Research On Settlement Archaeology In The Nen River Valley From The Neolithic To The Early Iron Age

The Nen River Valley is located in the center of Northeast China.It is not only a relatively independent geographical unit,but also an important cultural region of Northeast China.Different from the agriculture-based middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River Valley or the mixed economy characteristic of the Liaoxi region,the Nenjiang River Valley is an ancient cultural region which developed on a tradition of fishing,hunting and gathering.Its ancient settlements and social development processes clearly have distinct regional characteristics.This dissertation focuses on the settlement sites dated from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age.After a comprehensive collection and systematic review of the data,relevant data and sites from each period are chosen to be analyzed,combined with a macro-analysis and diachronical study of the settlement patterns,this research shades light on the social developments over a time span of nearly 10,000 years in this region.Finally,through a comparative study with the Liaoxi region,this dissertation investigates the regional characteristics of the settlement organization and the social development processes at play in the Nen River Valley.This thesis is divided into seven chapters.The introductory chapter exposes the topic,the geographical and chronological limits and contexts of the research,presents the physical geography,briefly reviews the previous research,explains the choice of the research question,and its methods and goals.The second chapter systematically sorts out the archaeological cultural sequence and chronological framework from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age in the Nen River Valley.After analyzing the quality and nature of the available data related to the settlement sites in this region and the needs of the present research,the author builds the chronological frame necessary to carry this research further.The Neolithic period is divided into early,middle,late and final phases,the period lasting from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age is divided into Early Bronze Age,Middle Bronze Age,Late Bronze Age and a Final Bronze Age to Early Iron Age phase.This chronological division provides a precise time scale to develop a settlement archaeology study.The third and fourth chapters respectively focus on the analysis of the representative settlement sites on the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods.The analysis includes the characteristics features of the settlement structure for each period,the development of the settlement structure and social organization,as well as their link with the environmental context,subsistence modes,ways of life,pottery techniques and production,etc.Through micro-observation and meso-analysis,these chapters aim to understand the development,differentiation and levels complexity of the society within each settlement.The fifth chapter offers a macro-analysis of the spatial distribution of the settlement sites in the whole Nen River Valley from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age period.First,the spatial distribution of the sites in the whole region is analyzed,the settlement patterns are analyzed and compared with neighboring regions,because of the data’s inherent limitations,this section can only use a simplified chronological frame with only two periods,namely Neolithic and Bronze Age to Early Iron Age.Secondly,the author analyses the results of the systematic region survey around the Yueliang Lake,through the long-time span observation and analysis of the settlement patterns changes between the Neolithic and the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age periods,this dissertation sheds a new light on the ancient settlement and social development of the Nen River Valley.In the sixth chapter,on the basis of the analysis of the data of representative settlement sites dating from each period and the study of the changes in the settlement patterns of this region,the author synthesizes the development processes of ancient settlements and society in the Nen River Valley,showing it can be understood as a three steps process.These results are then compared with the data from the Liaoxi region,taking in account the geographical environment,the climate,the subsistence mode and the local data obtained through systematic regional survey,as well as the available information on macroscale settlement and social development.By systematically reexamining the archaeological evidence and comparing them,this dissertation sheds a new light on the specific characteristics of the ancient settlement organization in the Nen River Valley.Finally,the conclusion summarizes the results of this research,shows its limits and proposes future paths of research.