Abstract
AbstractOur interdisciplinary investigation of the stone collection and construction process of Liangzhu City walls offers important evidence to understand the engineering and organization behind the construction. We examined spatial distributions, physical and petrological characteristics of the stones discovered from our excavations of representative wall sections. These results were compared with similar aspects as well as sedimentation contexts and availability of the surveyed stones from the surrounding regions to identify the source areas for the stone collection. We developed criteria based on physical and petrological characteristics and spatial distribution of stones for the identification of construction units and estimated the volume of stones for each unit. We concluded that even though the overall scale of stonework construction was enormous, the actual tasks of stone collection and construction were likely completed by small individual working groups. Liangzhu workers preferred to collect directly available, hand‐portable stones from source areas. However, some areas with suitable stone sources were neglected by Liangzhu workers. The total workforce may have followed a central organization, and many groups likely worked simultaneously. Through the repeated efforts of numerous small working groups, Liangzhu society constructed a massive, multicomponent infrastructure. Our study holds implications for wider archaeological research of ancient stone architecture.
Highlights
As enduring parts of archaeological landscapes, ancient stonework constructions and monuments worldwide have attracted considerable attention for studying how they were built, what they symbolized, and how they functioned in ancient societies
Predynastic China had been regarded as lacking stone architecture, but new discoveries of stone walls and buildings have radically changed these views. Among these discoveries in China, some of the most impressive examples include a Bronze Age fortified site of Sanzuodian in Northeast China (Shelach, Raphael, & Jaffe, 2011), the late Neolithic stone‐walled site of Shimao in the Northern Loess Plateau (Guo & Sun, 2018; Jaang, Sun, Shao, & Li, 2018; Sun, 2016; Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, 2005), and the earthen walls built atop stone bases at Liangzhu City of the Lower Yangtze River (Renfrew & Liu, 2018)
Physical and petrological characteristics of the construction stones during our excavation and on‐ site observation
Summary
As enduring parts of archaeological landscapes, ancient stonework constructions and monuments worldwide have attracted considerable attention for studying how they were built, what they symbolized, and how they functioned in ancient societies. The bluestones and sarsen stones have been analysed in terms of their petrological properties, measurements of the stone tonnage, and other variables that in concert have depicted the ancient transportation routes and techniques of bringing these components to the site (Harris, 2017; Parker Pearson et al, 2015) While it may never be known about the exact actions during ancient times, the studies at Stonehenge and elsewhere have been instructive for establishing new research programs about ancient stonework sites such as in our current example at Liangzhu (5300–4300 B.P.). On an even larger scale, around 2.88 million m3 of earth would have been dug and transported to build the Tangshan levees, low dams and high dams of the hydraulic enterprise (Liu et al, 2017) These impressive constructions of Liangzhu City reflect two architectural technologies. Stone material allowed water to drain downward through the stonework interstices and into the natural water table, whereas simple mounded earth would have slumped and subsided in this environment
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