possibly due to
domestic production of some tool types, that small artefacts (such as
beads) are unlikely to be recovered in non-mortuary contexts without
screening and that many of the artefact types would not break as easily
during production as ornamental pins, biasing their recovery at
production sites.
[FIGURE 9 OMITTED]
Returning to the issue of production scale, perforator and
arrowheads combined account for roughly 90% of cattle bone based
production at TSL whether derived from MPED, TSL or Anyang recovered
artefacts (98%, 97% & 79% respectively). If the remaining 10% of
cattle bone production was comprised of shovels, tubes and spatulas then
total TSL production from the 14 elements per day calculated above would
yield: 0.9([14.sub.elements] x [6.sub.artefacts/element])
0.1([14.sub.elements] x [1.sub.artefacts/element]) = 77 artefacts
produced per day, or around ([77.sub.artefacts] x 54 [750.sub.days]) = 4
215 750 artefacts over the lifetime of the production area from cattle
bone alone. How many people would have been required to produce that
many artefacts is difficult to determine without replication
experiments, but surely there were dozens of craftspeople at work at TSL
throughout its operation.
The polished, symmetrical form of even the most ordinary decorative
pins and the technical difficulty manifest in the finest testifies to
the presence of skilled craftspeople, while tare, intricately carved and
inlaid pieces found in some high elite tombs speaks to the existence of
master bone-carvers somewhere at Anyang: perhaps at TSL. Nevertheless,
the cleaning, degreasing, blank preparation and even initial grinding
could have been done by less skilled workers.
If there were many craftspeople and at least some of them were
highly skilled, then a further question might be, 'how were they
organised?' For even if they were members of a common lineage, as
archaeological and textual evidence suggests (Chang 1980; Tang 2004; Zhu
2004), one could just as easily imagine a collection of independent
family producers as a single integrated workshop. While it will take
further work to determine this issue, even at this preliminary stage
there is some tantalising evidence in favour of specialisation, division
of labour and overall integration. As noted above, there are large,
non-isomorphic concentrations of debitage and semi-finished artefacts
possibly indicating the existence of areas associated with different
production stages. Production techniques were also relatively
standardised with common reduction sequences for each bone element.
Perhaps even more suggestive is the large-scale production of decorative
pins in batches as in the 49 broken phase II bird-form pins found in
unit 5, midden H21, and the 107 phase IV composite pinheads from unit 9,
layer 5 (Figure 10). Not only do the large numbers of these pin wasters
suggest even larger numbers of unflawed pins and pinheads produced in
stylistically uniform batches, they show standardised production steps.
Ledderose (2001) has argued that Chinese crafts have a long
tradition of 'modular production' characterised by
specialisation, standardisation, the production of things in sets and
the use of modules that can be combined in different ways. These combine
to enable the mass-production of high quality objects such as the First
Emperor's terracotta army. If 'modularity' is a
characteristically Chinese 'technological philosophy'
(Lemonnier 1986; Sillar 1996), then we might expect to find modular
production in Shang bone- working as indeed is suggested in the large
batches of matching decorative pins produced in standardised steps and
the componential design of the phase IV pins, with the heads and stems
possibly produced in different areas.
In terms of wider social context, the presence of sections of
large, superimposed, rammed-earth courtyard structures in units 12-14
and 13-15, sandwiched between two concentrations of debitage indicates
the presence of elites or perhaps public architecture--such as a lineage
temple--associated with the bone-working area. Sections of nine smaller,
less well-preserved foundations and subterranean structures in units 1-9
may have served as workshops or dwellings for the non-elite craftsmen,
while the intermingled tombs were likely their final resting places. The
mixture of residences and burials of different size and wealth is also
characteristic of other Anyang locales interpreted as lineage
settlements (ZSKY 2003; Tang 2004).
The image tentatively sketched is one of a hierarchical
bone-crafting lineage, operating a large-scale, integrated workshop,
churning out batches of perforators among other things, and of those,
primarily decorative pins. Nevertheless, the questions of who the
products were for and what paths they took after production remain to be
answered.
[FIGURE 10 OMITTED]
Exchange and consumption
The Institute of Archaeology's 1994 synthesis of Anyang
archaeology (ZSKY 1994) states that over 24 000 bone artefacts had then
been recovered, mostly from elite tombs. Of these, 85% were arrowheads
and the majority of these artefacts came from royal or high elite tombs
such as the 672 spatulas and 6583 arrowheads from HPKM1001 (Kao 1976) or
the 499 hairpins from royal consort Fu Hao's tomb (ZSKY 1980). The
impression that the bone workshops were primarily provisioning elite
tombs is, however, misleading. Despite the prodigious consumption of
bone artefacts on display in some elite burials, if one considers that
the survey of residential areas and lineage tombs showed a bone artefact
density of (1769/11 034 [m.sup.2]) = 0.16/[m.sup.2] and
(210/[1424.sub.tombs]) = 0.15/tomb respectively, extrapolating over
Anyang's 30k[m.sup.2], there should be over five million bone
artefacts outside elite mortuary contexts.
Considering that the royal tombs have already been excavated and
probably the majority of the high elite tombs accounted for, elite
mortuary deposition of bone artefacts can account for only a small
fraction of the total bone-working output. Moreover, despite the vast
estimated size of bone artefact consumption at Anyang, if we consider
that TSL is only one of three major bone-working areas (Li et al.
forthcoming), and if our back-of-the-envelope calculation of over four
million artefacts for TSL is accurate, then bone workshop production
outstripped local consumption, perhaps by as much as 300%. While such a
massive surplus could possibly have been dispersed to non-local
subordinates and allies in elite gifting, and while different artefacts
may well have followed different pathways of exchange, the widespread
distribution of most of the TSL products makes the possibility of
circulation through other mechanisms such as markets or informal
exchange seem far more likely.
Social lives of things
The products of TSL, dispersed along many different social paths,
would have participated in a variety of different practices. Spatulas,
for instance, are generally associated with high-status burials and were
probably used in elite sacrificial feasting. Sometimes elaborately
carved, inlaid with turquoise or even inscribed, the social lives of
spatulas intersected and helped perform foodways, ritual, status and
commemoration. Awls, spades and likely some of the non-decorative pins,
on the other hand, usually found in midden contexts, were unadorned
production tools. As they were sometimes produced domestically, it is
unclear if the TSL tools were meant for royal workshops or for wider
distribution. In any case, they were facilitators of farming, corvee labour, drudgery and craft. Bone arrowheads, like their bronze
counterparts, were widely distributed in tombs and middens, and
participated in the key, twinned practices of hunting and war (Keightley
2000; Fiskesjo 2001; Campbell 2007, 2009). Decorative pins, on the other
hand, while not part of standard Shang burial assemblages, occasionally
occur in large numbers in the tombs of elite women where matching sets
were used in elaborate hairstyles or headdresses (ZSKY 1980).
Nevertheless, decorative pins are more commonly found in tombs
singularly and with individuals of all ages and sexes, while the vast
majority were deposited widely in residential areas, discarded or
forgotten.
These lines of evidence suggest that while the finest decorative
pins were likely made for elite Shang women, most of those produced at
TSL would have found their way into the hands of ordinary people. One of
the few surviving elements of Shang adornment, along with beads, jades
and vanished fabrics, they were the mass-produced constituents of
aestheticised bodies and graded social being.
Conclusion
Though superficially a collection of worked bone debris, the TSL
assemblage bears mute testimony to a node of networks linking and
transforming animals, people and things near and far, across a
bewildering number of social fields in late second-millennium BC north
China. Although still preliminary, the work done on TSL suggests a
large-scale and integrated bone-working site, perhaps organised on a
similar template to the bronze workshop on which it borders. It likely
acquired its raw materials from a variety of sources, but was at least
indirectly connected to royal ritual activities.
Contextual information suggests the workshop was under the control
of a hierarchical lineage, while diverse lines of evidence suggest that
centralised redistribution mechanisms would have played a role in
provisioning the workshop and likely also in redistributing some of its
products. More surprisingly, the scale of production and its widespread
distribution suggests that much of it was meant for non-elite and
perhaps even non-local consumption. If the admittedly preliminary
production calculations presented here are correct, moreover, then we
must seriously consider the possibility of Shang markets and non-elite
economies that may have eclipsed the ritual economy of the high elites.
In short, we may need to rethink the dominant model of Shang economy and
polity.
This rethinking will have to take a closer look at the biases built
into both the sources and practices of Shang archaeology and history.
Non-elites, quotidian production and trade have been largely ignored in
Shang archaeology as lack of evidence has been conflated with lack of
importance. It now seems quite likely that Anyang was more precocious
than hitherto imagined, its economy more developed and that enormous
social and economic change and intensification had occurred in the
Bronze Age centuries before its supposed Iron Age advent.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Luce/ACLS East Asian Archaeology
initiative for generous post-doctoral funding of the eight-month
preliminary study at the Anyang station, the Institute of Archaeology,
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, for its ongoing support, and all the
people at the Anyang station for their help and generosity. Campbell
would especially like to thank Sue Alcock and the Joukowsky Insitute of
Archaeology and the Ancient World for providing an institutional home
during this research. The authors would like to thank Rowan Flad,
Jessica Rawson and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments
on previous versions of this paper.
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Roderick B. Campbell (1), Zhipeng Li (2), Yuling He (3) & Yuan
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Received: 7 February 2011; Accepted: 5 Apri12011; Revised: 18 April
2011
Table 1. Relative frequency of mammalian taxa recovered from unit
5 based on specimens identified and bone weight.
Number of identified
Taxa specimens (NISP) Weight (g)
Bos sp. 810 9.9% 45 394 21.9%
Indeterminate large bovine 3362 41.3% 88 464 42.6%
Indeterminate large mammal 1749 21.5% 29 886 14.4%
Pig 579 7.1% 27 583 13.3%
Cervid 276 3.4% 5907 2.8%
Other medium mammal 334 4.1% 3821 1.8%
Other 34 0.4% 1046 0.5%
Small mammal 11 0.1% 65 <0.1%
Indeterminate 994 12.2% 5253 2.5%
Total 8149 100% 207 419 100%
Table 2. Raw materials and production estimates based on analysis of
semi-finished artefacts and debitage.
Mean estimated artefact
Products recovered NISP Related debitage per element/unit
Perforators 513 Limb bones (90%) 6
Antler (10%)
Arrowheads 42 Limb bones (55%) 6
Antler (45%)
Spatulas 8 Ribs (75%) 1
Humerus (25%)
Shovels 4 Cattle mandible 1
Tusk ornaments 0 Pig mandible 1
Tubes 1 Tibia 1
Plaques 1 Ribs 10