The use of historical texts to interpret archaeological data is a common practice in Chinese arch... more The use of historical texts to interpret archaeological data is a common practice in Chinese archaeology. The selective use of archaeological material as evidential support to textual accounts can however project a limited view of ancient societies, where social behavior from distinct contexts are conXated to produce a single coherent narrative. This paper addresses this prevalent interpretational approach to the Dian polity, a Bronze Age culture located in southwestern China, through a systematic analysis of the mortuary evidence from four cemeteries. Results from the multivariate analysis are contrasted against the textual and iconographic materials to provide a more comprehensive understanding of Dian social organization and to demonstrate social patterning that challenges conceptions about the nature of Dian social hierarchy.
and Keywords Gender is an underexplored issue in the study of ancient China, often understood to ... more and Keywords Gender is an underexplored issue in the study of ancient China, often understood to be one and same as biological sex. Using biological remains and material offerings excavated from major cemetery sites in China, this chapter examines the social construction of gender from the Neolithic to the period of state emergence under the Shang Dynasty. By comparing the different ways biologically sexed female individuals were treated at death, this discussion shows the variable ways gender could be understood depending on an individual's social rank, kinship relations, and even ethnic affiliation. Reappraisals of these cemetery sites also reveal how gender—as a shifting aspect of personhood and individual life histories—was instrumental in configuring the social relationships of early village communities as well as dynastic courts. These observations redress interpretations influenced by classical Chinese thought and Marxian paradigms.
The reconstruction of complex political formations in tropical and subtropical environments has l... more The reconstruction of complex political formations in tropical and subtropical environments has long been challenged by the ephemeral nature of archaeological deposits and the detectability of a settlement hierarchy. This paper presents findings from systematic archaeological surveys in the Lake Dian basin in southwest China to evaluate processes of political differentiation during the Bronze Age (ca. BC 900–100) and identified with the protohistoric kingdom of Dian. We discuss the problems of interpreting political consolidation based on mono-centers and ranked site size distributions. Our approach considers the contingent forms that 'built' landscapes can take in the humid subtropics in an effort to understand the variable relationship between politics and spatial scale. Combining traditional survey as well as subsurface methods suited for intensively worked paddy landscapes, we discuss the emergence and timing of multiple nucleated settlements as indicative of peer polity dynamics in the basin and examine the formation histories of large shell mound sites to highlight physical modifications that embedded central places during the Bronze Age period. We show that the boundary between on-site and off-site, living and non-living spaces is not solely determined by the availability of prime land but also by spatial conventions with discrete cultural and historical ramifications. By contextualizing macroscale views on complexity with an understanding of local scales of landscape transformation, we provide an alternative to models of pristine state formation based in temperate alluvial environments.
The use of historical texts to interpret archaeological data is a common practice in Chinese arch... more The use of historical texts to interpret archaeological data is a common practice in Chinese archaeology. The selective use of archaeological material as evidential support to textual accounts can however project a limited view of ancient societies, where social behavior from distinct contexts are conXated to produce a single coherent narrative. This paper addresses this prevalent interpretational approach to the Dian polity, a Bronze Age culture located in southwestern China, through a systematic analysis of the mortuary evidence from four cemeteries. Results from the multivariate analysis are contrasted against the textual and iconographic materials to provide a more comprehensive understanding of Dian social organization and to demonstrate social patterning that challenges conceptions about the nature of Dian social hierarchy.
and Keywords Gender is an underexplored issue in the study of ancient China, often understood to ... more and Keywords Gender is an underexplored issue in the study of ancient China, often understood to be one and same as biological sex. Using biological remains and material offerings excavated from major cemetery sites in China, this chapter examines the social construction of gender from the Neolithic to the period of state emergence under the Shang Dynasty. By comparing the different ways biologically sexed female individuals were treated at death, this discussion shows the variable ways gender could be understood depending on an individual's social rank, kinship relations, and even ethnic affiliation. Reappraisals of these cemetery sites also reveal how gender—as a shifting aspect of personhood and individual life histories—was instrumental in configuring the social relationships of early village communities as well as dynastic courts. These observations redress interpretations influenced by classical Chinese thought and Marxian paradigms.
The reconstruction of complex political formations in tropical and subtropical environments has l... more The reconstruction of complex political formations in tropical and subtropical environments has long been challenged by the ephemeral nature of archaeological deposits and the detectability of a settlement hierarchy. This paper presents findings from systematic archaeological surveys in the Lake Dian basin in southwest China to evaluate processes of political differentiation during the Bronze Age (ca. BC 900–100) and identified with the protohistoric kingdom of Dian. We discuss the problems of interpreting political consolidation based on mono-centers and ranked site size distributions. Our approach considers the contingent forms that 'built' landscapes can take in the humid subtropics in an effort to understand the variable relationship between politics and spatial scale. Combining traditional survey as well as subsurface methods suited for intensively worked paddy landscapes, we discuss the emergence and timing of multiple nucleated settlements as indicative of peer polity dynamics in the basin and examine the formation histories of large shell mound sites to highlight physical modifications that embedded central places during the Bronze Age period. We show that the boundary between on-site and off-site, living and non-living spaces is not solely determined by the availability of prime land but also by spatial conventions with discrete cultural and historical ramifications. By contextualizing macroscale views on complexity with an understanding of local scales of landscape transformation, we provide an alternative to models of pristine state formation based in temperate alluvial environments.
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Papers by Alice Yao