Haidai Region And The Taihu Lake Region Prehistoric Social Complexity, The Process Of Comparative Study

This dissertation compares the diverse trajectories in the prehistoric social evolution of two coastal regions in eastern China from analysis of data on settlement pattern, mortuary practice, and artifacts. Issues of social stratification are explored in light of the dynamic interaction of economy, religion, ideology, demography, and access to political and natural resources. The comparative study explores the nature of two regional developments in terms of their characteristic internal structure and impetus for change, which led to an in-depth investigation on the cause underlying the divergence in the developmental trajectories of the two regions. The study helps to reveal the role played by the coastal societies in the pluralistic social developments that contributed to the formation of Chinese civilization.The spatial analysis is conducted in three levels. First, the study of internal structure of settlement investigates the function, scale, and internal interaction within major communities, which sheds light on the intra-communal change within a society. Second, regional level analysis reveals the distribution and range of variation of sites within an integrated local society at a regional level. Third, the macro-regional study discusses the patterns of social interaction that contributed to the formation of a cultural area, defined by intense interregional interaction and shared cultural traits. In contrast to the settlement pattern, mortuary analysis is better equipped in revealing aspects of social differentiation and cultural identity, which are manifested in grave scale, burial treatment, quantity and quality of grave goods, as well as other key indicators. A quantitative and spatial analysis on the artifacts of symbolic importance in demarcating social rank and ritual authority further contribute to the understanding of specialization in craft production and political control over access and circulation of prestige goods.The patterns from spatial and mortuary analysis is understood from the perspective of a dynamic interaction of demography, culture, resources, and...