Longshan

See also: Longshan (homonymy)

The culture of Longshan 龍山 is a Chinese culture of the Neolithic late (3000-2000 av. J.C) which developed with the Shandong, with the Liaodong and in the lower and average basin of the yellow Fleuve, with the Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei, Jiangsu and Hubei. It draws its name from the borough of Longshan on the territory of the commune of Jinan in Shandong, where Wu Jinding discovered in 1928 the site of Chengziyai.

It is especially known for a type of black pottery to the thin wall “like an egg shell” and on the polished surface, production of prestige made possible by the invention of the turn and of furnaces being able to reach a very high temperature.

One attends the appearance of techniques and styles which one will find in the culture of Erlitou, then at the Shang. This fact, related to their geographical proximity, encourages the majority of the Chinese archeologists as certain foreign historians as Jacques Gernet to think that Longshan constitutes the ancestor, or at least one of the ancestors, of the cultures Erlitou and Shang.

As in the older culture of Yangshao, the subsistence rests on hunting, fishing, the breeding (pigs, dogs, sheep, bovines) and the agriculture whose productions diversify; rice is attested beside the always prevalent millet. It seems that better means of production allowed a food diversification and an slight increase of the population, with mitigated effects however. Thus, a study of the department of anthropology of the University of bearing Missouri on sites of Shanxi highlights differences between the periods Yangshao and Longshan: passage to a food asking less efforts masticatoires, but also reduction in the size of the adults, increase in the decays and osseous disorders which had with the deficiencies. Habitats surrounded by compact ground walls and ditches, the first cities, appear. Most famous is Taosi in the county of Xiangfen to Shanxi, gone back to 2500 with 2000 av. J.C. It sheltered nine tombs of important characters. The social, visible stratification in the difference of funerary furniture, becomes manifest during this period.

The divination by ostéomancie or Scapulomancie, which will know its apogee under Shang and will last until the day before empire, is already practiced. One finds parts carrying of the signs, but not yet of writing. The first bronzes appear towards the end of the period. A remarkable set of small bells undoubtedly intended for the ceremonial music was found in Taosi.

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