Interregional interaction and the emergence of complex societies in Lingnan during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age

This study focuses on the emergence of complex societies in Lingnan (which includes the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi in southeast China) during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age (3000-200 B.C.) and the role which interaction with northern areas may have played in this process. Five instances of sociopolitically complex societies are recognized in Lingnan: northern Guangdong (Shixia Culture) and western Guangdong during Period I (3000-1400 B.C.); southern Guangxi and eastern Guangdong (Fubin Culture) during Period II (1400-600 B.C.); and much of Lingnan during period III (600-220 B.C.). The aims of the study are threefold: (1) to characterize more precisely than before the nature of interaction with northern regions; (2) to determine how the 'elements' of interaction played a role locally in the process of hierarchization; and (3) to detect how different types interaction may be associated with differences in different types of trajectories, paying special attention to the stability of social systems.;Spatial, chronological and artifactual data is used to show that interaction with northern areas played a role in most instances of complex developments in Lingnan at this time, although existing local populations 'recruited' these elements of interaction rather than reacted passively to northern impact. In most instances, interaction is indicated by the presence of few northern artifacts (obtained through a 'down-the-line' exchange system) and local copies of such goods. By Period III, more directed relations link Lingnan with the Chu state to the north. It is suggested that in most instances, copies of northern goods are used in display and competition for power by would-be leaders. When northern stylistic innovations become unavailable to societies in Lingnan as a result of political/cultural change in central China, these societies are seen to experience a decrease in social complexity. It is suggested that continued and gradual development in the scale and hierarchical complexity of social systems is associated with a leadership in control of subsistence activities rather than one which relies on display and mystification for the support of the population. In the latter case, the system remains at the mercy of perturbations in the source of artifacts and ideas.