A rare painted pottery fish-pattern basin from the Yangshao Culture period was unearthed at a pit in Cuijiahe Village of north China's Shanxi Province, vividly reflecting the outstanding pottery-making techniques of the Yangshao Culture in ancient China.
The Cuijiahe ruins belongs to the Miaodigou Culture of the middle Yangshao period, which is more than 5,500 years old. The Yangshao Culture, dating back 5,000 to 7,000 years, was a Neolithic culture that originated on the middle reaches of the Yellow River. It is widely known for its advanced pottery-making technology.
The cultural relic has a diameter of 23.3 centimeters, a width of six centimeters and a total height of 10.4 centimeters. The artifact is notable for its unique shape and exquisite decoration for displaying two black fish in a dynamic manner with white background.
Despite slight differences, the artifact is generally consistent with the painted pottery basin of the early Yangshao Culture in shape and the decorative style, which demonstrates the culture of multi-regional interaction and communication in the middle period of Yangshao Culture, and also provides rare new materials for the study of the painted pottery art of Yangshao Culture, according to researchers.
"This painted pottery basin with a fish pattern is very rare in Miaodigou Culture. It is manifested in two aspects. First, it has a wide folded rim, a nearly straight belly and a large flat bottom. Second, the surface of the vessel is coated with off-white pottery glaze and the belly is painted with two lifelike and realistic fish patterns. This artifact vividly reflects cultural significance of the earliest periods of China," said Cui Junjun, associate researcher with the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology.
Researchers said carbon-14 dating indicates that the artifact is about 5,500 years old, which was the prosperous period of the Yangshao era.
"We've found about five or six ash pits on this section, some large and some small, but we can see that the damage is quite serious because it is exposed on the surface. The main color of the Yangshao period works is red pottery color, and colored works are also black painted on red pottery," Cui said.
In recent years, more than 80 sites of Miaodigou Culture have been discovered in the process of site investigation, covering an area of about 500,000 square meters.
When cleaning the ash pits, a large number of relics of Miaodigou Culture from the Yangshao period were unearthed, such as bottles with double lips and pointed bottoms, pottery basins and bowls with mainly black curved and triangular patterns, according to researchers.
After more than two years of sorting by the archaeological team, archaeologists identified 355 pieces of various shapes based on the characteristics of the pottery rims and pottery fragments, and restored three pieces of pottery.
"Accumulated in the ash soil are some artifacts left behind by the ancestors at that time, including stone tools and bones. The colorful fish pattern basin was unearthed in the ash soil. This area is the core area of the entire site," Cui said.
Rare painted fish-pattern pottery basin unearthed in Shanxi
