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Guandimiao: a Shang village site and its significance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2018

Suting Li ,
Roderick Campbell  and
Yanfeng Hou
Suting Li
Affiliation:
Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Henan Province, Zhengzhou Municipality, Longhai Beisanjie 9 Hao, 450000, China
Roderick Campbell*
Affiliation:
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, 15 East 84th Street, New York, NY 10028, USA
Yanfeng Hou
Affiliation:
Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Henan Province, Zhengzhou Municipality, Longhai Beisanjie 9 Hao, 450000, China
*
*Author for correspondence (Email: [email protected])
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Abstract

Extensively excavated village sites from the Chinese Bronze Age are rare. Information emerging from the analysis of the small Anyang-period village site of Guandimiao, however, challenges widely held assumptions concerning the Shang polity at Anyang and its hierarchical lineages based on war and sacrifice. Evidence for specialised pottery production and the presence of artefacts imported from Anyang suggest an unexpected degree of regional economic integration. Guandimiao is emerging as a site of revolutionary importance for understanding Anyang-period Shang political and economic networks, and in its significance to both Chinese archaeology and the study of early complex societies more generally.

Keywords

ChinaAnyangGuandimiaoBronze Agepolitical economy
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 92 , Issue 366 , December 2018 , pp. 1511 - 1529
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2018 

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