Jar-Burial of Neolithic Taiwan: A Case Study at ShiChiao in Tainan City

72 jar burials, which belong to the Wushantou phase of the Tahu culture, were excavated from lower cultural layer of the ShiChiao site. In this thesis are the arrangement of the components, which are coffins, human bones and grave goods. Through statistical analysis and comparison, there is no obvious tendency for combination of form between the jars and the covers. The key factors is the size of the mouth of the potterys. There are, however, still main forms: jars with straight-wide mouth and roll-opened basin. This is related to the percentage of daily using potteries, in other words, the coffins for infant burials are acquired from everyday used potteries. That means the pottery of jar burials are not originally made for the funeral. In case an infant is dead, function of a daily used jar and basin would be changed. Offering goods are not found in all jar burials, only in 25% ones, and are containers of food and drink from people alive. There are two kinds of position for containers: top and bottom of the grave, but the form is cosistency. Human bones are dilapidated so that only few ones can be figure out the age. Most age data are determined from dental mophological methods, the age range is behind one and half years. Discrepancy of social characters desplay in the coffin of the burial between infants and adults. The same discrepancy can also be observed in different age of jar burials, which have different size of coffins, depth of graves, and with or without offering goods.