Source of Pottery Unearthed in Qujialing Culture Period in the Middle Reaches of Hanshui, Yangtze River Basin of China

The Yangtze River basin is a cradle of Chinese civilization, with Hanshui Rvier playing a key role in its development. The middle reaches of the Hanshui River are an important link between the Qujialing culture in south China and the late Yangshao culture in the Central Plains. The production and distribution of pottery in this region during the Qujialing period is significant for understanding how craft production, sociopolitical complexity, and technological advances are intricately linked and contributed to the formation and development of Yangtze civilization. We report here a study of pottery from Qujialing, Shangang, and Gouwan using chemical and mineralogical compositions and strontium isotope ratios (^87Sr/^86Sr) obtained from X-ray diffraction, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The three sites are spatial apart but shared the same pottery styles. Mineralogically, pottery from Qujialing consists mainly of quartz, illite, and albite, in contrast to Shangang and Gouwan predominantly sharing quartz and albite. Principal component analysis and cluster analysis suggest that each site mainly made and consumed its own pottery. The strontium isotope ratios (^87Sr/^86Sr) shows that pottery from Shangang are tightly clustered, possibly sharing a common clay source; by contrast, Gouwan and Qujialing pottery more likely were made from diverse sources. We argued for independent pottery production and consumption at the three sites. The centralized mode of pottery production and distribution simply does not apply to the study sites and their similar pottery styles.