Southeast Asia Information Port News (www.dnyxxg.com) – Zhengzhou University announced on the 25th that its School of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage has released new research on bronze artifacts from the Yangtze River basin. Bronze arrowheads and bronze rod-shaped artifacts unearthed at the Gouwan site in Xichuan County, Henan Province, are bronze castings dating back approximately 4,500 years. These are the earliest bronze artifacts discovered in the Yangtze River basin to date, pushing back the metallurgical history of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River to the late Qujialing Culture period.
Both bronze artifacts were unearthed from the late Qujialing Culture strata. The bronze arrowhead fragment is 3.66 cm long and its shape is consistent with contemporary stone arrowheads; the bronze rod-shaped artifact is a sub-cylindrical fragment, 6.45 cm long. Casting marks and mold seams are visible on the surface of both artifacts.
Researchers confirmed through metallographic identification, compositional analysis, and other scientific methods that both artifacts were cast from a copper-tin-lead ternary alloy. Their relatively high impurity element content and porous texture reflect the primitive characteristics of early metallurgical technology.
From 2007 to 2009, to facilitate the construction of the Danjiangkou Reservoir in the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the Department of Archaeology at Zhengzhou University conducted archaeological excavations at the Gouwan site. This site was selected as one of the top five archaeological discoveries in Henan Province in 2008.
The research team from the School of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage at Zhengzhou University stated that while early bronze remains in China were previously mostly found in the northwest and north, this discovery confirms the appearance of bronze castings in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River during the late Qujialing culture period, providing important evidence for the diverse origins of Chinese civilization. (End)
