Earliest Bronze in Gansu, North-West China
Invited Plenary
John Dodson
Head, Institute for Environmental Research
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
Sydney, Australia
Biography
John completed his PhD in biogeography at the Australian National University and has worked on palaeoenvironments in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, China, Micronesia and New Caledonia. He has held offices with the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, INQUA and currently with the International Year for Planet Earth. He has held academic positions at University of Canterbury (NZ), University of New South Wales (Sydney), University of Western Australia and Brunel University (London) before joining ANSTO where some of the best facilities in the world exist for environmental research.
Synopsis – ‘Earliest Bronze in Gansu, North-West China’
Understanding of the origin and development of bronze technology in eastern Asia is at an early stage. It is not known if there was a spread of the technology from Mesopotamia, around 3,300 BC, or whether it developed independently in eastern Asia. Here we examine some early settlement sites in Gansu which include evidence of complex agriculture and abundant bronze slag and ore.
Here we examine the lead and strontium isotopic composition of bronze slag and copper ores from archaeological sites and a mine in western Gansu. In addition we have carried out geochemical analyses of two ancient lake sediment sequences, and in particular looked for enhanced signatures of copper and other cations. It is probable that multiple sources of ore were used in bronze manufacture and that this has taken place in Gansu since at least 3,700 BP.
The archaeological sites contain abundant millet seeds and occasional wheat, barley and oat seeds, and fragments of pottery, animal bone and occasional human grave sites. Clearly these were well-developed and sophisticated societies for the time and there were transfers of technology and people about 2000 years earlier than is recognised by what became known as the Silk Road.