Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology

Iron production at the Zhujiazui site of the late Tang dynasty in Ezhou, South China

This study investigates iron production at the Zhujiazui site in Ezhou, Hubei Province, dating to the late 8th to the early 10th century AD. Macroscopic classification, metallographic analysis, and SEM-EDS examination of slags and iron artifacts were combined with reassessment of...

Beyond replication: Technological transmission and adaptive organization of modern human populations during the terminal Pleistocene at Fenghuangling, North China

How technological knowledge is transmitted and transformed remains a central topic in human evolution and behavioral ecology. During the Last Glacial Maximum and the subsequent deglaciation, climatic instability and associated demographic shifts provide an ideal window for unders...

Dietary shift from marine to agriculture in coastal Lower Yangtze Delta during Neolithic revealed by isotopic evidence from Jingtoushan

Neolithic agriculture is considered to have reduced marine food reliance among coastal populations, yet whether this dietary transition occurred in Neolithic China remains unclear. The lower Yangtze River Delta, central to both marine adaptation and rice agriculture origins, prov...

Archaeometallurgical Study of Middle to Late Western Han (c.140 BC – AD 8) Bronze Artifacts from Western Hunan, China

ABSTRACT Based on typology of cultural attributes, the present study classifies the middle to late Western Han period 21 bronze objects from western Hunan into two categories: objects with indigenous characteristics, and with Central Plains characteristics. The analytical results...

Preliminary analysis of the materials and production of Shang Dynasty pottery from Zhengzhou Shang City

Zhengzhou City, the capital during the early Shang period, witnessed the Shang Dynasty’s early splendor. This study presents chemical and petrographic analyses of 154 pottery artifacts from the Erligang period, excavated in the Northern Area of Shuyuan Street. The findings reveal...

The provenance of cobalt in glass from the Warring States to the Qin and Han periods excavated in China and the remelting of soda-lime glass in lead-barium glass

To investigate cobalt provenance in early Chinese glass, this study statistically analyses published compositional data for cobalt-blue and comparative glass samples, focusing on finds from China dating from the Warring States to the Han period and incorporating selected comparat...

Ancient DNA reveals early use of melons in China’s Song dynasty

Abstract Melon ( Cucumis melo L.) domestication is thought to have occurred independently once in Northeast Africa and twice in India, but archaeobotanical seed remains point to a possible additional domestication in China. Because Cucumis seeds are difficult to diagnose morpholo...

Tradition of wrapping grains in funerary rituals 2200 years ago

Fan Yang, Yong Ge, Ling Fang, Haiyan Wang, Shuzhi Wang, Jiajun Wang, Zhiguo Zhang; Tradition of wrapping grains in funerary rituals 2200 years ago, Nationa

Worked and Working Bones—Wild Resource Use in an Agricultural Neolithic Community at Miaodigou Site, China

This paper examines worked-bone production at the Miaodigou (MDG) site, a key Middle Neolithic settlement in northern China, to assess the role of bone objects in craft production, subsistence, and social life. During the expansion of millet agriculture and pig domestication, a s...