The Regional History of the Guan River Valley, China: Cultural Periphery, Ecological Diversity, and the Development of Social Complexity before A.D. 220

ABSTRACT

Regional settlement pattern studies in China have overlooked interregional interaction in the development of social complexity. This study examines settlement patterns, land use practices, sociopolitical structure, and interregional interaction from 4000 b.c. to the early Imperial period (before a.d. 221) in the Guan River valley, China. The Guan valley is located at the inter-montane corridor to three cultural core zones in China. An international collaborative team used regional full-coverage survey to locate 96 sites in 135 km² in the Middle Guan valley, the earliest of which dated to the middle Yangshao period (4000–3500 b.c.). In the late Yangshao period (3500–2900 b.c.), occupation increased rapidly and expanded to the upper reach and tributaries of the river. After an occupational collapse during the Early States period (1900–771 b.c.), the population recovered rapidly and reached a new level of organizational complexity in the Eastern Zhou period (770–221 b.c.). This pattern continued into the Qin-Han period (220 b.c.–a.d. 220), when hamlets increased in number and expanded into hilly areas.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• regional survey
• settlement patterns
• interregional interaction

Acknowledgments

I deeply thank the Department of Anthropology at the University of Georgia, the Department of Archaeology at Wuhan University, and the Henan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, China for their generous support of the project. I am particularly indebted to Professor Steve Kowalewski, Professor Ran Wang, Mr. Wenquan Fan, and other colleagues for their many insightful comments and suggestions. The project would never be accomplished without the hard work of students and colleagues from Wuhan University and the Henan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, especially Zhao Cao, Qiushi Zou, Ruijun Ruan, Chunguang Zhao, Libo Zhu, Liang Guo, Xiaofang Shen. I am also very grateful to the government and people of Xixia for their great support of the project.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Yanxi Wang (Ph.D. 2014, University of Georgia) is currently an independent researcher based in Chicago, IL. She has worked in China, and is interested in regional archaeology, spatial analysis, and the development of complex society in China.

Additional information

Funding

I am equally grateful to the National Science Foundation for funding the survey (BCS-1247931).