Political Practice Of Early States

The processes and mechanisms of the formation of early states has always been one of the core issues discussed in the social science of the globe.Since the 1990s,researchers gradually realized that the linear evolution model could not reflect the differences in social development,and it was also difficult to prove directly from archaeological materials,so they turned to the mechanisms of social evolution to study the formation processes of early states and complex societies.In the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River during the longshan period(2600-2000 B.C.),with the number and size of central settlements increased,public investments including external defense facilities and internal infrastructures increased at the same time,which is crucial to our understanding of social complexity and early state formation.The formation of large central settlements and the construction of large public facilities require the collective action of members of the society and involve the selection and management of public investments.This paper attempts to discuss this complex and significant process by introducing the concepts of collective action,public investment and relevant theories.The first chapter introduces the space-time scope and case selection of this paper,briefly reviews the concepts and problems of early states under the new evolutionary model,and focuses on the application of collective action theory in the research of pre-modern societies in the western academic circles in recent years.The second chapter introduces the defensive facilities and infrastructures of the central settlements involved,and makes estimation and statistics on the size of the defensive facilities.By dividing the cases into three periods,it is found that with the passage of time,the scale of the central settlements and the public investments both show an obvious increasing trend,which provides the archaeological basis for the discussion of the relationship between the two.Based on the statistics above,The third chapter estimates the population of the core area of the central settlements,and then tests the correlation between the social scale and the investments in public defensive facilities.The results show that with the increase of the social scale,the correlation of the change from strong to weak.When the population of the core area reaches 1000-2000,the growth trend of defensive infrastructure investment stagnates,which indicates that the influence of social scale on public investment is not decisive all the time.Through the observation of some cases,it is found that the social management level,wealth distribution and external environmental pressure may have an impact on public investments.The fourth Chapter starts from the turning point of defensive investment,combines the estimated results of public investments and per capita cost in multiple cases,and concludes that this change may reflect the transformation process of public investment from external defense to internal infrastructure.Large-scale societies have relatively lower per capita input costs and greater potential and capacity to provide all kinds of infrastructuresIn addition,the discoveries of large and high-grade buildings may reflect another important process or mechanism,that is,the strengthening of the social management.The process of managing public investments can be regarded as an significant feature of political practice in early states.The fifth chapter summarizes the basic points of this paper and explains the existing problems.