“As early as the Shang dynasty, ancestor worship had been practiced by nobles. By the Han, at the latest, it had become an important part of religious life of the common people, involving offerings to recent ancestors in home, at gravesites, or in specially constructed shrines. Domestic ancestral rites played an important part in fostering the solidarity of close relatives, and worship at graves or in temples become important to the formation and coherence of descent groups” Patricia Ebrey