Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Preface
- Cambridge Cultural Social Studies
- 1 Setting the scene
- 2 The changing environmental contexts of China's first complex societies
- 3 Household subsistence and ritual
- 4 Spatial organization and social relations in communities
- 5 Community burial patterns
- 6 Development and decline of complex societies in the Central Plains
- 7 Development and decline of social complexity beyond the Central Plains
- 8 Trajectories toward early states
- 9 Reconstructing social processes
- Notes
- Appendixes
- References
- Index
1 - Setting the scene
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Preface
- Cambridge Cultural Social Studies
- 1 Setting the scene
- 2 The changing environmental contexts of China's first complex societies
- 3 Household subsistence and ritual
- 4 Spatial organization and social relations in communities
- 5 Community burial patterns
- 6 Development and decline of complex societies in the Central Plains
- 7 Development and decline of social complexity beyond the Central Plains
- 8 Trajectories toward early states
- 9 Reconstructing social processes
- Notes
- Appendixes
- References
- Index
Summary
The objective of modern Chinese archaeology is to construct national history.
Su Bingqi (1997: 4)There is no need to emphasize the significance of Chinese civilization, which produced one of the few pristine states in the world nearly four thousand year ago. But it is rather surprising to note that, compared to other civilizations, little has been done in Chinese archaeology to systematically study the processes of state development. The aim of this book is to reveal the trajectories through which Neolithic culture developed from simple villages to complex political entities in the middle and lower Yellow River valley, the region in which the first Chinese states evolved. The most crucial time period for understanding these processes is the eve of the emergence of states, when the Longshan culture flourished.
The Longshan culture of Neolithic China was distributed through the middle and lower Yellow River valley in the third millennium BC. As the platform for fundamental social change it anticipated the emergence of early Chinese states and civilizations, the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. Several cultural traits mark a new stage of social development in the Longshan period. Writing systems may have been practiced (Chang 1999: 64–65; Postgate et al. 1995: 467–468); copper and bronze were used for making small implements and ornaments (Linduff et al. 2000); town walls were built and violence and warfare were widespread (Liu, L. 2000b; Underhill 1989, 1994); burial configurations indicate the presence of social hierarchies (Fung 2000; Liu, L. 1996a; Pearson 1981; Underhill 2000); regional cultures became more extensively distributed and interaction between them intensified; and finally, the Neolithic cultures of this region became increasingly complex, forming the foundation for the development of civilizations (Chang 1986: 234).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Chinese NeolithicTrajectories to Early States, pp. 1 - 18Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005