Analyses of the Siwa Culture Cemetery,Xujianian Site,Zhuanglang Country,Gansu Province - The Exploration of Burials and Health Conditions
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Chou, Meng-Jhen
Abstract
This theme is a study about relation between burial analyses and health conditions which belongs to difference academic categories in China archaeology. These data are from the Xujianian cemetery that is belonging to the Siwa Culture in the Gansu Provice. I try to explore the relationshops between burials and health conditions of burial owners through quantitative approaches.
The foundemental concep of burial analyses is labor investment involved in burials. In my opinion, the investment shows positive-correlation with status of burial owners in the societies. I measured labor investment of burials by volum of soil in burial, quantity of grave goods and grave value. There are multiple individual burials so that I definded quantity of grave goods and grave value by burial or individual seperately. Furthemore, I consider that space difference, sacrificed, and tradition of buried stones reflect affect the labor investment involved in burials.
Methods of bone analyses are to observe pathology phenomina on bones or teeth. We can see teeth pathology, arthritis, deforming body bones and cranium pathology on bones from the Xujianian mortuary. Carries, teeth lose before dying and enamel hypoplasia are common diseases in these burials. There are only few examples of pathologies on bones on different parts, which make comparative studies impossible. I will take these examples as case studies. Since possible reasons of inflammation are multiple, I also take them as case studies instead of overall explnations.
The result of burial analyses show that those burials sacrificed with people and those burried stones in mortuary have higher labor investment. However, spatial difference do not show clear difference in labor investment in these burials. According to these analyses, I suggest that certain rules do exist in the Xujianian cemetery practice, even through we cannot know the exact principle. Furthermore, some burials with buried stones also exsited in some pre-Zhou (or so-called early Western Zhou) cemeteries, which indicate some people in this socieites can contact with another cultural group, and these people might have higher social status than others.
I used two ways to analysize the relations between health condition and labor investment. The first is to analysis health conditions and degree of labor devision by carries and enamel hypoplasia. The second is to analyze 14 individuals with teeth lose before dying, arthritis, deforming body bones and cranium pathology on bones then campaire the degree of labor devison of their burial and all the burial in the cemetery. However, these analyses neither show clear relationships between health condition and labor devision. There are two possible reasons. One is that health conditions and labor investment actually have no relations. Gender is more important reason of health condition. The other reason is that the data is too deficient to show the whole health condition.
Subjects
甘肅考古
銅器時代晚期
墓葬量化分析
人骨病理學分析
Type
other
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-103-R99125005-1.pdf
Size
23.54 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):53512e0ba5d95ec6fe2aaa033b6b43a1