Understanding Chinese Jade in a World Context

In Taiwan, nephrite tools and ornaments have been identified from more than one hundred archaeological sites dated from 5,000 to 2,000 years ago. Sourcing studies indicate that most of the raw materials were collected from the Fengtian source region, located inland from Hualian in eastern Taiwan. Recently, some green nephrite ornaments excavated from the Batanes Islands, northern Luzon and Palawan in the Philippines, and from Sarawak in East Malaysia, have been recognized as extremely similar to those discovered in Taiwan. The similarities include the technology of manufacture, artifact style, and the mineralogy of the raw materials.

Archaeometry, 2020

In this study, XRF, XRD and Raman spectroscopy were employed to analyze the chemical compositions and phase structures of nine pieces of jade artefacts unearthed from the Sujiacun, a Longshan Culture (2400~2000BC) site in coastal Shandong, eastern China. Results of the analyses indicated these samples were primarily made from multiple raw mineral materials, including antigorite, actinolite, clinochlore, turquoise and muscovite. No nephrite was recovered from the Sujiacun site. This is strikingly different from other top-ranking settlements of Longshan Culture such as Dantu, Liangchengzhen and Xizhufeng, in which nephrite was the main material of jade artefacts. This may reflect the distinctions in supply system of jade raw materials among different rankings of Longshan period sites. In addition, LA-ICP-MS was used to analyze the composition of rare earth elements of serpentine jade. These preliminary results were compared to published data on the composition of serpentine jade and found that the Sujiacun serpentine jade artefacts were likely sourced from Taishan jade deposit.

The use of isotopes is crucial for understanding the origin of jade/nephrite. This article first contrasts recent studies on the radioisotopes and stable isotopes of contemporary nephrite deposits in China, Baikal region, and South Korean Peninsula. It then reviews the isotopic analysis of the sources of nephrite artifacts in ancient China, highlighting the concentration of contemporary nephrite deposits with distinct isotopic fingerprints in three significant geographic areas, Northeast Asia, the Yellow River Basin, and South China Region. That is, with regard to Northeast Asia, S-type and D-type nephrite in Baikal region, and D-type nephrite in Chuncheon of South Korea as well as Xiuyan and Kuandian of Liaoning Province can be distinguished well by the radioisotope mineralization age and hydrogen and oxygen isotopic values; with regard to the Upper Yellow River, the isotope method of hydrogen, oxygen and silicon isotopic values has the potential to distinguish the D-type and S-type nephrite in Xinjiang Province and Qinghai Province, while cannot distinguish the D-type nephrite from Hetian, Xinjiang Province and Lintao/Maxianshan, Gansu Province; with regard to South China, the isotope method of the radioisotope mineralization age and hydrogen and oxygen isotopic values has the potential to distinguish D-type nephrite from Fugong in Yunnan Province, Dahua in Guangxi Province and Luodian in Guizhou Province, and S-type nephrite in Hualian, Chinese Taiwan. It is recommended that isotopic database of jade materials from more deposits and excavated jadewares must be established, in order to answer significant archaeological questions regarding the role of jade material utilization in the origin, formation and development of Chinese jade culture and Chinese civilization.

The Oxford Handbook of Early China, 2020

Late Neolithic-period China went through what I have identified is a Jade Age, from ca. 3500-2000 BCE. The era involved three key successive yet overlapping chronological cul tures, including the Hongshan of the northeast, Liangzhu of the southeast, and Longshan of greater China. Jade was the material par excellence that was exploited as a symbol of economic, social, and religious power. Exploiting jade and its concomitant symbols stimu lated advances that led to the flowering of civilization and China's earliest dynasties. This chapter explores how, in contrast to other late Neolithic cultures, jade-working cultures achieved advances in socio-political life.

Journal of Social Archaeology, 2006

Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, 2007

We have used electron probe microanalysis to examine Southeast Asian nephrite (jade) artifacts, many archeologically excavated, dating from 3000 B.C. through the first millennium A.D. The research has revealed the existence of one of the most extensive sea-based trade networks of a single geological material in the prehistoric world. Green nephrite from a source in eastern Taiwan was used to make two very specific forms of ear pendant that were distributed, between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D., through the Philippines, East Malaysia, southern Vietnam, and peninsular Thailand, forming a 3,000-km-diameter halo around the southern and eastern coastlines of the South China Sea. Other Taiwan nephrite artifacts, especially beads and bracelets, were distributed earlier during Neolithic times throughout Taiwan and from Taiwan into the Philippines.

2012

Discussion of the utility of the concept of Jade Age for the final Neolíthic period in China and description of the onset and characteristics of jade production and consumption in the complex theocratic chiefdom societies that prevailed in the predynastic jade cultures in North and South China.

Genèse de l'Empire Céleste. Dragons, phénix et autres chimeres / The Beginning of the World According to the Chinese. Dragons, Phoenix and other Chimera, 2020

An overview of the role of jade in ancient Chinese views of the cosmos from the Neolithic to the Han dynasty