Interregional and intraregional interaction of the Tianshanbeilu population in eastern Xinjiang from the perspective of pottery analysis

Abstract

The beginning of human settlement in the Hami Basin, located in the eastern part of Xinjiang, has been a focal question for the academic community in China. In particular, the thesis that the immigrating population from the Hexi Corridor since the late Neolithic founded the Tianshanbeilu culture has riveted the attention of scholars. Pottery wares, abundantly discovered at the synonymous cemetery of this culture, have played a key role in extrapolating population migration and cultural interaction. This paper aims to test the thesis by characterizing the chemical composition, painting pigment, and carburizing technique of 70 pottery samples from the cemetery with various scientific methods. It shows that the chemical compositions of the coarse pottery in the three colors of red, yellow, and gray, painted and unpainted alike, are remarkably different from those of fine pottery in black and red, indicating that the raw materials for the coarse and fine pottery samples are possibly procured from different sources; the pigments of the red slip and black paint are derived from hematite, black manganese ore, and carbon black; carburizing and polishing techniques are further applied to the gray coarse pottery; In combination with the compositional data of pottery samples from the Yaer cemetery also in the Hami Basin and the Xichengyi settlement in the Hexi Corridor, this paper finds that some pottery wares of the Tianshanbeilu culture were exchanged within the Hami Basin, but each site had its own production facility. No direct exchange of pottery wares with Xichengyi is attested; the similar style of pottery wares between the two sites may have resulted from population migration and technological exchange.