The Bronze Age Metallurgical Traditions of Tianshanbeilu in East Xinjiang, China

The Tianshanbeilu cemetery (TSBL) is the earliest and the largest Bronze Age site in East Xinjiang, China. The discovery of more than 3000 bronze artefacts presents the opportunity to examine the early development of bronze consumption and production throughout the second millennium BC of East Xinjiang, investigating technological and organisational changes that shed light on how people socialised and interacted in a material world.
This thesis combines the typological and stylistic study of copper alloy objects from TSBL, a consideration of their contextual and chronological variability and their chemical composition in order to characterise alloy technology, metallurgical tradition and the cultural connections across Xinjiang and neighbouring areas. Handheld portable X-ray fluorescence was employed to analyse 1352 bronze objects from TSBL, allowing coverage of a very significant proportion of this important assemblage. The diversity in alloy composition reveals a diachronic change in the prevalence of different alloys, and their implications are considered both in terms of changes in technological practice and in terms of spatial variability in objects that reveal regional traditions.
While separating the movement of objects themselves in inter-regional exchange from the spatial transmission of technological practices may be difficult to discriminate in these alloy compositions, their clear stylistic links with other neighbouring areas allow consideration of the role of the population of TSBL in the transmission of tin-bronze technology, perhaps being responsible for the promotion of tin bronze in the Hexi Corridor of Gansu and the Hami region.
There is no direct evidence of bronze production at TSBL and while this study argues that the production of metal in Hami began around 1600 BC, the scale of production was small, and possibly only a few rather unique bronze objects were produced locally in the Hami region, while most were probably introduced through trade and exchange with neighbouring cultures.
The contextual study of the spatial distribution in the cemetery, burial practice and grave goods shows a degree of continuity. suggesting that the population of TSBL lived a stable sedentary existence with their food and animal products used in networks of trade and exchange, driven by demand for bronzes that were consumed in personal adornment and body ornamentation. Thus the shifts in metal use and alloy technology are suggested to have been driven by social changes in consumption, movement, and sharing practices.