The purpose of this paper is to explore archaeological evidence in order to clarify the conceptual difference between center posts and gable posts in Chinese architectural history. The pair of center posts and gable posts conceptually corresponds to munamochi-bashira ridge-supporting posts in Japanese architectural history. In Japanese architectural history, however, no pair of clearly different concepts emerged relevant to munamochi-bashira ridge-supporting posts. To achieve the above-mentioned purpose, this paper places focus on the Yellow River basin area in northern China in the Neolithic era to understand the primordial conditions that led to the emergence of wooden structures with center posts and gable posts.
The oldest Neolithic culture in the Yellow River basin was the Peiligang culture along the middle reaches of the Yellow River, followed by the Cishan culture along its middle and lower reaches, and the Laoguantai and Yangshao cultures along its upper and middle reaches. The Laoguantai, Cishan, and Peiligang cultures were early Neolithic cultures. The mainstream form of dwellings during the period was semi-cave dwellings. The Laoguantai, Cishan, and Peiligang cultures are considered precursory to the Yangshao culture. During the middle of the Yangshao culture, a gradual transition occurred from semi-cave dwellings to ground-level dwellings. The earliest ground-level dwellings emerged as wooden structure buildings with wooden posts arranged in neat order on their flat floor and earthfast posts (center posts or gable posts) erected from the ground for use as munamochi-bashira posts directly supporting ridge beams.
This paper pays attention to cave dwellings, which emerged at the start of evolution of the earliest ground-level dwellings, and particular attention to the form of cave dwellings added with wooden posts to view this form as cave dwellings and wooden posts. To clarify how the wooden posts included in the initial form of cave dwellings were replaced with center posts/gable posts installed in the earliest ground-level dwellings, we investigated, in particular, the early Neolithic phases of the Laoguantai, Cishan, and Peiligang cultures, which are considered precursory to the Yangshao culture.
Our investigation revealed that during the prehistoric era, two different methods were used for the exterior and interior of buildings in northern China, especially in the Yellow River basin. In other words, exterior perimeter walls originally emerged as mud walls containing no wooden members and then were gradually replaced with ones containing wooden members. As for interiors, single vertical wooden posts first came into use; then, paired or multiple wooden posts came to be used as separate vertical posts and were gradually replaced with ones used in combination with horizontal members such as beams and girders or with roof-supporting horizontal members, such as purlins and ridge beams. The place of both center posts and gable posts seen in Chinese architectural history corresponds to that of munamochi-bashira ridge-supporting posts found in Japanese architectural history. While center posts emerged as the result of the above-described replacement of wooden posts stood upright inside with those cleverly combined with horizontal members, gable posts came into being as the result of the above-described gradual introduction of wooden members into exterior perimeter mud walls that originally contained no wooden members.
Thus, in the Yellow River basin in northern China, the difference between center posts and gable posts reflects that in origination, an ancient difference existing since the birth of architecture. We can reasonably infer that this ancient difference has survived to this day. We conclude that this is what characterizes the architectural styles in this region.
