Nadezhda Artemieva

Vladislav Boldin

The long-term research of the Jurchens’ sites included into the Eastern Xia State (1215–1233) has elucidated the economic structure of that period. The large amount and wide variety of agricultural equipment let us conclude that the Jurchens’ economy was based on farming and cattle breeding. The plowshares, socks, shovels and mattocks been excavated there fall into the category of equipment used for soil cultivating; sickles, fl ails and hayforks were used in harvesting; mortars and hand-operated mill stones were designed for grain processing. The basis of the Jurchnens’ grain farming consisted of many sorts of cultivated plants including cereals, beans, garden and technical crops. The Jurchen people used mortars and mill stones for their processing. Besides agricultural production, they consumed a great deal of meat products, so that the cattle breeding played considerable part in the economy sector. The Jurchens had the system of residential cattle breeding, where cattle and horses prevailed. There were agisted, pasture and yard forms of feeding. The archaeological research of the Eastern Xia State proved that the Jurchens’ sites mostly performed both administrative and military functions, but at the same time they can be regarded as military and agricultural centers.