Who knows the origin of the Qiang people?

Five cultures and the origin of the Qiang

Historical records about the Qiang people, the earliest in the Yin and Zhou oracle bone divination, such as "A Wu Bu ...... in the early pastoral, get Qiang ...... ", "chenzhen ...... to qiang, rate with." And so on, this shows that the Qiang people at the latest in the divination era has appeared in the historical stage. Moreover, a large number of divinations indicate that the Qiang people are mainly active in the northwest of Shang, about the present-day Shaanxi, Gansu and Qingdao.

From the archaeological point of view, today's Shaanxi, Gansu and Qingdao areas have existed in the Neolithic era of Majiayao culture (which is divided into Majiayao type, Banshan type, Mafang type of the three stages of development), the Copper and Stone era of the Qijia culture and the Bronze Age of the Xindian culture, the Kayo culture, the Temple Puddle culture, the culture of the Shajing and other juxtaposition of development of cultures, of which the Bronze Age of the cultures in the time equivalent to the Shang and Zhou era.

According to the historical records and geographic area, the Shang and Zhou era living in Shaanxi, Gansu and Qingdao regions are mainly Rong Qiang, Rong is the Qiang people in the earlier part of the transition to farming, Rong live in the east and Qiang west. So, in the time and distribution of geography are related to the Qiang people in the above archaeological culture, which are the remains of the Qiang people? Is it the Cayo Culture or the Xindian Culture? Or is it the Sewa Culture or the Shajing Culture? Or the earlier Qijia culture? Or are they all Qiang cultural remains?

Archaeological materials show that the remains of the five cultures mentioned above, although widely distributed, the age span is large, the connotation of each culture is not the same, but at the same time also shows that there are many points of **** between them and cultural links. The ****ness of the Qijia, Kayo, Xindian, Temple Pits and Shajing cultures is that there are varying amounts of red and purple-red colored pottery, and in terms of vessel form, the pottery that constitutes an important element of these cultures, such as the amphora and amphora, is very close to or basically the same in shape, and there is a certain proportion of footed vessels. Although there are many variations in the patterns of colored pottery, geometric patterns such as sawtooth patterns, ripple patterns, back patterns, triangular patterns, hooked patterns and so on are similar, and they all appear in the same way in various cultures. In terms of the burial system, the above cultures also have more consistency. In terms of the burial system, the earlier Qijia culture had rectangular earth-pit and vertical-pit tombs, and the later cultures still popularized vertical-pit and earth-pit tombs, and some of them have newly emerged as partial-hole tombs. In terms of burial styles, the Qijia Culture had supine straight limb burials, secondary burials, and prone burials, etc., and the above burial styles were popular in subsequent cultures, with cremation occurring in some cases. The burial goods in the Cayo and Xindian cultures were usually three large pieces of combined pottery such as amphora jars, and all of them were placed on the head or feet of the deceased. In addition, jewelry such as copper bubbles, copper bells, sea shells, and beads were commonly found in all cultures.

After a preliminary comparative analysis, it can be seen that there is more consistency between the cultures of Kayo, Xindian, Siwa and Shajing, which should belong to the same large cultural system. This cultural system and its previous Qijia culture due to the existence of a few hundred years in the time of the missing ring, so their relationship can not be hastily made conclusions. However, the field archaeology in the Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai regions has been quite large so far, and it cannot be envisioned that the remains of another culture that evolved from the Qijia culture have not been found so far. Qijia culture and Kayo, Xindian, Temple Pits, Shajing culture more or less connected to us, the bronze culture is the continuation of the next phase of the Qijia culture and development, but has not yet been found in the transition stage. It can be assumed that the Qijia culture, Kayo culture, Xindian culture, Siwa culture and Shajing culture are all the remains of the ancient Qiang people, and the Qijia culture was later replaced by the Kayo, Xindian, Siwa, and Shajing cultures, which represent different clades.