December 18, 2024
BEIJING – DNA technology has decoded information about a newly discovered cemetery and the intriguing relationship between two extended families living nearly 3,000 years ago in what is now Beijing.
The cemetery at the Liulihe Site in the capital’s Fangshan district is a large-scale tomb area in the presumed capital of the Yan state of the Western Zhou Dynasty (c.11th century-771 BC) in what is now Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province.
Yan was once one of the seven leading states of the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) but was conquered by Ying Zheng in 222 BC, the year before he established the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) and became China’s first emperor, Qinshihuang.
Earlier studies show the city site in the Liulihe Site had the rammed earth remains of palaces and sites related to handicrafts. They also recovered precious bronze artifacts from tombs outside the city.
Since 2022, archaeologists have carried out another survey on the site to see if there are relics supporting the subsistence of the city, like farmland or farmers’ residences, says An Nina, a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Archaeology.
They have discovered pits where people dumped garbage, tombs and an ancient ditch beyond the city.
They found 39 tombs in a cemetery covering 800 square meters to the north of the walled city and excavated 33, which belonged to members of two families. Ancient DNA studies further revealed the secrets of the relationship between the buried individuals.
According to An, the earliest tomb was found to be from the early Western Zhou Dynasty. Others are mostly from the middle stage of the dynasty. Considering their positioning, archaeologists believe the ditch was abandoned not later than the middle period of the Western Zhou Dynasty, offering clues for further studies on when the entire site was deserted.
The tombs are believed to belong to non-titled people. “The size of the burial tools and tombs directly reflect the status of the tomb owners. Most of the tombs only have a coffin and are relatively small,” An says. “Only nine have inner and outer coffins and are larger. None of them have bronze vessels as funerary objects, often seen in tombs of the aristocracy of that time.”
She says this is the first time finding these types of tombs on the site.
According to An, nearly half the tombs have dogs buried with humans, a custom favored by people of the Shang Dynasty (c.16th century-11th century BC) but not so much by Zhou people.
As a result, archaeologists infer that the people were descendants of the Shang people, although they lived in the Yan state.
Guo Jingning, director of the Beijing Institute of Archaeology (center, back row), with students who worked as interns, at the Liulihe Site in Beijing in June. PHOTO: PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
“We all know that King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty ended the rule of the Shang Dynasty,” says Guo Jingning, director of the Beijing Institute of Archaeology. “But from the study, we can surmise that some descendants of Shang still lived in the realm of the Western Zhou Dynasty. This is an interesting phenomenon.”
Ning Chao, a researcher at Peking University, has conducted DNA tests on the human bones discovered at the tombs and shed light on their detailed relationship.
According to An, those buried there belonged to two families — researchers refer to them as A and B — related by marriage. The cemetery is found to have buried at least four of their generations and three male tombs from Family A appear to be siblings.
One sibling’s adult daughter is buried beside him. At that time, women were often buried with their husbands as a characteristic of a patrilineal family. The fact that the woman had scoliosis helped archaeologists’ realize that she was disabled and could not marry. As a result, she was buried with her father, An says.
The two families are buried in clusters. A female individual buried in the middle of the two clusters is found to be a descendant of their intermarriage.
“The research findings combining DNA tests indicate that during the Western Zhou Dynasty, ordinary people who lived at the Liulihe Site were buried with extended family members in groups. That’s why the three siblings were buried together,” An says.
They applied DNA analysis on more than 30 ancient individuals, forming large-scale and systematic studies on their family trees.
“This is a rare example of such technologies being used in China’s archaeological studies of the Western Zhou Dynasty. As a result, the discoveries and the new technologies applied this time are vitally important,” Guo says.