Study of Xichagou Cemetery in the Archaeology of China and Korea

The aim of the work is to analyze the main approaches to the study of Xichagou materials (primarily to establishing its ethnocultural affiliation), developed in the archaeological science of China and the Republic of Korea, and the results obtained in this area. The article provides a brief description of the materials of Xichagou cemetery (Xifeng County, Tieling City, Liaoning Province, China), dating back to the 2nd – 1st centuries BCE. The history of its discovery and exploration is presented. The cemetery was discovered in 1955, seriously damaged by looting, and subsequently the excavation report was published 66 years after the completion of the fieldwork, which complicated the interpretation of the materials. Since the discovery of the cemetery and up to the present time, the archaeological science of China has paid special attention to the issue of the ethnicity of the population that set up the cemetery. This problem is solved based on the data of written sources. At different times, hypotheses about the belonging of Xichagou cemetery to the Xiongnu, Wuhuan, Fuyu (Puyo) and Xianbei have been put forward. Currently, the “Wuhuan” version has become established in Chinese archaeology. In the Republic of Korea, the study of the materials of Xichagou cemetery began in the 1990s; these materials are used to reconstruct ethnocultural processes in East Asia, and are also used as analogies when solving specific problems in Korean and East Asian archeology. Among Korean archaeologists, the most common opinion is that Xichagou cemetery belongs to the Puyo.