Settlement Patterns and Development of Social Complexity in the Yiluo Region,North China

Abstract

This international, collaborative, and interdisciplinary archaeological program examines changes in settlement patterns from the early Neolithic to the full development of states (ca. 6500–200 B.C.) in the Yiluo region of central north China. Full-coverage regional surveys are integrated with geoarchaeological investigations, ethnobotanical studies, and lithic analyses. The data are used to assess changes in population, environment, land use, agricultural production, and craft production, and to test theoretical propositions regarding the emergence and development of social complexity. Research results suggest a significant sociopolitical transformation taking place in the Yiluo basin during the Erlitou period, including the development of the first four-tiered settlement hierarchy, marked population nucleation, and economic integration between urban center and rural areas. These changes indicate the emergence of the earliest state in China.     

Chalcolithic Hamlet Excavations near Shiqmim,Negev Desert,Israel

Abstract

We explore the nature of three small villages or “hamlets” situated in close proximity to Shiqmim—one of the largest Chalcolithic (ca. 4500–3600 CAL B.C.) settlements in the southern Levant. Located in the northern Negev Desert of Israel, Shiqmim and other large sites in the Beersheva valley have yielded data suggesting the emergence of a regional chief dom-level social organization in this period. Identifying chiefdoms in the Near Eastern archaeological record is difficult because there is little material evidence of displays of rank and power such as are found in Mesoamerican chiefdoms. A two-tier settlement hierarchy with large settlement centers that coordinate religious, political, and economic activities for a constellation of smaller satellite villages or hamlets is one of the most important cross-cultural attributes of chiefdoms documented by anthropologists. The results from archaeological soundings, material culture analyses, and radiocarbon dating of small-scale sites in the vicinity of a large settlement center in the Beersheva valley are consistent with the presence of a dynamic regional chiefdom-level society during the Chalcolithic period.     

Four Millennia of Cultural History in Nigeria (<Emphasis Type="Italic">ca</Emphasis>. 2000 B.C.–A.D. 1900): Archaeological Perspectives

This essay is an analysis of archaeological contributions to the understanding of Nigeria's cultural history between ca. 2000 B.C. and A.D. 1900 focusing on the following themes: the origins of food production; development and transformations in metallurgical traditions; the beginnings of social complexity; and the character of state formation and urbanism. The transformations in everyday material life as a result of the entanglement with the Atlantic commerce and ethnoarchaeological approaches to understanding material culture and archaeological contexts also receive attention. The essay provides pathways to some of the turning points in Nigeria's cultural history, shows the convergence and divergence of cultural historical developments in different parts of the country, and identifies the critical gaps in archaeological research agenda.     

The Transition to History in Southeast Asia: An Introduction

Studies of the transition from prehistory to history in Southeast Asia have traditionally relied primarily on documentary sources, which tend to emphasize foreign influences, rather than on the archaeological record, which suggests a series of indigenous developments. The papers in this journal issue and the next discuss strategies for using both documentary and archaeological evidence to study the transition to history and the emergence of early states in the region. These papers investigate how political units were structured and integrated in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South China, and illustrate how historical and archaeological data can cross-check each other to inform on Southeast Asian sociopolitical and economic developments during the early historic period.     

Trade and Social Complexity in Coastal Ecuador from Formative Times to European Contact

Abstract

The trajectories of social development in southern Manabí, Ecuador are reconstructed from the Formative period to European contact to clarify the role played by trade connections. The results of a systematic full-coverage survey suggest that increased interaction between southern Manabí societies and northern Peruvian states could have been an important factor behind the increase in social complexity in the study region beginning ca. A.D. 750. Unlike many models of social development, the archaeological data indicate that this was not an activity undertaken primarily by elite groups, but rather by the general population, which took advantage of the direct economic benefits of trade, particularly of Spondylus shell items.     

Regional perspectives on Wari state influence in Cusco,Peru (c. AD 600–1000)

The archaeological reconstruction of ancient states requires consistent regional measures of state-directed power and influence. This paper presents data from a series of systematic archaeological surveys in the Cusco region of highland Peru to evaluate patterns of influence by the Wari state during a period of colonization from ca. AD 600–1000. We discuss interpretive debates over the nature and intensity of Wari social power, suggesting that site-based studies can be contextualized meaningfully using our large-scale dataset, which offers settlement patterns at varying distances (0–70 km) from Pikillacta, a Wari administrative center. We discuss local settlement patterns before and during Wari colonization, as well as the distribution of Wari pottery and local Wari-influenced wares. We then use a geographic information systems analysis of travel time from key sites to evaluate the broad regional distribution patterns of local and Wari ceramic styles. Although the regional survey data do not inform us reliably about all kinds of social power, we conclude that the Wari cultural, economic, and political influence over the Cusco region was limited and discontinuous—an example of colonization that resembles the practices of other early states.     

Holocene later stone age hunter-gatherers south of the Limpopo River, Ca. 10,000-2000 B.P.

Encouraged by new, ethnographically grounded interpretations of San rock art, Holocene hunter-gatherer research south of the Limpopo has undergone a partial paradigm shift over the last decade, away from ecological issues and in favor of questions of social organization and ideology. Earlier models relating changes in regional demography to environmental shifts now need revision, as do long-standing studies of seasonal mobility. New research emphasizes instead identification of exchange and alliance networks and patterns of seasonal aggregation and dispersal. However, several of the assumptions of these models remain untested, while dating problems make it difficult to integrate rock art with other components of the archaeological record. Critical use of a more diverse set of ethnographic data, from both within and beyond the Kalahari, is also needed. These points are emphasized in discussing evidence for social and economic intensification between 5000 and 2000 B.P. in several areas of the subcontinent (KwaZulu-Natal, the southern, eastern, and far western Cape).     

Archaeometric Clearinghouse XX

Abstract

This article is a review of three recent monographs concerned with the later Middle Cypriote and Late Cypriote periods on Cyprus (ca. 1700–1200 B.C.). Each study focuses narrowly on archaeological, philological, or historical problems associated specifically with Cyprus or more generally with interrelations among Aegean, Cypriote, and eastern Mediterranean cultures. Oblivious to common interests, the authors reflect their own particularistic concerns: philology, toponymy, stone anchors. The three publications reviewed serve both as a framework and as a vehicle for presentation of a balanced discussion of archaeological, historical, and theoretical problems associated with Middle/Late Bronze Age Cyprus and its role in eastern Mediterranean maritime trade. In conclusion, and as an alternative, a concise synthesis of cultural and socio-historical patterns on Cyprus ca. 1700–1200 B.C. is presented.

The three volumes under review are: L. Hellbing, Alasia Problems. StudMedArch 57 (P. Åström's Förlag: Göteborg 1979); D. E. McCaslin, Stone Anchors in Antiquity: Coastal Settlements and Maritime Trade Routes in the Eastern Mediterranean. StudMedArch 61 (P. Åström's Förlag: Göteborg 1980); J. Strange, Caphtor/Keftiu, A New Investigation. Acta Theologica Danica 14 (E. J. Brill: Leiden 1980).     

从北京,上海,广州等大城市形态转变的模式和过程中看中国的城市转变

新的城市和经济的发展正在改变着中国城市基本的自然形态和结构。在城市发展的过程当中,能折射出国家动态的经济,社会和政策条件的新的模式正逐渐取代了由浓厚的意识形态所形成的带有鉴别性的模式。论文提供了北京,上海和广州等大城市形态转变的模式和过程的分析。重点谈到了土地使用的专业化,交通循环和建筑的高度,规划的过程,城市的更新及房地产市场的私有化等问题。20世纪见证了,中国大城市外形和构造的戏剧性改变。中国城市国际化的趋势日趋明朗化。中国文化的独特性以及中国社会主义制度的独特性,表明了中国城市的将来仍然与众不同。     

Funeral practices and foodstuff behaviour: What does eat meat mean? Stable isotope analysis of Middle Neolithic populations in the Languedoc region (France)

The aim of this study is to reconstruct the dietary patterns and economic behaviours of Neolithic populations in the Northwestern Mediterranean using isotopic and archaeological data. Burials come from four sites located in Languedoc–Roussillon region in French Mediterranean area. These sites are dated from the Middle Neolithic period (ca. 4500–3500 BC). They represent the Chasséen culture, characterized by regional features, such as economy management, resulting from territorial control. For this investigation, a stable isotopes (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) method has been used on 50 human bone collagens and 28 associated animal bones. This method provides direct dietary information on the protein consumed including the relative amounts of marine vs. terrestrial and animal vs. plant proteins in diets. Isotopic results are mainly compared to archaeological data to understand economic distinctions and potential social status variations between different groups using specific funeral practices, i.e. lithic chamber graves vs. domestic/funeral pits. Results show that individuals buried in lithic chamber graves and those buried in pits did not have the same dietary pattern. This result suggests a possible differentiation between two socio-economic groups, i.e. consumers of resources from herding and from farming. No aquatic food appeared to be routinely consumed by these individuals despite a relative close proximity to sea and freshwater sources. Moreover, these outcomes lead us to hypothesize that: (1) funeral practices could be linked to specific economies and/or (2) to different social status and that (3) burial type and foodstuff could be an expression of religious worship. Further research could include data from other areas, such as Spanish Catalonia where there are funeral structures similar to Languedoc lithic chamber graves.     

Warriors and blacksmiths: Mediating ethnicity in East African spears

Ethnoarchaeology offers some ability to transform contemporary forms of social constitution into a method for interpreting prehistoric social patterns and for understanding the coevolution of symbolic and utilitarian technologies. In north-central Kenya, one social caste of Lokop pastoralist actors (warriors) interacts with another (blacksmiths) to build a technology for socially constituting gender and social age. Three aspects of this process can help to direct analogous archaeological research in prehistoric contexts. First, this case reiterates that symbols for and symbolic acts of gender and social age continually help actors to constitute or negotiate their places within varied social fields. It is clear, however, that the connection between social prestige—essentially the goal of Lokop personal adornment—and real economic or political power is not necessarily direct. For Lokop herders, foreign traits of spear morphology are the stylistic raw material for constituting internally defined social fields. Ethmic distinctions are more pasively constituted, almost as an epiphenomenon. Second, the constituative significance of material symbols may be grasped without appealing to or understanding the cultural meaning of forms (in an emic sense) from only the archaeological evidence. In fact, prehistorians should not concern themselves with attempts to reconstruct the meaning of cultural phenomena. Rather, archaeological inquiry should attempt to infer the meaningfulness of formal traits within a specific social context, based on significant material patterns in the archaeological record. Third, the items of meaning themselves are constituted with their own material means of production, and these systems may be interpreted through economic models more familiar to archaeology. The Lokop case encompasses producers and users both as specialists. Blacksmiths rely on their marginal positions in herding society to make them the brokers of morphological traits. Warriors, also accustomed to marginal status, effectively collaborate with blacksmiths to set up their own future place as elders. For archaeological applications in prehistory, the exchange and processing of raw materials should reconstitute economic hierarchy in a very clear manner.     

Preservation and Rescue

Abstract

Shell bead manufacturing on California's northern Channel Islands apparently played a critical role in the rise of a simple chiefdom and the operation of a lively regional exchange economy. Recent research has focused on expanding our understanding of the economic and sociopolitical context of this rich tradition of shell bead production and the means by which bead makers articulated with other specialists, elites, and consumers. Analyses suggest that bead makers were specialists, yet we find that widely used concepts of independent and attached specialization are difficult to apply to the Channel Islands case for a number of reasons. We explore these reasons and suggest a simplification of definitions of specialization so they better accommodate variability in the archaeological record. Analysis of several dimensions of bead production data from the region illustrates a dramatic increase in intensity of bead production and a shift from the manufacture of simpler to more labor-intensive bead types at ca. A.C. 1150-1300. These changes appear linked to the emergence of elites approximately seven or eight centuries ago in this region.     

Historians, prehistorians, and the tyranny of the historical record: Danish state formation through documents and archaeological data

Historians traditionally have viewed the emergence of Denmark as a nation-state through western European primary sources, inferring a fragmented, politically divided region between AD 800 and AD 1050. Conversely, archaeologists using local-scale, single-site data argue for unification by ca. AD 800. An alternative is offered, combiningregional-scale archaeological methods (rank-size analyses) and consideration of westernand northern European texts. This approach reveals that as disparate polities unified, the “homelands” of ruling dynasties came under control quickly, while peripheral areas remained largely autonomous. To incorporate peripheral areas, rulers manipulated the location and function of political and economic centers. Local resistance to change is reflected in slow, uneven unification, interregional elite competition, and eventually, armed rebellion. The apparent discrepancies between historic and prehistoric data are no error; in fact, they mirror the inherent conflicts of this profound social transformation.     

Determining Olmec maize use through bulk stable carbon isotope analysis

Bulk stable carbon isotope analysis on absorbed organic residues in ceramics can be an effective method for discerning patterns of maize use when the ceramics come from relatively uniform archaeological contexts. The bulk stable carbon isotope method is faster and less costly than the more commonly used compound-specific stable carbon isotope analysis. Moreover, the bulk stable carbon isotope method can determine the presence of C4 plant carbon in samples in which organic compounds have degraded. Bulk stable carbon isotope analysis was used to discern patterns of maize (Zea mays mays) use among a sample of 24 ceramic sherds from an Early Franco Period feasting deposit (ca. cal 650 B.C.) at the Olmec site of San Andrés, La Venta, Tabasco, Mexico. A comparison of the δ 13C results of different categories of ceramics showed that proportionally more maize was used in luxury beverage service wares than in utilitarian vessels, suggesting that maize-based beverages were prominent in this probable elite feasting episode.     

The spatial economy of North American trade fairs

Through a study of trade fairs, this article illustrates that relational approaches to economic geography are not limited to the sphere of economic and social relationships. These relationships are influenced by and, in turn, shape material realities, such as specific infrastructure and the labour market, in a reflexive manner. Trade fairs are “relational events” that bring together regional, national, and often international producers, users, suppliers, and other agents of a value chain or technology field for the purpose of exchanging knowledge about technological and market developments, building partnerships, and maintaining existing networks through learning by interaction and observation. However, these events are also situated in space and time, grounded in the contexts of particular industries, trade patterns, public and private investments, as well as the economic geographies of places. Focusing on North America, this article presents and analyzes data on the economic geography of trade fairs and their regional economic impact (number of events, exhibitors, attendees, exhibition space). It explores regional trade fair patterns and dynamic changes in major trade fair cities by emphasizing the role of history and industry context.     

State Archaeology and the Private Museum: An Integrated Approach to Archaeological Site Management for Local People in China

During the emergence of Chinese archaeology, the legislative system of cultural heritage in China included archaeological excavations and investigations as being the ‘exclusive right of state’. This mode of state archaeology has proved its worth by increasing the authority and quality of archaeological research and excavations, as well as enhancing the social values and benefits at the state level. The local communities, however, have hardly been embedded into the archaeological projects, nor have the archaeological projects been employed to improve local and regional economic development. This paper considers private museums as embodying regional values and beneficial to projects under the mode of state archaeology. With a case study outlining collaborations between archaeologists and local agents under the excavation and conservation of ancient kiln sites at the town of Zichuan, I argue that private museums could be relatively prominent platforms for public engagement in activities of state archaeology. It might contribute to a reconsideration of the following: indirect archaeological concerns, local economic benefits, identities and alternative interpretations of locality.     

Integrating Local and Regional in Pre-Contact Hawaiian Agriculture at Kahuku,Hawai‘i Island

ABSTRACT

The agricultural systems of the Hawaiian archipelago were some of the most intensive in the Pacific and this scale of intensity is well illustrated by the large agricultural landscapes of leeward Hawai‘i Island. Previous research in the area has centred on understanding the relationship between agriculture, political process, and large-scale environmental conditions. Much of this research has been oriented at the regional level, privileging discussion of elite management and oversight, with only limited investigation exploring farmer-centric adaptation at local scales. In this paper, we assess the integration of local and regional processes in Hawaiian agriculture using recent paired archaeological and ecological data from the Ka‘ū Field System as a case study. We demonstrate the presence of both general patterns previously identified in the archipelago and particular adaptations to the local environment of Kahuku ahupua‘a. In particular, we highlight targeted infrastructural developments that allowed for cultivation of what would otherwise be a difficult cultivation medium within the confines of a larger, likely regionally organised, field system constrained by general soil biogeochemical thresholds. We argue that such investigations provide an increased understanding on how these large-scale agricultural landscapes were formed by integration at multiple social and spatial scales.     

Demography and the intensity of cultural activities: an evaluation of Funnel Beaker Societies (4200–2800 cal BC)

The Early and Middle Neolithic in Northern Central Europe and Southern Scandinavia is characterised by substantial changes in economic technology as well as in material culture in different periods. One of the main drivers for social development, but also for anthropogenic changes in the environment, is surely shifts in population density. To evaluate group sizes and population density we need archaeological proxies. Similar to other studies, we use ¹⁴C dates to reconstruct the intensity of prehistoric activities. A comparison of the human impact from pollen data with a quantification based on ¹⁴C dates proves a correlation which supports our appreciation of the value of sum-calibrated probabilities of radiometric measurements as a proxy for demographic developments. The large amount of usable dates in this study not only enables us to draw general conclusions on a supraregional level, but also makes it possible for us to compare the character of different areas on a regional scale. As a result, we reconstruct a significant rise in population between 4100 and 3500 cal BC and a degression around 3350–3100 cal BC, followed by a reiterated increase for the Funnel Beaker West and North Groups. On the Danish Isles, as well as in the Funnel Beaker North Eastern Group, different tendencies are observable.