Imports or imitations?: Scientific and typological analysis of the bronze artefacts at the Moutuo Archaeological Site, Sichuan, China*

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The typological and scientific analysis of bronze artefacts has been widely applied to the issue of local production versus important, which can be further linked to the long‐distance trade exchange and movement of raw materials, technology and people. Bronze artefacts bearing stylistic features of different regional origins have been discovered at the site of Moutuo in Sichuan, south‐west China. This study investigates the metal provenance of these artefacts by using the impurity patterns of the Oxford system. By combining the Pb isotopic data, it is feasible to distinguish the locally produced objects from those importations. This study contributes a detailed case study to the wider question of the movement of metal in south‐west China between the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age.