Seeking Horses: Allies, Clients and Exchanges in the Zhou Period (1045\u2013221 BC)

Limin Huan,William Timothy Treal Taylor,Jessica Rawson

doi:10.1007/s10963-021-09161-9

Limin Huan, William Timothy Treal Taylor + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-021-09161-9

Copy DOI

Abstract

Horses and chariots—and the associated technology and expertise—derived from the steppe contributed to the success of the Zhou conquest of the Shang in c. 1045 BC and remained important throughout Zhou rule in ancient China. On the basis of material cultural patterns, including the style and material used in bridle cheek-pieces found in tombs of the late second and early first millennium BC, this paper points to a northern origin for Zhou horses. Important intermediaries, providing these horses, were the clans whose cemeteries have been identified on the northern edges of the Central Plains. The necessity for repeated exchanges bringing south horses from the north was a consequence of key environmental differences between the steppe and the Central Plains, including climate, geomorphology, essential soil nutrients, and land use. These created significant difficulties in sustainably breeding and pasturing horses of quality. As a result, the people of the Central Plains were bound, over millennia, to seek horses from the northwest, along a cultural corridor that also moved northern materials and technologies, such as gold-, iron- and some bronze-working, into the Central Plains from the steppes.

Highlights

The Zhou conquest of the Shang in 1045 BC is widely recognised as a major turning point in Chinese history (Shaughnessy, 1999)
From here the land rises by degrees up to the Taihang Mountains, where the Fen River basins extend agricultural land northwards; in the east, the Central Plains are guarded by the Yan Mountains to their north
That the Zhou and their allies must have continued to source their horses from the north, either from the Mongolian Plateau or from further north and west, becomes clear if we look at the types of cheek-pieces used

Summary

Introduction

The Zhou conquest of the Shang in 1045 BC is widely recognised as a major turning point in Chinese history (Shaughnessy, 1999). Following Shang use of horses for chariots, the earliest Zhou period tombs with horse equipment, dating to the eleventh and tenth centuries BC, are found around Baoji in Shaanxi and neighbouring eastern Gansu among polities of non-Ji clans.

Results

Conclusion