Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T19:14:26.348Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Decapitated Heads as Elite Visual Culture in Late Shang China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2021

Daniela Wolin Open the ORCID record for Daniela Wolin [Opens in a new window]
Daniela Wolin*
Affiliation:
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World New York University 15 East 84th St New York, NY 10028 USA Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Decapitation was an integral part of the complex ritual practices recorded in the palaeographic and archaeological records at the Late Shang (c. 1250–1050 bce) site of Yinxu in Henan Province, China. Although representations of decapitation are often found in societies where the act was carried out, no clear evidence exists for Yinxu, where only a small number of human depictions have been uncovered to date. In this article, I use archaeological data from sacrificial contexts and material culture uncovered during excavations over the past 90 years to investigate the human head as Late Shang elite visual culture. I argue that the dramatic increase in decapitation at Yinxu necessitated the development of a ritually informed process for handling these remains that transformed them into elite objects, while simultaneously pacifying their potentially dangerous post-mortem agency. This research contributes to global comparative studies on the materiality of the human head.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , May 2022 , pp. 189 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agarwal, S.C. & Wesp, J.K. (eds), 2017. Exploring Sex and Gender in Bioarchaeology. Albuquerque (NM): University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Allan, S., 1991. The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, art, and cosmos in early China. Albany (NY): SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Anyang Course & IA, CAS [安阳亦工亦农文物考古短训班, 中国科学院考古研究所安阳发掘队], 1977. 安阳殷墟奴隶祭祀坑的发掘 [Excavation of Yinxu slave sacrificial pits, Anyang]. Kaogu 考古, 20–36.Google Scholar
Anyang Museum [安阳市博物馆], 1978. 安阳大司空村殷代杀殉坑 [Anyang Dasikong village Yin period sacrificial pit]. Kaogu 考古 1, 71–2.Google Scholar
Anyang Wenwu [安阳市文物考古研究所], 2015. 安阳殷墟戚家庄东商代墓地发掘报告 [Anyang Yinxu Qijiazhuang East Shang period cemetery excavation report]. Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe 中州古籍出版社.Google Scholar
Armit, I., 2012. Headhunting and the Body in Iron Age Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, D.Y. & Hastorf, C.A., 2016. Heads of State: Icons, power, and politics in the ancient and modern Andes. New York (NY): Routledge.Google Scholar
Bagley, R.W., 1990. Shang ritual bronzes: casting technique and vessel design. Archives of Asian Art 43, 6–20.Google Scholar
Benson, E.P. & Cook, A.G. (eds), 2001. Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bonogofsky, M., 2011. The Bioarchaeology of the Human Head: Decapitation, decoration, and deformation. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, R.B., 2007. Blood, Flesh and Bones: Kinship and Violence in the Social Economy of the Late Shang. PhD dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Campbell, R.B., 2009. Toward a networks and boundaries approach to early complex polities: the Late Shang case. Current Anthropology 50(6), 821–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, R.B., 2014. Transformations of violence: on humanity and inhumanity in early China, in Violence and Civilization: Studies of social violence in history and prehistory 4, ed. Campbell, R.. Oxford: Oxbow, 94–118.Google Scholar
Campbell, R.B., 2016. What is an ancestor? Memory, power and death in Chinese history and prehistory, in The Archaeology of Ancestors: Death, memory, and veneration, eds Hill, E. & Hageman, J.B.. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida, 81–101.Google Scholar
Campbell, R.B., 2018. Violence, Kinship and the Early Chinese State: The Shang and their world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cao, D. 曹大志, 2018. “族徽”内涵与商代的国家结构 [The meaning of ‘clan signs’ and the structure of the Shang state]. Gudai Wenming 古代文明 12, 71–122.Google Scholar
Carrasco, D., 2000. City of Sacrifice: The Aztec empire and the role of violence in civilization. Boston (MA): Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Chang, K.C., 1964. Some dualistic phenomena in Shang society. Journal of Asian Studies 24(1), 45–61.Google Scholar
Chang, K.C., 1980. Shang Civilization. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, K.C., 1983. Art, Myth, and Ritual: The path to political authority in ancient China. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, K.C., 1986. The Archaeology of Ancient China (4th edn). New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Chávez Balderas, X., 2018. Effigies of death: representation, use, and reuse of human skulls at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan, in Social Skins of the Head: Body beliefs and ritual in ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes, eds Tiesler, V. & Lozada, M.C.. Albuquerque (NM): University of New Mexico Press, 141–59.Google Scholar
Chen, L., Xiong, J., Shao, J. & Sun, Z.. 陈靓, 熊建雪, 邵 晶, 孙周勇, 2016. 陕西神木石峁城址祭祀坑出土头骨研究 [Research on the skulls unearthed from the sacrificial pit of Shimao City Site, Shenmu, Shaanxi]. Kaogu yu Wenwu 考古与文物 4, 134–42.Google Scholar
Cheng, T., 1960. Archaeology in China: Volume II Shang China. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons.Google Scholar
Cheung, C, Jing, Z., Tang, J., Weston, D.A. & Richards, M.P., 2017. Diets, social roles, and geographical origins of sacrificial victims at the royal cemetery at Yinxu, Shang China: new evidence from stable carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur isotope analysis. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 48, 28–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cordy-Collins, A., 2001. Decapitation in Cupisnique and early Moche societies, in Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, eds Benson, E.P. & Cook, A.G.. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press, 21–34.Google Scholar
Dobres, M.A. & Robb, J.E., 2000. Agency in archaeology: paradigm or platitude?, in Agency in Archaeology, eds Dobres, M.A. & Robb, J.E.. London: Routledge, 3–17.Google Scholar
Dodds, C., 2007. Female dismemberment and decapitation: gendered understandings of power in Aztec ritual violence, in Cultures of Violence: Interpersonal violence in historical perspective, ed. Carroll, S.. New York (NY): Palgrave Macmillan, 47–63.Google Scholar
Dolce, R., 2017. Losing One's Head in the Ancient Near East: Interpretation and meaning of decapitation. New York (NY): Routledge.Google Scholar
Du, J. 杜金鹏, 2010. 殷墟宮殿区建筑基址研究 [Research on the building foundations from Yinxu's palace-temple area]. Beijing: Kexue chubanshe 科学出版社.Google Scholar
Du, J., 2011. On the round burial pit of the Yin period at Hougang, Anyang. Chinese Archaeology 11(1), 155–9.Google Scholar
Duncan, W.N., 2005. Understanding veneration and violation in the archaeological record, in Interacting with the Dead: Perspectives on mortuary archaeology for the new millennium, eds Rakita, G.F.M., Buikstra, J.E., Beck, L.A. & Williams, S.R.. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida, 207–27.Google Scholar
Duncan, W.N. & Schwarz, K.R., 2014. Partible, permeable, and relational bodies in a Maya mass grave, in Commingled and Disarticulated Human Remains, eds Osterholtz, A.J., Baustian, K.M. & Martin, D.L.. New York (NY): Springer, 149–70.Google Scholar
Fang, H., 2013. The eastern territories of the Shang and Western Zhou: military expansion and cultural assimilation, in A Companion to Chinese Archaeology, ed. Underhill, A.. Hoboken (NJ): Wiley-Blackwell, 473–93.Google Scholar
Fausto-Sterling, A., 2012. Sex/Gender: Biology in a social world. New York (NY): Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiskesjö, M., 2001. Rising from blood-stained fields: royal hunting and state formation in Shang China. Bulletin-Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 73, 48–191.Google Scholar
Fowler, C., 2002. Body parts: personhood and materiality in the earlier Manx Neolithic, in Thinking through the Body: Archaeologies of corporeality, eds Hamilakis, Y., Pluciennik, M. & Tarlow, S.. New York (NY): Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 47–69.Google Scholar
Fowler, C., 2004. The Archaeology of Personhood: An anthropological approach. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, M.L., Rose, J.C., Vander Leest, B. & Ahler, S.R., 1999. Mound 72 Area: Dedicated and Sacred Space in Early Cahokia. (Illinois State Museum Report of Investigations 54.) Illinois State Museum Society, Springfield.Google Scholar
Gao, Z. 高至喜, 1960. 商代人面方鼎 [Shang dynasty human face rectangular-ding]. Wenwu 文物 10, 57–8.Google Scholar
Geller, P.L., 2012. Parting (with) the dead: body partibility as evidence of commoner ancestor veneration. Ancient Mesoamerica 23(1), 115–29.Google Scholar
Geller, P.L. & Suri, M.S., 2014. Relationality, corporeality and bioarchaeology: bodies qua bodies, bodies in context. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 24(3), 499–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, S.D., 2001, Personhood, agency, and mortuary ritual: a case study from the ancient Maya. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20(1), 73–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guo, B. 郭宝钧, 1951. 一九五〇年春安阳武官村发掘报告 [Report on the 1950 spring excavation of Wuguan village in Anyang]. Zhongguo Kaogu Xuebao 中国考古学报 5, 1–61.Google Scholar
Harris, O.J.T. & Robb, J., 2012. Multiple ontologies and the problem of the body in history. American Anthropologist 114(4), 668–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
He, Y. 何毓灵, 2018. 殷墟近十年发掘的收获与思考 [The rewards and thinking of excavations at Yinxu over the past decade]. Zhongyuan Wenwu 中原文物 5, 4–8.Google Scholar
He, Y. 何毓灵, 2020. 殷墟“外来文化因素”研究 [Research on ‘foreign cultural elements’ at Yinxu]. Zhongyuan Wenwu 中原文物 2, 33–49.Google Scholar
Hebei Wenwu [河北省文物研究所], 1985. 藁城台西商代遗址 [Gaocheng Taixi Shang dynasty site]. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe 文物出版社.Google Scholar
Henan Wenhuaju [河南省文化局文物工作队], 1959. 郑州二里岗 [Zhengzhou Erligang]. Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe 科学出版社.Google Scholar
Henan Wenwu [河南省文物考古研究所], 2001. 郑州商城一九五三年—一九八五年考古发掘报告 [Zhengzhou Shang City: 1953–1985 Archaeological excavation report]. Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe 科学出版社.Google Scholar
Henan Wenwu [河南省文物考古研究所], 2013. 郑州小双桥: 1990–2000 年考古发掘报告 [Zhengzhou Xiaoshuangqiao: 1990–2000 archaeological excavation report]. Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe 科学出版社.Google Scholar
Hu, H. 胡厚宣, 1974 中国奴隶社会的人殉和人祭(上篇) [Human sacrifices during the Slave society period of China]. Wenwu 文物 7, 74–84.Google Scholar
Huang, Z. 黄展岳, 1990. 中国古代的人牲人殉 [Ancient China's sacrificial victims and death attendants]. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe 文物出版社.Google Scholar
Huang, Z. 黄展岳, 2004. 古代人牲人殉通论 [Theories on ancient sacrificial victims and death attendants]. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe 文物出版社.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所], 1979a. 安阳武官村北的一座殷墓 [A Yin-period burial at Anyang Wuguancun north]. Kaogu 考古 3, 223–26.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所体质人类学组], 1979b. 安阳殷代祭祀坑人骨的性别年龄鉴定 [Age and sex determination of human remains from Yin-period sacrificial pits, Anyang]. Kaogu 考古 3, 210–14.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所], 1980. 殷墟妇好墓 [Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang]. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe 文物出版社.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所], 1987a. 殷墟259、260号墓发掘报告 [Report on the excavation of M259, M260 at Yinxu]. Kaogu Xuebao 考古学报 1, 99–117.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所], 1987b. 殷墟发掘报告 1958–1961 [Yinxu excavation report 1958–1961]. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe 文物出版社.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所], 1993. 1991 年安阳后冈殷墓的发掘 [1991 excavation of Yin period burials at Hougang, Anyang]. Kaogu 考古 10, 880–903.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所], 2003. 中国考古学：夏商卷 [Chinese archaeology: Xia-Shang volume]. Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe 科学出版社.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所], 2007. 安阳花园庄东地商代墓葬 [Report on the excavations at Huayuanzhuang East in Anyang]. Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe 科学出版社.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所安阳工作队], 2012. 河南安阳市殷墟刘家庄北地 2010–2011 年发掘简报 [Short report on the 2010–2011 excavations at Liujiazhuang North Locus at Yinxu in Anyang city, Henan Province]. Kaogu 考古 12, 26–42.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所], 2014. 安阳大司空村2004年发掘报告 [Report on the 2004 excavation of Dasikong Village in Anyang]. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe 文物出版社.Google Scholar
IA, CASS [中国社会科学院考古研究所], 2018. 安阳孝民屯殷商遗存墓葬 [Report on the Yin-Shang mortuary remains from the Anyang Xiaomintun site]. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe 文物出版社.Google Scholar
IH & IA, CASS [中国社会科学院历史研究所与中国社会科学院考古研究所], 1985. 安阳殷墟头骨研究 [Contributions to the study of human skulls from the Shang sites at Anyang]. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe 文物出版社.Google Scholar
Jaang, L., Sun, Z., Shao, J. & Li, M., 2018. When peripheries were centres: a preliminary study of the Shimao-centred polity in the loess highland, China. Antiquity 92(364), 1008–22.Google Scholar
Jin, H. 金汉波, 2005. 史前至商周时期的人头崇拜及其相关问题 [The worship of human heads and related issues from prehistory to Shang and Zhou Dynasties]. 民俗研究 Minsu Yanjiu 4, 89–111.Google Scholar
Jing, Z., Tang, J., Rapp, G. & Stoltman, J., 2013. Recent discoveries and some thoughts on early urbanization at Anyang, in A Companion to Chinese Archaeology, ed. Underhill, A.. Hoboken (NJ): Wiley-Blackwell, 343–66.Google Scholar
Keightley, D.N., 1978a. Sources of Shang History: The oracle-bone inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Keightley, D.N., 1978b. The religious commitment: Shang theology and the genesis of Chinese political culture. History of Religions 17(3/4), 211–25.Google Scholar
Keightley, D.N., 1979. The Shang state as seen in the oracle-bone inscriptions. Early China 5, 25–34.Google Scholar
Keightley, D.N., 1998. Shamanism, death, and the ancestors: religious mediation in Neolithic and Shang China (ca. 5000–1000 BC). Asiatische Studien 52(3), 763–833.Google Scholar
Keightley, D.N. 1999. At the beginning: the status of women in Neolithic and Shang China. Nan Nü 1(1), 1–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keightley, D.N., 2000. The Ancestral Landscape: Time, space, and community in Late Shang China (ca. 1200–1045 B.C.). Berkeley (CA): Institute of East Asian Studies and Center for Chinese Studies, University of California.Google Scholar
Keightley, D.N., 2004. The making of the ancestors: Late Shang religion and its legacy, in Religion and Chinese Society: Ancient and medieval China, ed. Lagerwey, J.. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press and École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 3–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keightley, D.N., 2012. Working for His Majesty: Research notes on labor mobilization in Late Shang China (ca. 1200–1045 BC), as seen in the oracle-bone inscriptions, with particular attention to handicraft industries, agriculture, warfare, hunting, construction, and the Shang's legacies. Berkeley (CA): Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California.Google Scholar
Kesner, L., 2007. Face as artifact in early Chinese art. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 51(1), 33–56.Google Scholar
Klaus, H.D. & Toyne, J.M. (eds), 2016. Ritual Violence in the Ancient Andes: Reconstructing sacrifice on the north coast of Peru. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Li, J., 1977. Anyang: A chronicle of the discovery, excavation, and reconstruction of the ancient capital of the Shang dynasty. Seattle (WA): University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Li, Y., Yue, Z. & He, Y., 2018. Annihilation or decline: the fall of Anyang as an urban center. Archaeological Research in Asia 14, 97–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liang, S. & Gao, Q. 梁思永、高去寻, 1962. 侯家庄第二本1001号大墓(上/下) [Houjiazhuang Volume 2 Tomb M1001]. Taipei: Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology Press.Google Scholar
Liang, S. & Gao, Q. 梁思永、高去寻, 1965. 侯家庄第三本1002号大墓[Houjiazhuang Volume 3 Tomb M1002)]. Taipei: Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology Press.Google Scholar
Liang, S. & Gao, Q. 梁思永、高去寻, 1967. 侯家庄第四本1003号大墓 [Houjiazhuang Volume 4 Tomb M1003]. Taipei: Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology Press.Google Scholar
Liang, S. & Gao, Q. 梁思永、高去寻, 1968. 侯家庄第六本1217号大墓 [Houjiazhuang Volume 6 Tomb M1217]. Taipei: Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology Press.Google Scholar
Liang, S. & Gao, Q. 梁思永、高去寻, 1970. 侯家庄第五本1004号大墓 [Houjiazhuang Volume 5 Tomb M1004]. Taipei: Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology Press.Google Scholar
Liang, S. & Gao, Q. 梁思永、高去寻, 1974. 侯家庄第七本1500号大墓 [Houjiazhuang Volume 7 Tomb M1500]. Taipei: Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology Press.Google Scholar
Liang, S. & Gao, Q. 梁思永、高去寻, 1976. 侯家庄第八本1550号大墓 [Houjiazhuang Volume 8 Tomb M1550]. Taipei: Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology Press.Google Scholar
Liang, S. & Gao, Q. 梁思永、高去寻, 1996. 侯家庄第九本1400, 1443, 1129号大墓 [Houjiazhuang Volume 9 Tomb M1400, 1443, 1129]. Taipei: Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology Press.Google Scholar
Linduff, K.M., 2002. Women's lives memorialized in burial in ancient China at Anyang, in Pursuit of Gender: Worldwide archaeological approaches, eds Nelson, S.M. & Rosen-Ayalon, M.. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira, 257–87.Google Scholar
Linduff, K.M., 2003. Many wives, one queen in Shang China, in Ancient Queens: Archaeological explorations, ed. Nelson, S.M.. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira, 59–75.Google Scholar
Liu, L., 2000. Ancestor worship: an archaeological investigation of ritual activities in Neolithic north China. Journal of East Asian Archaeology 2(1), 129–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, L. & Chen, X., 2012. The Archaeology of China: From the Late Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nelson, S.M., 2003. Feasting the ancestors in early China, in The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires, ed. Bray, T.L.. New York (NY): Kluwer Academic, 65–89.Google Scholar
Osing, N, 2014. Reflecting the Choices They Made: A Bioarchaeological Study into the Sacrificial Practices of the Shang Dynasty, China. MSc dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Picardo, N.S., 2007. ‘Semantic homicide’ and the so-called reserve heads: The theme of decapitation in Egyptian funerary religion and some implications for the Old Kingdom. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 221–52.Google Scholar
Priewe, S., 2017. Prehistoric figurines in China, in The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines, ed. Insoll, T.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 469–92.Google Scholar
Puett, M.J., 2002. To Become a God: Cosmology, sacrifice, and self-divinization in early China. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Qian, Y., 2019. Conflict and identity: the ritual of wall construction in early China. Asian Perspectives 58(2), 287–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qiu, X., 2000. Chinese Writing (trans. Mattos, G.L. & Norman, J.). Berkeley (CA): Society for the Study of Early China/Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California.Google Scholar
Reinhart, K., 2015. Religion, violence, and emotion: modes of religiosity in the Neolithic and Bronze Age of northern China. Journal of World Prehistory 28(2), 113–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scher, S.E., 2018. Malleable victims and discourses of dominance at Huaca de la Luna. World Art 8(2), 111–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology [陕西省考古研究院], 2020. 石峁遗址皇城台大台基出土石雕研究 [Research on the stone sculptures unearthed from the Huangchengtai foundations of the Shimao site]. Kaogu yu Wenwu 考古与文物 4, 40–48.Google Scholar
Shandong University [山东大学东方考古研究中心], 2008. 大辛庄遗址1984年秋试掘报告 [Report on the test excavations at the Daxinzhuang site in the fall of 1984]. Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe 科学出版社, 288–521.Google Scholar
Shelach, G, 1996. The Qiang and the question of human sacrifice in the Late Shang period. Asian Perspectives 35(1), 1–26.Google Scholar
Shelach-Lavi, G., 2015. The Archaeology of Early China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shi, Z. 石璋如, 1972. 小屯第一本．遗址的发现与发掘丙编．殷墟墓葬之二，中组墓葬 [Xiaotun Volume One: The site, its discovery, and excavations. Burials of the middle section]. Taipei: Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology.Google Scholar
Sichuan Wenwu [四川省文物考古研究所], 1999. 三星堆祭祀坑 [Sanxingdui sacrificial pits]. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe 文物出版社.Google Scholar
Strathern, M., 1988. The Gender of the Gift: Problems with women and problems with society in Melanesia. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sun, M., 孙勐, 2007. 浅析刘家河商墓中出土的青铜人面形饰 [A brief analysis of the bronze human face decoration unearthed from Liujiahe Shang tomb]. Wenwu Chunqiu 文物春秋 4, 15–20.Google Scholar
Talalay, L.E., 2004. Heady business: skulls, heads and decapitation in Neolithic Anatolia and Greece. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 17(2), 139–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tang, J., 1999. The burial ritual of the Shang Dynasty: a reconstruction, in Exploring China's Past, eds Whitfield, R. & Tao, W.. London: Saffron, 173–81.Google Scholar
Tang, J., 2004. The Social Organization of Late Shang, China – A Mortuary Perspective. PhD dissertation, University College London.Google Scholar
Tang, J. & Niu, H. 唐际根, 牛海茹, 2013. 殷墟王陵区人祭坑与卜辞所见“羌祭”及“ 杀牲法”研究 [A study of the human sacrificial pits at the Yinxu royal cemetery and the Qiang people recorded in the oracle bone inscriptions concerning the victim killing in ritual performance]. Renwen Zhongguo Xuebao 人文中国学报 19, 411–31.Google Scholar
Tang, J. & Tang, Y. 唐际根, 汤毓赟, 2014. 再论殷墟人祭坑与甲骨文中羌祭卜辞的相关性 [On the relationship between Yinxu human sacrificial pits and divinations about Qiang sacrifice in oracle bone inscriptions]. Zhongyuan Wenwu 中原文物 3, 24–8.Google Scholar
Thomas, J.L., Buchanan, M., Wilson, C. & Crane, A., 2017. Violence and trophy taking: a case study of head and neck trauma in two individuals from the Gant Site (3MS11). International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 27(1), 3–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tiesler, V. & Lozada, M.C. (eds), 2018. Social Skins of the Head: Body beliefs and ritual in ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes. Albuquerque (NM): University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Toyne, J.M., 2015. The body sacrificed: a bioarchaeological analysis of ritual violence in ancient Túcume, Peru. Journal of Religion and Violence 3(1), 137–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, K., 2014. The osteology of decapitation burials from Roman Britain, in The Routledge Handbook of the Bioarchaeology of Human Conflict, eds Knüsel, C. & Smith, M.J.. London/New York: Routledge, 213–36.Google Scholar
Tung, T.A., 2008. Dismembering bodies for display: a bioarchaeological study of trophy heads from the Wari site of Conchopata, Peru. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 136(3), 294–308.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tung, T.A., 2014. Agency, ‘til death do us part? Inquiring about the agency of dead bodies from the ancient Andes. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 24(3), 437–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Underhill, A.P., 2002. Craft Production and Social Change in Northern China. New York (NY): Kluwer Academic/Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verano, J.W., 2008. Trophy head-taking and human sacrifice in Andean South America, in The Handbook of South American Archaeology, eds Silverman, H. & Isbell, W.. New York (NY): Springer, 1047–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Falkenhausen, L, 2008. Action and image in early Chinese art. Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 17, 51–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Falkenhausen, L, 2017. The problem of human representation in pre-Imperial China, in Bilder der Macht: Das griechische Porträt und seine Verwendung in der antiken Welt [Images of power: the Greek portrait and its use in the ancient world], eds Boschung, D. & Queyrel, F.. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 377–401.Google Scholar
Wang, P. & Kubin, D. 王平甲, 顾彬•沃尔夫冈, 2007. 甲骨文与殷商人祭 [Oracle bone inscriptions and human sacrifice during the Yin–Shang period]. Zhengzhou: Dajia Chubanshe 大家出版社.Google Scholar
Wang, Y., 2004. Rank and power among court ladies at Anyang, in Gender and Chinese Archaeology, eds Linduff, K.M. & Sun, Y.. Lanham (MD): AltaMira, 95–114.Google Scholar
Wolin, D, 2018. Everyday Stress, Exceptional Suffering: Bioarchaeology of Violence and Personhood in Late Shang, China. Doctoral dissertation, Yale University.Google Scholar
Yang, X., 1988. Sculpture of Xia & Shang China. Hong Kong: Tai Dao Publishing.Google Scholar
Yao, A., 2013. Engendering ancestors through death ritual in ancient China, in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial, eds Tarlow, S. & Stutz, L.N.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 581–96.Google Scholar
Yinxu XMT Team [殷墟孝民屯考古队], 2007. 河南安阳市孝民屯商代环状沟 [Shang dynasty encircling trench at Xiaomintun, Anyang City, Henan]. Kaogu 考古 1, 37–53.Google Scholar
Zhang, C., 2014. Erligang: a perspective from Panlongcheng, in Art and Archaeology of the Erligang Civilization, eds Steinke, K. & Ching, D.C.. Princeton (NJ): Tang Center for East Asian Art, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, 51–63.Google Scholar
Zhang, H., Merrett, D.C., Jing, Z., et al. , 2017. Osteoarthritis, labour division, and occupational specialization of the Late Shang China – insights from Yinxu (ca. 1250–1046 BC). PloS ONE 12(5), e0176329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, M., 2011. On the prone burial and related issues of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Journal of National Museum of China 3, 116–22.Google Scholar