| This thesis is an attempt to apply concepts of chiefdom--as a theoretical framework--and settlement archaeology--as an analytical method--to the study of the Longshan culture (2500-2000 BC) during the late Neolithic period in the middle and lower Yellow River valley of northern China.;Three types of chiefdom systems--unified, competing, and underdeveloped--are identified in different regions based on settlement pattern and other archaeological evidence. The earliest state seems to have developed from one of the varieties of competing systems, which were not the most complex chiefdom organizations existing at that time in northern China.;Religion and ritual activities (ancestor worship and shamanism), long-distance exchange of elite goods, population growth, and inter-group conflict all played important roles in the development of chiefdoms. Inter-group conflict, however, was probably the most significant factor responsible for the emergence of the earliest state in China.;These investigations focus on such features as social stratification, mode of production, ritual practice, settlement hierarchy, regional interaction, and demographic parameters. Settlement pattern data are analyzed on three levels--household, community, and region. Study of household settlement patterns (Chapter 2 & 3), including contextual analysis of faunal remains, artifacts, and features, is based on data from excavations conducted at the Kangjia site in Shaanxi province in 1990. Study of settlement patterns at the community level includes two parts: (1) development of residential patterns from the pre-Longshan to the Longshan period (Chapter 4), and (2) social hierarchy as reflected in grave furniture and spatial organization of burials in several Longshan cemeteries (Chapter 5). Analysis of regional settlement patterns focuses on such topics as settlement hierarchy, settlement location, population parameters, and regional interaction (Chapter 6 & 7). |
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