The Wucheng culture (吳城文化) 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 in

Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. The initial site, spread out over , was discovered at

Wucheng Township, Jiangxi Wucheng Township () is a township under the administration of Zhangshu, Jiangxi, China, where the Xiushui River enters Lake Poyang Poyang Lake (, Gan: Po-yong U), located in Jiujiang, is the largest freshwater lake in China. The lake is ...

. Located on the

Gan River The Gan River (, Gan: Kōm-kong) runs north through the western part of Jiangxi before flowing into Lake Poyang and thus the Yangtze River. The Xiang-Gan uplands separate it from the Xiang River of neighboring eastern Hunan. Two similarly sized ...

, the site was first excavated in 1973. The Wucheng culture probably developed in response to cultural contacts with the expanding Erligang culture, melding Erligang influences with local traditions. The Wucheng culture was a distinct contemporary of Sanxingdui and

Yinxu Yinxu (modern ; ) is the site of one of the ancient and major historical capitals of China. It is the source of the archeological discovery of oracle bones and oracle bone script, which resulted in the identification of the earliest known Chin ...

(Anyang). The site at Wucheng was a regional protoporcelain production center; the culture is known for its distinctive geometric pottery. The Wucheng culture is also known for its bronze bells, the clapperless ''nao''. The Wucheng site at Xingan contained a rich cache of localized bronze vessels. The bronze axes were similar to those of the Dong Dau culture in the Red River valley. The earliest period, around 1600 BCE, contemporaneous with late Erligang, yielded pottery shards with inscribed symbols. These are unusual among pre-Anyang inscriptions in China in containing sequences of graphs; shards were found with horizontal sequences of 12, 7, 5 and 4 graphs, suggesting that they may be a form of writing, but quite different in form from oracle bone characters. However, the corpus, comprising a total of 39 graphs, is too small for decipherment. Some of these symbols are similar to Shang writing. Around 120 inscriptions have been found altogether. The site at Wucheng may have played a role in the decline of

Panlongcheng Panlongcheng () or Panlong City is an archaeological site associated with the Erligang culture () during the Shang dynasty period (). The site is located just north of the Yangtze river, on the bank of the Panlong lake, and is surrounded by the Fu ...

. Both sites appeared to have served as regional, competing centers for transporting resources from the south to the

North China Plain The North China Plain or Huang-Huai-Hai Plain () is a large-scale downfaulted rift basin formed in the late Paleogene and Neogene and then modified by the deposits of the Yellow River. It is the largest alluvial plain of China. The plain is border ...

. Towards the end of the Erligang culture, Wucheng began to grow significantly, while Panlongcheng declined sharply.

Y-chromosome DNA In human genetics, a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup is a haplogroup defined by mutations in the non- recombining portions of DNA from the male-specific Y chromosome (called Y-DNA). Many people within a haplogroup share similar numbers of s ...

from Wucheng culture sites shows a very different profile from

Liangzhu culture The Liangzhu culture (; 3300–2300 BC) was the last Neolithic jade culture in the Yangtze River Delta of China. The culture was highly stratified, as jade, silk, ivory and lacquer artifacts were found exclusively in elite burials, while pottery ...

sites in the lower Yangtze, suggesting that their populations may have been derived from separate migrations.

References

* * * {{Neolithic cultures of China Archaeological cultures of China Bronze Age in China History of Jiangxi 16th-century BC establishments in China