This year my trip to a burial site cluster in the west Tibet is unexpectedly interesting. Although it is not directly related to my doctorate research program, which is on the highland pastoralists of the central and southern Tibet, I still participated in the archaeology work there. I sorted those field notes out and wanted to share here in the blog.
In the middle of July, we arrived at Zhada county in the west Tibet the after three days of SUV ride from Lhasa, exhausted but fascinated by the unequivocally beautiful scene along the way. A team of archaeologists was working at Piyang Dongga site cluster here in Zhada county. Their target was two burial sites in a small river valley.
Burials are of vital importance to a ‘traditional-style’ Chinese archaeology starting from the 1940s, when Prof. Su Bingqi wrote his book, Burial in the East Sector of Doujitai Site 斗鸡台沟东区墓葬 (1948). Su set up a paradigm in Chinese archaeology of pottery seriation research by applying a Montelius style typology. The paradigm, as many may know, dominated Chinese archaeology for nearly half a century. Since 1980s, burials were used more extensively as materials for studying human migration, social complexity, mortuary art, lineage systems and so forth in China. Most of the studies focused on the burial goods and human remains per se, while very few of them paid attention to the relationship between burials and its surrounding environment. That is, a landscape level research on burial sites were comparatively rare. Piyang-Dongga site cluster may provide us a opportunity to view burial sites in a landscape perspective, and also to see how the spatial relationships between sites may indicate.
Piyang-Dongga was discovered by Sichuan University archaeologists approximately 20 years ago. it contains a cluster of several Buddhists grottoes, temples, burials and occupational settlements. our colleagues told us that they discovered some new burial sites in this famous site. Radiocarbon datings suggested that at least some of the burials are of the same age.
Four settlements and sites were divided by a river and located on the flat terrace alongside the river (Fig 1). We saw two set of dichotomic relationships based on the archaeological context and their locations.
1. Occupational Sites
North of the river lies a stone enclosure, similar to the modern pastoral seasonal campsites in this area. According to our excavation, it is possible that the stone enclosure is contemporary with the burials. A intact pottery vessel, which is similar to those in the burials, was found in this enclosure, along with a great number of charred cereal seeds.
South of the river also lies a stone enclosure. However, we did not have any clues of the function of the sites. Signs of human activities were absent except for the stone enclosure itself: very few charcoals, very few artifacts, no charred seeds so far. Two ‘standing stone’ were found both in and outside of the enclosure. A ‘standing stone’ is a huge stone that were implemented into the ground, which is prevalent in both present and historic Tibet (Fig. 2). It was assumed to be related to certain ritual activities by other researchers. Some thought it was a representation of mountain worship or white stone worship, some thought it was used for house foundation ceremony.
Therefore, we might conclude a set of dichotomic relationships in occupational sites:
North: South
Present of artifacts: Absence of artifacts
Pastoral camps: Standing stones
Subsistence: Ritual
2. Burial sites
North of the river lies a pit grave site. This type of burial is featured by its special structure. People dug a vertical pit from the ground surface andthen dug a horizonal pit in the bottom to inter human skeletons and burial goods. This burial site is rich in artifacts including a great number of intact pottery and bronzes. Some burials have tens of burials goods. The secondary burial form of human skeletons suggested that human may have undergone a series of rituals somewhere else, before being interred into the tomb.
South of the river lies a stone-cist grave burial site. Stone-cist graves is featured by a pile of stone on the surface and a shallow, small burial pit beneath of the stone pile. Some burning activities were present in this site. Very few human remains were found. The amount of burial goods per burial is very small. Most of the burials goods were missing pieces and extremely shattered.
Therefore, we might see another set of dichotomic relationships in burial sites:
North: South
Pit grave: Stone cist grave
Rich in artifacts: Poor in artifacts
Absence of burning: Presence of burning
Underground, invisible: Above the ground, visible
Analyzing the dichotomic relationships, we might get some clues of how the ritual of the secondary burials was possibly performed. We present an alternative hypothesis here, against the explanation that two forms of burials representing two different populations.
The terrace north of the river is full of “vigor”, in a symbolic sense. More artifacts were present in the north terrace, indicating that the northern stone enclosure might be intensively used for living propose. The pit grave is a practice that mimics living people. Digging a horizonal pit in the bottom makes the grave similar with the modern agro-pastoralists who use caves as their seasonal resorts (Fig. 3). The site decision of locating the pastoral campsite to the north may have practical considerations, as the pastoralists tend to stay on the sunny slope.
The south terrace has a thicker “ritual” atmosphere. Unlike pit graves, Stone-cist graves are visible on the surface, which might possess a kind of monumentality. The relatives and friends can easily revisit the dead by using the stone piles as a landscape marker. Lack of artifacts might also indicate that the southern stone enclosure was not as intensively used as its northern counterpart, or it was dedicatedly cleaned after usage.
Following this logic, we can summarize the contrasts listed above into a single dichotomic relatioship:
North:South
Life:Death
This naturally lead one to think that, is it possible that the stone-cist graves here are not graves at all? This ritual cluster may be the materialization of a series of ritual practices: the secondary burial rituals took place in the stone piles and then human skeletons were transported to the pit graves.
If we think further and bolder on this hypothesis, does it represent a process from death to resuscitation?
Step 1 happened in the stone-cist graves, where the flesh rots out. This is the stage of death.
Step 2 happened when people were transporting the skeletons to the north terrace through the river in between, possibly wrap in textiles as textile pieces were found in the stone-cist graves. This is the stage between life and death.
Step 3 happened in the pit graves. On the sunny slope, right beside the pastoral campsites that people are all familiar with, the dead were interred into the pit graves with descent daily-use wares. This is the stage of resuscitation.
This hypothesis is largely speculative though, as the excavation and other archaeological works are still going on. We will keep tracking with the subsequent researches of the sites in the future.