Political and cultural complexity in north-west China during the Western Zhou Period (1045–771 BC): new evidence from Yaoheyuan

Abstract

During the early first millennium BC, having deposed the Shang dynasty, the Western Zhou exerted power over large parts of China. Archaeologically, however, the Western Zhou are less well known than their predecessors in terms of north-west China. The site of Yaoheyuan is one of the most important recent discoveries of the Western Zhou period in north-west China. Investigations have revealed a walled urban centre, with high-status cemeteries and sacrificial pits, a palace complex, a bronze-casting foundry, pottery workshops and inscribed oracle bones. These unparalleled finds provide significant new evidence with which to examine the political and cultural landscape of north-west China and, more broadly, to reassess the relationships between centres and peripheries during the Chinese late Bronze Age.