Painted pottery jar in shape of human, Siba Culture, Gansu

The Siba culture (), also called Huoshaogou culture (), was a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

archaeological culture that flourished circa 1900 to 1500 BC in the

Hexi Corridor The Hexi Corridor (, Xiao'erjing: حْسِ ظِوْلاْ, IPA: ), also known as the Gansu Corridor, is an important historical region located in the modern western Gansu province of China. It refers to a narrow stretch of traversable and rela ...

, in

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibe ...

Province of Northwest China. It was discovered in 1984 at Sibatan in

Shandan County Shandan County () is a county in Gansu Province, the People's Republic of China, bordering Inner Mongolia to the north. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Zhangye. It is an important site located on the ancient Silk R ...

. Siba type pottery vessels are different from the others in Gansu. Siba produced painted pottery with coloured decorations; these were painted after the vessels had been fired. Similar pottery was used by the Tianshanbeilu culture at Hami basin to the west. The Siba engaged in agricultural activities like millet farming and pig farming. Their metallurgy was highly developed. Siba culture is found mainly to the west of the

Gansu corridor The Hexi Corridor (, Xiao'erjing: حْسِ ظِوْلاْ, IPA: ), also known as the Gansu Corridor, is an important historical region located in the modern western Gansu province of China. It refers to a narrow stretch of traversable and relativ ...

. The locations are found at Yongchang, Minyue, Jiuquan, Yumen counties, and others. Siba culture is bordered by the

Qijia culture The Qijia culture (2200 BC – 1600 BC) was an early Bronze Age culture distributed around the upper Yellow River region of Gansu (centered in Lanzhou) and eastern Qinghai, China. It is regarded as one of the earliest bronze cultures in China. T ...

to the east. The later period of Qijia is very close to Siba culture. The Siba culture may have developed independently. The site of Ganguya in

Jiuquan Jiuquan, formerly known as Suzhou, is a prefecture-level city in the northwesternmost part of Gansu Province in the People's Republic of China. It is more than wide from east to west, occupying , although its built-up area is mostly located in i ...

has been excavated. Significant differences have been observed in the comparison of the burial customs and artifacts in the three sites excavated: Donghuishan, Huoshaogou and Ganguya.

"During the first two periods of the onghuishanCemetery, there were only arsenical copper articles, but by the third period, bronze articles came into being. In the Ganguya Cemetery which was later than the Donghuishan Cemetery, more than sixty-five percent of the copper samples was tested bronze articles."

Siba culture played an intermediary role between the cultures to the east and west. There were also contacts with the Eurasian steppe. Research indicates that there was close interaction between agricultural and pastoral/hunting communities in this wide geographical area; pastoral/hunting communities also possessed many metal artefacts.Li Liu, Xingcan Chen
The Archaeology of China: From the Late Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age.
Cambridge World Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, 2012 p336

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Further reading