Small-scale bone working in a complex economy: The Daxinzhuang worked bone assemblage

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Highlights

  • Multi-scalar, multi-contextual study of a single industry at a secondary Shang center.

  • Contextually developed crafting variables centering on formality.

  • Holistic combination of debitage and assemblage analysis combined with experiments.

  • Daxinzhuang bone working was small-scale, largely formal, and generalized.

  • Local bone crafting conservative despite innovations in the capital and importation.

Abstract

Work of the last decade has expanded the picture of the Shang economy and challenged the assumption of its elite-distributive nature. Analysis of large-scale bone workshops at Anyang and the distribution of its mass-produced products in the small, remote village of Guandimiao all point to a more integrated economy. This paper explores bone crafting at the secondary center of Daxinzhuang and its relationship to the wider Shang political economy. We present a multi-scalar, holistic approach to bone working in a complex society. Using the large-scale bone working at the capital and the mostly informal bone working at a Shang village as points of comparison, we both characterize Daxinzhuang bone working and explore its larger economic context. We were able to show that although most Daxinzhuang bone working could be considered formal, it was small-scale, generalized, lacked bronze saws, was likely for local consumption and overall the bone industry showed less non-local integration than the village of Guandimiao. Our work shows how a craft production study can be integrated into a larger political economic context, how formality can be useful for distinguishing types of production, while our experimental results and images can form a basis for formal identifications and further research.

Introduction

Craft production and craft specialization have been seen as important topics in the investigation of ancient political economies at least since V. Gordon Childe linked them to urbanization (Childe 1950). At the same time, the linkages between forms of production and social complexity have themselves become more complex and nuanced since Childe’s time as scholars have increasingly recognized organizational diversity among and within ancient polities (Trigger, 2003, Smith, 2003, Yoffee, 2005, Campbell, 2009), political economies (Feinman and Nicholas, 2004, Schortman and Urban, 2004, Smith, 2004) and crafting industries (Peacock, 1982, Sinopoli, 2003). This development, in turn, has given rise to new approaches and increased focus on historical context as well as the place of particular crafts within larger political economies (eg. Murphy and Poblome, 2016, Feinman and Garraty, 2010, Masson et al., 2016, Moffett et al., 2020, Campbell et al., 2022).

If the necessity of understanding crafts within specific developmental trajectories and political economies has become apparent to many researchers, the study of multiple types of production within a single industry and their relation to one another and significance within the wider economy is no less necessary (Emery, 2001, Sinopoli, 2003, Costin, 2004). Such an approach is both multi-scalar and works toward a holistic picture. Thus, rather than attempting to derive levels of socio-political development or political economic modes from the analysis of individual crafts (eg. Costin 1991, see discussion in Hruby and Flad 2007), we attempt to characterize particular types of assemblages and forms of crafting within a single industry. This intra-industry comparative approach, in turn, contributes to a more complete view of a particular craft in terms of exchange and consumption as well as production. In so far as exchange mechanisms, consumption patterns and forms of production are not entirely specific to a single industry, their integrated study within one crafting economy provides useful lines of evidence in reconstructing the political economy in general. A further dimension, relevant to the issue of craft and socio-political development, is time. Changes in craft industries can be indicative, or even causative of wider political economic developments (eg. the industrial revolution) and so a diachronic perspective is crucial to a fuller understanding of crafting and its significance.

In this paper we focus on the concept of formality as a useful means of distinguishing different types of bone crafting. Based on Choyke (1997)’s “manufacturing continuum”, formality is conceived of as a more direct method of assessing production “intensity” and at least one sense of “specialization” (Costin, 1991, Hruby and Flad, 2007). As many authors have pointed out, production intensity is difficult to measure archaeologically (Rice, 1991, Sinopoli, 2003, Clark, 2007), requires the excavation of production sites and domestic contexts and most craftspeople working in complex polities would probably be considered “part time specialists” in any case (Trigger, 2003, Smith, 2004). Formality, on the other hand, is a variable derived from the characterization of artifacts and debitage and thus does not necessarily require excavation of production loci. Formality is a composite of skill/labor investment, raw material selection, standardization of production steps and techniques, use of specialized tools, and in the case of reductive technologies like bone working, degree of modification. Essentially the variable of formality considers products along a spectrum that ranges from the most finely and laboriously made artifacts to the ad hoc products of unskilled crafting. Formality is to some degree particular to specific historical contexts and industries and should be considered a flexible concept that must be adapted to local conditions and specific crafts. Because of this, context is vitally important, including an overall understanding of the industry in question, the variability of its forms of production, the range of things produced, the technologies available and the relative affordances of different production forms. In practical terms this implies the study of production loci as well as assemblages from as many different contexts as possible within a spatio-temporally delineated analytical unit (eg. economy, culture area, polity). Ideally it also involves archaeological replication experiments to explore technological choices and refine analyses.

In the case of the Central Plains Bronze Age, bone working has been associated with elite centers since the beginning of the period at Erlitou (ca. 1850–1600 BCE)1 (Chen and Li 2016) (Fig. 1) Table 1. At the same time, the formal bone working at the urban center of Erlitou and later Zhengzhou (ca. 1600–1400) BCE shows a range of production from fine, high labor/skill investment artifacts to quotidian tools, suggesting a wide consumer base and lack of product specialization (Campbell et al., 2022, Henansheng Wenwu Kaogu Yanjiusuo, 2001). Erlitou (300 ha) and Zhengzhou (1400 ha) were each the great Central Plains centers of their times (Campbell, 2014, Liu and Chen, 2012) and it is uncertain on current evidence what the relationship was between urban elites and bone crafting at these centers. Was the location of formal bone working in urban centers a function of broad demand or of elite provisioning and sponsorship (or elements of both)? The relationship between formal and informal boneworking at these sites is likewise unclear on current evidence. The situation of the Xiaoshuangqiao-Huanbei period (ca. 1400–1250 BCE) is even less clear although there is evidence of fine bone working at Huanbei Shangcheng (He 2019), and at the recently discovered site of Taijisi (Wuhan Daxue Lishixueyuan Kaoguxi and Anhuisheng Wenwu Kaogu Yanjiusuo, 2018) suggesting an intimate connection between elite sites and industries such as bronze casting and bone working (Campbell et al., 2022).

Much more information exists for the Anyang period (ca. 1250–1050 BCE) which seems to mark a transformation of Central Plains bone working industries, possibly driven by wider trends toward increased commercialization and economic integration (Campbell et al., 2022). The Anyang period bone industry differs from earlier periods in the advent of large-scale bone working and its specialization in hairpins for wide distribution ( Campbell et al., 2011, Li et al., 2011, Zhongguo Shehuikexueyuan Kaogu Yanjiusuo, 1994). This development appears to have caused a certain amount of specialization between bone working contexts, with extremely fine objects of exotic taxa and precious material and high skill/labor investment produced in small quantities in palace workshops for high elite consumption; mass-produced, high value added artifacts produced in large-scale workshops for broad consumption; a heterogeneous range of tools and quotidian objects produced by small-scale crafters; ad-hoc production of expedient tools from bone splinters and fragments found in domestic and many other contexts. Work on the large-scale bone working site of Tiesanlu, Anyang (Campbell et al. 2011) has shown that 90% of production was focused on perforators (pins, awls, and arrowheads), the vast majority of which were hairpins (Fig. 2). The materials used were largely cattle limb bones (especially metapodials) and, to a lesser extent, antler. Tool marks were almost exclusively left by bronze saws. In contrast, work on the Anyang period village of Guandimiao, located 200 km from Anyang, has shown not only how wide the distribution of mass-produced hairpins was, with Anyang-produced hairpins making up a significant portion of the assemblage, but that local bone industries existed alongside those of the capital (Hou et al. 2018). This local bone working was characterized by a lack of saws, the often opportunistic selection of easy-to-work (but often poor-quality) materials, and heterogeneity of materials, products and techniques (Fig. 3). Guandimiao and Tiesanlu represent examples at the opposite end of the Shang bone working spectrum, the one mostly informal, small-scale and for local consumption, the other formal, large-scale and for wide distribution.

A central question raised by the discovery of large-scale formal hairpin production at Shang Anyang and the presence of products of this kind in a remote Shang village is whether large-scale production was concentrated in the capital or if secondary urban centers were also sites of large-scale bone working. In other words, if the advent of large-scale product specialized bone workshops in the capital during the Anyang period could be said to have “disrupted” the bone crafting industry - stratifying bone crafting into production niches in the capital and distributing its products even to small and distant villages - what exactly were its wider effects on bone working at major centers beyond the capital and what are the larger political-economic implications? If Guandimiao is the model, we might expect Daxinzhuang local bone working to be limited to mostly informal and small-scale crafting with formal artifacts imported from the high-volume workshops of the capital. Alternatively, Daxinzhuang might also be a site of large-scale formal bone production like Anyang, or, retain the model of earlier Central Plains urban centers with a variety of relatively small-scale formal crafters producing a broad range of goods.

To answer these questions, a collaborative project was formed in 2016 between the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU and Shandong University, Department of Archaeology and Museology to study the worked bone materials recovered from the 2003 excavations at the Shang site of Daxinzhuang where a large concentration of bone artifacts and debitage was found. Daxinzhuang (30 ha) is the second largest known Anyang period Shang site and was a significant settlement from late Erligang through the end of the Anyang periods (Fang, 2013a, Campbell, 2014) (Fig. 4). It is widely believed to have been an outpost of the the expanding Shang kingdom during the Erligang period (Bagley, 1999, Liu and Chen, 2003, Zhongguo Shehuikexueyuan Kaogu Yanjiusuo, 2003) and the presence of Central Plains metropolitan as well as local material culture, burial traditions and other features supports the idea that Daxinzhuang was a place of contact and cultural negotiation (Li 2008). Whether Daxinzhuang was part of a centralized Shang kingdom that began with Erigang and continued through Anyang times, or part of culturally and politically allied hegemonic networks of polities that shifted in distribution, constituency and nature over the course of the 2nd millennium BC is a matter of debate linked to wider understandings of the political history of the Central Plains Bronze Age. Traditional Chinese historiography records the existence of the Xia and Shang dynasties in the period in question and relates their history in expansive, centralized terms that made sense to the early imperial historiographers that wrote them. Chinese archaeology has largely accepted this perspective (Li, 1997, Liu and Chen, 2003, Zhongguo Shehuikexueyuan Kaogu Yanjiusuo, 2003). Critics of this traditional historiographic view argue that contemporaneous inscriptions and archaeological evidence paint a more complex, less centralized picture and suggest direct and indirect zones of authority, networks of alliances and a more fluid political landscape (Keightley, 1979-80, Lin, 1982, Campbell, 2009, Campbell, 2014, Campbell, 2018). In any case, by the Anyang period, the zone of contact and interaction between Central Plains Metropolitan and local traditions had shifted to the east (Fang, 2013a, Zhongguo Shehuikexueyuan Kaogu Yanjiusuo, 2003) and the nature of Daxinzhuang is thought to have changed, with less evidence of elite activities and the settlement possibly becoming less politically important (Fang, 2013a, Fang, 2013b). Despite this, there is evidence of bronze casting at Daxinzhuang and even a few fragments of inscribed oracle-bones have been recovered (Fang, 2013b) – the latter a phenomenon that is otherwise almost exclusively restricted to the palace-temple area at Anyang in this period.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

The Daxinzhuang worked bone assemblage from contexts dating to the Shang period consists of a total of 37 fragments of production debris and 218 finished artifacts out of a total zooarchaeological assemblage of over 10,000 fragments from an excavation area of 630 m2. While Daxinzhuang has seen multiple surveys and excavations since the 1930′s (Fang, 2013b) and work on the site is ongoing, the 2003 excavations yielded the largest worked bone assemblage thus far. The 1984 excavations, which were

Raw materials

From previous work on Shang bone-working and that of other areas of the world, we know that one of the characteristics of informal or unspecialized bone crafting is either an opportunistic use of bone splinters or fragments that require little modification and therefore leave little to no debitage (Choyke 1997), or easy to work materials that do not require special tools or a large labor investment (Hou et al. 2018). Bone working at Anyang’s large-scale workshops, on the other hand, was largely

Conclusions

Crafting economies, like political economies in general, are best studied on multiple scales (Schortman and Urban, 2004, Feinman and Garraty, 2010, Campbell et al., 2022). In this paper we not only analyzed the worked bone assemblage from the 2003 excavations at Daxinzhuang but used studies at the Shang village site of Guandimiao and the large-scale bone workshop site at Tiesanlu, Anyang as reference points. Putting together all of the lines of evidence, Daxinzhuang bone working was

CRediT authorship contribution statement

H. Wang: Conceptualization, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Project administration, Funding acquisition. R. Campbell: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Funding acquisition. H. Fang: Resources, Supervision. Y. Hou: Conceptualization, Investigation, Resources. Z. Li: Conceptualization, Investigation.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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