Remains of Sacrificial Offerings to Heaven and the Concept of Reverence for Heaven in the Neolithic Age of China: Features at the Gaomiao, Niuheliang, and Lingjiatan Sites

Abstract

Since about 8,000 years ago in China, humans started to hold ceremonies to offer sacrifices to heaven and reverence for heaven at low-lying terraced landscapes or on circular mounds on the hilltops. Typical archaeological features and remains of such activities can be noticed at the Gaomiao, Niuheliang, and Lingjiatan sites, indicating that a somewhat complex cosmology and definite concept of reverence for heaven and acts of offering sacrifices to heaven had well begun in the Yangtze River, Yellow River, and west Liaohe River valleys in the Neolithic Age, which continued, with succession, integration, and development, through the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, and even into the the whole ancient China after the Qin and Han dynasties. The concept of reverene for heaven co-evolved with ancient astronomy, which had far-reaching influences on the political system, philosophical thinking, science and technology of acient China. Like the veneration of the dead, it has become the core cultural gene of the Chinese nation.

Keywords

Neolithic Age of China, sacrificial offerings to heaven, reverence for heaven, Gaomiao, Niuheliang, Lingjiatan

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