During the Neolithic period,burials displayed some internal consistency in their orientation.The cemeteries at Xipo and Qingliangsi is analyzed by the approach of Skyscape Archaeology to explore their probability of the relationship between their orientation and skyscape.It is argued that it was not the precise direction of sunset at the time of death that determined the orientation of the burials or the special importance of particular astronomical phenomena known to have been important in later times(the Milky Way or Antares),rather the direction of sunsets.The conceptual west and sunset directions might have been inseparably perceived during that time.It is suggested that the throughout the year played a decisive role in the worlds of ancient people and the dead in maintaining the harmony of sky,earth and people in ancient cosmology.
Burial orientationThe Late NeolithicLandscape archaeologySkyscape archaeologyCosmology
NETL
NSTL
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