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Asking different questions: highly radiogenic lead, mixing and recycling of metal and social status in the Chinese Bronze Age

Part of: Minerals, crystal structures and geochemistry - Peter Williams special issue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2022

Ruiliang Liu Open the ORCID record for Ruiliang Liu [Opens in a new window]  and
A. Mark Pollard Open the ORCID record for A. Mark Pollard [Opens in a new window]
Ruiliang Liu*
Affiliation:
The Department of Asia, British Museum, London, UK
A. Mark Pollard
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
*
*Author for correspondence: Ruiliang Liu, Email: ruiliang.liu@arch.ox.ac.uk/ rliu@britishmuseum.org
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Abstract

The provenance of raw materials and finished objects is one of the most intriguing problems in archaeology. It is significant for the discussion of inter-regional cultural communication. Many of the methods used to determine provenance employed by archaeologists are shared with geologists or geochemists, among which the use of lead isotopes is probably one of the best-known. However, geologists and archaeologists do not always ask the same questions. Because of many and various human choices, it is not always possible to apply geological methods directly to archaeological objects. Specifically, the potential existence of mixing and recycling of metals challenges all the provenance studies of metal objects. In this paper, using Bronze Age China as an example, we suggest that by using geochemical techniques such as lead isotopic analysis and trace-element analysis of bronzes, but by asking slightly different questions, one can throw new light on the way in which important resources were managed by consumers of different social status within early dynastic China.

Keywords

provenance studymixing and recyclinglead isotopesBronze Age Chinasocial status
Type
Review
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 86 , Issue 4 , August 2022 , pp. 677 - 687
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland

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Footnotes

This paper is part of a thematic set that honours the contributions of Peter Williams

Associate Editor: Jason Harvey

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