祭祀是先民生活的重要组成部分之一。尽管贵族祭祀活动的研究较多,但平民祭祀遗迹却由于发现较少而难以深入分析。广州榄园岭遗址春秋时期墓葬群中发现了越文化中常见的碎物祭祀坑。本研究对若干墓葬和相关祭祀坑中的填土开展了炭屑和植硅体分析。结果表明,先民在祭祀坑中有意燃烧过植物类祭品;用作祭品的植物种类较杂,包含扇型、棒型、方型或刺球型等植硅体。结合其他遗址中出现的类似现象,榄园岭先民的祭祀活动,应是在因地制宜、就地取材的基础上,吸收了苗蛮文化的因素,同时影响了其他地区。这一发现为探索先秦古人的祭祀行为提供了丰富信息;此外,炭屑和植硅体分析为确定祭祀遗迹提供了新的研究范式。
Sacrifice was one of the most important activities in the daily life of ancient Chinese people. Due to the limited materials found,there is little analysis of civilian sacrificial culture in spite of a large amount of research on sacrificial practices of the elite. Sacrificial pits with many broken pottery shards,common in the region of Yue culture,were found in the tombs at Lanyuanlingsite,Guangzhou. The site is dated back to the Spring and Autumn Period( 770 B. C. ~ 476 B. C.). In this paper,charcoal and phytoliths in the soil fill of several tombs and related sacrificial pits were extracted and analyzed. It is found that the ancient people had consciously burnt,as offerings,several kinds of plant that yielded fan-shaped,elongate,rectangular or spherical crenate phytoliths. Comparison with similar findings at other archaeological sites,suggests that the special sacrificial customs of ancestors at the Lanyuanling site might have absorbed cultural practices of Miao tribes,but they may have been adapted to suit local conditions,and materials. This research provides profound information for exploring the religious rituals of ancient people. Furthermore,charcoal and phytolith analysis offers a new research paradigm to confirm sacrificial relics containing burnt plant sacrifices.