Recent archaeological excavations in the Yangtze River Delta, China, have revealed the complex socio-cultural practices of the Neolithic Liangzhu civilisation, dating back about 5000 years. Using remains from the Zhongjiagang site, researchers have found that human bones were routinely used as a source of functional and ritualistic objects like ‘skull cups’ and ‘skeleton masks’. Unlike typical burials, where the dead were given respect, these bones were found deposited in urban canals, suggesting that there was a major change in how early urban dwellers viewed human remains.The results of this study, published in Scientific Reports, demonstrate that as Liangzhu grew to become urban, remains became a ‘raw material’ for functional uses, and symbolic craft items, rather than being viewed as the remains of sacred ancestors.
Discovery of 5,000-year-old human bone cups and masks in China
The study in Scientific Reports examined 183 human bone fragments for their evidence of use as raw materials for utilitarian or symbolic crafts. Of the total bones, 52 exhibited specific characteristics indicative of having been intentionally modified. Skull cups are cranial vaults (the top part of the head) that have been cut along a horizontal plane, and cranial masks are crania that have been split vertically. Both artefacts were clearly modified by scraping, drilling, and polishing, and these artefacts represent the first evidence of systematic human bone working during prehistory in East Asia.
Why early cities recycled their dead
According to researchers at Niigata University and the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, ‘anonymity’ may have driven early urban dwellers to dispose of human remains in a materialised manner. In densely populated Liangzhu, as urban dwellers cared for only those they knew and recognised in life, the social distance to the dead increased because of urbanisation, resulting in many human remains being treated as ‘material’ rather than as sacred.
Technical analyses of bone repurposing
Technological analyses also indicated that the Liangzhu peoples utilised many technological methods to shape bones. Examination of bones using high-power magnification shows striations and pitting consistent with stone tool usage in creating bone technology. According to Phys.org, bones were not only broken, but they were also harvested. Specifically, long bones, such as the femur, were shaped into handles or fasteners for tools, while skulls were shaped and treated to a level of precision comparable to that of Liangzhu’s world-renowned jade carvings.
Why were bone artefacts discarded in canals
The Zhongjiagang area operated as an area for specialised workshops inside the Liangzhu city. These altered human bones had been discovered in waste-filled ditches along with animal bones and pottery shards, indicating that these particular human remains did not serve sacred purposes, unlike the Fan Mountain site (an elite cemetery). The spatial distribution of human remains displays evidence of a complex social hierarchy that preserved elite bodies in jade-filled tombs while repurposing non-elite remains as part of the city’s industrial process.