Dawenkou Culture - Dawenkou Culture

A late Neolithic culture in China that flourished in the lower Yellow River basin between the 4th and 2nd millennium BC. The culture is characterized by the burials at the Dawenkou site, which straddles Dawenkou Town, Tai'an City, Shandong Province, and Baotou Village, Ningyang County, and is newer than the Yangshao culture and precedes the Longshan culture. The remains of this culture were already discovered in the early 1950s, but due to its similarity to the Longshan culture, its position was unclear. In the 1960s, it was considered to be a culture of a different lineage from the Shandong Longshan culture, and then in the late 1970s, it was confirmed that the Shandong Longshan culture was a successor to the Dawenkou culture. This culture is distributed mainly in central Shandong Province, as well as the Shandong Peninsula, northern Jiangsu Province, and parts of Henan Province, completely overlapping with the distribution of the Shandong Longshan culture. At the Dawenkou site, joint burials of adult men and women have been found, mainly in supine extended burials. Also notable are burials involving tooth extraction, artificial deformation of skulls, the donation of pig skulls to graves, and burials with animal tusks in the hands and tortoise shells placed on the waist.

This culture is divided into three stages: early, middle, and late, and there are clear differences in social development between the early and late stages. Early burials were mainly small pit tombs with few grave goods. The majority of pottery was red pottery, mainly handmade. In the middle period, medium-sized and large pit tombs and wooden coffin tombs appeared, and the differences in size and structure as well as the quantity of grave goods became clear. In the late period, large tombs mostly used wooden coffins, and in addition to large amounts of pottery, jade and turquoise products, intricately carved ivory products, and pig skull offerings were limited to certain burials, indicating that inequality in social classes and a gap between rich and poor had arisen. In addition, there was less red pottery and more black and gray pottery, and the use of the potter's wheel began, suggesting that specialization in pottery production had progressed considerably. Colored pottery existed from the early period, but overall there have been few finds from each stage, and in the later period it was limited to specific burials and eventually disappeared. The cultural content of the Jiangbei type of the Qingliankou culture distributed in northern Jiangsu Province is basically consistent with that of the Dawenkou culture in many ways, and the view that it belongs to the Dawenkou culture is prevalent.

[Yokota Yoshiaki]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

紀元前四千年紀から前二千年紀の間、黄河下流域で栄えた中国新石器時代晩期の文化。山東省泰安(たいあん)市大汶口鎮と寧陽(ねいよう)県堡頭(ほとう)村にまたがる大汶口遺跡の墓葬を標式とする文化で、竜山(りゅうざん)文化に先だち仰韶(ぎょうしょう)文化より新しい。1950年代初期にすでにこの文化の遺跡は発見されていたが、竜山文化との類似性から、その位置づけが定まらず、60年代になって山東竜山文化とは別系統の文化とされ、続いて70年代後半に入って、山東竜山文化は大汶口文化を継承したものであることが確認された。この文化は山東省中部を中心に山東半島および江蘇(こうそ)省北部と河南省の一部にも分布し、山東竜山文化の分布と完全に重なっている。大汶口遺跡では、仰臥(ぎょうが)伸展葬を中心に成人男女合葬がみられ、また抜歯、頭骨の人工変形や墓にブタの頭骨の供献、手に獣牙(じゅうが)を持ち腰部に亀甲(きっこう)を置く埋葬が注目されている。

　この文化は早・中・晩期の三段階に区分されており、早期と晩期では社会的発展に顕著な差違がみられる。早期の墓葬は、小さな竪穴土壙(たてあなどこう)墓が中心で副葬品も少ない。土器は手作りを主とする紅陶(こうとう)が大多数を占める。中期の墓は、中型・大型の土壙墓と木槨(もっかく)墓が登場し、規模と構造上の差と副葬品の量的差違が顕著となる。晩期になると大型墓はたいてい木槨を使用し、大量の土器のほかに玉(ぎょく)・トルコ石製品、精巧な彫刻のある象牙(ぞうげ)製品の副葬やブタの頭骨の供献などが特定の墓葬に限られ、社会階層に不平等が発生して、貧富の差が生じたことを示している。また、土器も紅陶が少なくなり黒陶や灰陶が増加し、ろくろの使用が始まって、土器製作における専業化がかなり進行していることをうかがわせる。彩陶は早期から存在するが、全体からみると各段階の出土は少なく、晩期には特定の墓葬にのみ限られ、最後には消失してしまう。江蘇省北部に分布する青蓮岡(せいれんこう)文化の江北類型の文化内容は、大汶口文化のそれと基本的に一致するものが多く、大汶口文化に帰属させる見解が有力である。

［横田禎昭］

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