Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1982 - 59

Ta-ho-ts'un:
A

Honan

Neolithic

Site

China

by Mary H. Fong

The archaeology of China has become
increasingly visible now that more and
more details of archaeological work conducted by Chinese experts are receiving
worldwide publicity. Long considered to
be the cradle of civilization, Honan province has yielded some of the most significant remains of China's past. The
most outstanding among the numerous
Neolithic sites around Cheng-chou, the
present capital of Honan, is Ta-ho-ts'un,
located about six kilometers northeast
of the city. Here, after seven seasons of
excavation carried out between 1972
and 1975, Chinese archaeologists reported the discovery of one of the most
significant remains of China's Neolithic
period in Honan.
Ta-ho-ts'un, first revealed by surveys
made since the site's discovery in 1964,
covers an area of 300,000 square meters. By 1975, archaeologists had uncovered 22 house remains, 101 pits, and 106
burials (62 of them in urns), along with
at least 1,500 pottery fragments in good
or restorable condition, and numerous
stone, bone, shell, and jade objects. The
greatest concentration of cultural deposits extends some seven meters below
the surface. So far, several successive
periods in Chinese history have been
identified, including Middle and Late
Yang-shao (ca. 3800-3200 b.c.), Transitioned or Miao-ti-kou II (ca. 3200-2500
b.c.), Early and Late Lung-shan (ca.
2500-2000 b.c.), and Shang (1766-1122
b.c.). The lowest stratum, believed to
belong to the Early Yang-shao period
MARY H. FONG is AssociateProfessorof
OrientalArt Historyin theDepartmentofArt
at the UniversityofCalifornia,Davis.

(ca. 5400-3800 b.c.), has yet to be explored. The peripheries of the site are
less deep, but contain deposits of Late
Lung-shan and Shang; the southern section, which is closest to Cheng-chou, a
former ancient capital of Early Shang
times, is particularly rich in Lung-shan
and Shang remains.
Ta-ho-ts'un is so important for ancient Chinese history that authorities
decided to preserve it, and erected an
architectural superstructure over part
of the site, maintaining it as a museum.
The area selected for preservation, although on a smaller scale than that of
the Early Yang-shao site of Pan-p'ots'un in Shensi, includes the floors of a
group of Yang-shao houses which have
yielded some of the most colorful Neolithic finds.
The Late Yang-shao house foundations at Ta-ho-ts'un are among recent
discoveries of ancient architectural remains in northern China. From the remaining walls, sections of which still
stand 50 centimeters high, Chinese
specialists were able to determine not
only the exact method of construction,
but were able to reconstruct a two-room
Neolithic house with later annexed additions. The Honan wattle construction
represents a more advanced stage than
that in Shensi demonstrated at Pan-p'ots'un. This more advanced method uses
horizontal wood strips to fabricate a
network of backing for attaching bundled straws in between wooden poles.
Another Honan characteristic is literally baking the plastered walls and floors
to obtain a durable and strong finish.
Equally interesting are the pits found
mostly in the Transitional and Early

Archaeologistsuncovereda wide
varietyof vesselshapesat Ta-hots'un includingthesereconstructionsof (above)a p'en-shaped
ting tripodcaldron,height,14
centimeters; (middle)a ting
tripod caldron,height,20 centimeters;and (below)a pei cup,
height,9.8 centimeters.
Lung-shan strata. In one of them, two
complete pig skeletons were unearthed,
in another lay a human skeleton, and
the remaining pits yielded a variety of
pottery containers. The fact that the pits
dating to the Early Lung-shan period
not only had their interiors finished
with a layer of plaster, but were baked
as well, clearly suggests that they were
made for storage. Their sizes, varying
from a diameter of one to three meters
with a depth of about a meter, as well as
the pottery vessels, numbering at least
half a dozen from each pit, point to the
usefulness and necessity of such cellars
for the livelihood of the Neolithic people.
Revealing burials
Yet it may have been the burials in a
community graveyard that provided
some of the most pertinent information
on the social organization of the Neolithic people at Ta-ho-ts'un. Chinese archaeologists discovered that the majority of the single graves in the Transitional stratum consisted of males rather
than females, suggesting that a change
from a matriarchal to a patriarchal society took place at this juncture in Neolithic times. Earlier Yang-shao burials
invariably consisted of single graves
and were always separated into female
and male groupings. If any were inhumed in groups of two or more, they
were either all female or all male. Only
in the Lung-shan era did burials of a
male and female begin to appear to1982
January/Februaiy

Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1982

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