Research On Settlement Patterns Of Wucheng Site

Settlement archaeology has been an important approach in China. With the development of settlement archaeology theories and practice in recent years, case studies of individual sites have been paid more and more attention. The discovery of Wucheng Site is a great breakthrough of the Bronze Age archaeology in the Yangtse River valley and the whole southern China, as well as of the understanding of the cultural distribution patterns during the Shang period. The report of the excavation at the Wucheng site in 2005 has provided systemic materials for the spatial analysis of the site. The study is important to the cultural appearance, the social organization of the Shang period in the Ganjiang valley and their relationships with the Shang culture in the central China. The thesis discusses the intra-site spatial patterns of the Wucheng site.The thesis consists of five main parts.Part 1: Foreword. This part introduces the discovery and the research history of the Wucheng site, as well as the research methods and the thesis structure.Part II: Illustrates the modern geography and environment, the chronology and cultural elements of the Wucheng Shang site. The existence and development of human are closely linked with the environment and climate, while the cultural background is the research foundation of the comprehensive research. This chapter has briefly presented the geographical environment, and summarized the data of the status of the culture in Wucheng Shang site.Part III: Analyzes the spatial patterns and identifies the function areas of the Wucheng site. This is the main part in this thesis, and it is divided into two parts. The first part is analyzing the planar configuration, and the second part is analyzing the social function of different areas in the site. Firstly we establish relations of different features in the Wucheng site; secondly connect the related relics with their contextual background; at the end, the thesis compares spatial patterns of different periods of the site. Based on the spatial analysis, the thesis demonstrates different levels of social organizations in the site.Part IV: Intrasite spatial changes and the historical background of the Wucheng site. Based on the foundation of the analysis on planar configuration and the social function, the thesis inspects dynamic development of settlement patterns in the Wucheng shang site. Then discusses social development in different phases, and analyzes the historical background of changes.Part V: Conclusion. Based on the analysis above, we discuss the overall development of the social organization, social development in the Wucheng site. The encountering problems during the research period are pointed out at the end.