Settlement Pattern And Jade Production

Research on social situation, especially the nature of the society in the Liangzhu Culture was always a main topic in the research of the Liangzhu Culture. But as former articles always focused on discussing if the Liangzhu Culture had stepped into the "civilzaiton" or "state" period with some limited material, I think this research way meant "putting the cart before the horse" more or less. As the social political organization system reflected by the settlement partterns and jade economic organization system reflected by the jade handicraft industry were two most important social organization systems in the society of the Liangzhu Culture, and they also had close relation, so, my research focused on these two aspects, and we scan the general situation and the nature of the society in Liangzhu Culture from these two view angles.There are four chapters in this thesis.Chapter1:Introduction. The frist part of this chapter introduced the reason why I chose this topic and the general research thought of my thesis. The seconed part of this chapter momorized the76years' history of discovery and research of the Liangzhu Culture with4periods; and it introduced the main topics and methods in different periods, and the current situation of the research on the Liangzhu Culture's settment and jade. The third part of this chapter introduced the reseach plan, theorial background and detailed methods of this thesis. Generally speaking, the research in my thesis obeyed the order from microcosmic to macrocosmic, from material to theory; for specific research, it consulted some theorial model from western archaeology and combined them with the current archaeologial material of the Liangzhu Culture; for the detailed methods, we used different methods for researches on settlement pattern and the jade production in the Liangzhu Culture.Chapter2:The research on the settlement pattern of the Liangzhu Culture. The first part of this chapter discussed two foudational questions which have close relation with my research and were not researched enough yet, i.e. the periods dviding and areas dviding questions in the Liangzhu Culture. On that basic, the second and third parts researched the settlement pattern of the Liangzhu Culture and the social situation it reflectd from the microcosmic and the macrocomic aspects. For the research on the microcosmic settlement pattern of the Liangzhu Culture, firstly, this chapter analysed some compared complete settlements, and I think they had some characters, for example the burial area often was built on the deserted living area. Secondly, this chapter analysed the interior struction and the social organization it reflected with deatailed examples of the5different levels cemeteries in the Liangzhu Culture. Generally speaking, I think the microcosmic settlement pattern of the Liangzhu Culture represented a seriously differentiated,"leader dominanted" social structure with the lineage as its basic unit; the first and second levels cemeteries of the Liangzhu Culture represented the noble and powerful lineages, the third, fourth and fifth level cemeteries represented the basic lineage in the Liangzhu Culture; and in every level, tombs groups in cemeteries were all designed for the leader tomb obviously. At last, this chapter also analysed the cemetery's change in different periods of the Liangzhu Culture, I think the general trend of cemeteries'change in the Lianzhu Culture was that the level of cemeteries got higher and higher, and the number of burial goods got more and more, and it was more obvious for the higher level cemeteries. For the research on the marcocosmic settlement pattern of the Liangzhu Culture, in4main areas of the Liangzhu Culture, this chapter analysed their general distribution, the level situation, the changes in different period of all sites, and their marcrocosmic settlement structures, and their characters. Through these analyses, I think3or4levels'macrocosmic settlement structure common existed in the Liangzhu Culure's distribution area; the single settlement and small settlement groups were basic structures, and their situation were also clear; but in the around Tai lake area, one charater of the marcrocosmic settlement pattern is that the definition of the "single settlement" was not very clear; the big settlenment group under the control of a high level settlement should represented the highest political body of the Liangzhu Culture, and the settlement group in a small area maybe represent a kind of loose blood linked or geo-linked groups in the Liangzhu Culture. At last, this chapter analysed the general character of the Liangzhu Culture's macrocosmic settlement pattern, and the social scale, the stability of this society it reflected. I think there were about35highest political bodies in the Liangzhu Culture which were distributed evenly in this area, and the society was stable in the whole Liangzhu Culture period, most settelements were used for a long time.Chapter3:The research on the jade production system and organizaiton in the Liangzhu Culture. Firstly, this chapter cited other scholars'opinions on the function of the jade and the pictures on them; I think, besides some small decorative jade, the main big jade in the Liangzhu Culture were ceremonial religional items and the symbols for the identity, wealth and status of the death, and the main motive of the jade handicraft industry was the need of the Liangzhu Culture's noble for religion life and political control. Secondly, this chapter mainly analysed a core questions in the research of the jade production system in Liangzhu Culture, i.e. the provenience problem of the Liangzhu Culture's jade. Through the analysis of the property and resources of Liangzhu Culture's jade in the second part, I think the jade of the Liangzhu Culture can be dvided into3kinds—pure color material, multi color material and jigu white material; and in the below Yangzi river area, the mountainous area in the west Jiangsu and Zhejiang have the best environment for forming jade mine and there no possibility for it in the Jiaxing area. Throug the statistics of the total sum, the numbers of the main kinds of jade and the types of jade in the different areas and sites in the Liangzhu Culture in the third part, I think the Liangzhu sites group and Sidun site had the most jade and the southeastern round Tai lake area had the fewest; and the types of jade decreases generally from the Liangzhu sites group in the southwestern round Tai lake area to the Sidun site in the northwestern round Tai lake area anticlockwisely. Through anlysing detailed technology and the producing procedure of the Liangzhu Culture's jade and the discovery of remains directly related to the jade production in the Liangzhu Culture's sites in the fourth part, I think the picture carving technology was the most complicated and key technology in this procedure, and Tangshan, Dingshadi, Xindili and other sites were obvious jade producing sites in the Liangzhu Culture. The most important of this chapter is the analysis on the detailed formation and quality characters of the5important kinds of jade in different areas and sites of the Liangzhu Culture in the fifth part, through these analysis, we can see that their difference were obvrious, and even in different tombs of the same cemetery, their jade which belong to the same kind also had bigger difference. According to all these analysis, in the sixth part, I think the main jade meteraial in the Liangzhu Culture came from the mountainous area in the west Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces; the jade handicraft industry of the Liangzhu Culture can be divided into4industry areas:Liangzhu sites group, Caoxie—Sidun, Fuquans—Zhanglingshan, and eastern Yuhang—western Jiaxing, and the former2areas had bigger scale and influence; in these4area, they all had jade producing sites of their own, and the professional jade maker had appeared; although some lower level settlements can make some small jade by themselves, most big jade were made by the professional jade maker in the higher level settlements; besides being used in these settlements, jade communication also existed among the policital body form the high level settlements to the low level settlements and between some high level settelements; the jade production organization in the Liangzhu Culture was created mainly for the need of the Liangzhu Culutre's nobel, and was controlled by them, it is a kind of economic organization born from the Liangzhu Culture's social political organization.Chapter4:Conclusion. According to the analysis in chapter2and3, and comparing with the Erlitou Culture, the first part of this chapter discussed the nature of the Liangzhu Culture's society; I think the evolution step of the Liangzhu Culture's society was lower than the Erlitou Culture obviously, and there were many political bodies inside the Liangzhu Culture and there was no "dynasty atmosphere" in it; it should be a chiefdom society differentiating seriously. The second part of this Chapter analyses the interaction relationship between the Liangzhu Culture's jade handicrafts industry and its society; I think, the jade handicraft industry serviced for the noble of the Liangzhu Culture. On this basic, in one side, the different settlement/population density and situation controlling jade resources made the difference of the settlement pattern and jade handicraft in different areas of the Liangzhu Culture:for high population density and no jade resources in Jiaxing area, it had some characters such as small difference between different settlement levels in its macrocosmic settlement pattern and compared equal jade distribution; as closed to the jade resources, the Liangzhu sites group and other areas had more jade and big difference between different settlement levels. In the othe side, the inhomogeneity of the jade in different areas leaded to the different influence power of the local noble and different combining strategy for using luxuries:as owning more jade, the noble in the Liangzhu sites group, Sidun site and other areas had the ability to set up huge buildings such as the Liangzhu city and Sidun cemetery, as lacking for jade, the noble in the Jiaxing and Suhu areas more trended to using carving picture pottery, bone or ivory items and other luxuries tofill this gap.