Worked human bones and the rise of urban society in the neolithic Liangzhu culture, East Asia
摘要
The Liangzhu culture, which emerged in the mid-Holocene Yangtze Delta, established one of East Asia’s earliest cities. At its core site, Liangzhu, numerous worked human bones were unearthed from canal and moat deposits. These remains date from 5000 to 4550 cal BP, with a concentration between 4800 and 4600 cal BP. One notable characteristic of the worked human bones is the high proportion of unfinished items. This suggests that the bones selected for working may not have been particularly rare or symbolically privileged materials. In light of this, it is necessary to consider not only the possibility—commonly seen in global cases of worked human remains—that the bones came from ancestors or close kin, but also the possibility that the working was carried out with different intentions, possibly unrelated to ancestor worship. As the practice persisted for over 200 years, it appears to have been culturally embedded. The sudden appearance of such items—absent in earlier Neolithic China—may be closely related to Liangzhu’s urban nature. Population growth and increasing social complexity may have altered interpersonal relationships, reshaping social and cultural views of “others” and the dead. These transformations likely formed the background for the emergence of practices involving the use of human bones as raw materials.