Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T03:14:19.516Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rediscovering the settlement system of the ‘Dian’ kingdom, in Bronze Age southern China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Alice Yao  and
Jiang Zhilong
Alice Yao
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Room 396 Terrence Donnelly Health Science Complex, 3359 Mississauga Road North, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canada (alice.yao@utoronto.ca)
Jiang Zhilong
Affiliation:
Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, 15-1, Chunmingli, Chunyuanxiaoqu, Kunming, Yunnan 650118, China
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Surface collection, exposed sections and the use of irrigation wells and channels enabled the authors to map the settlement pattern of the elusive Dian kingdom before it became a subsidiary of the Han empire. The pattern showed that the Dian were already hierarchical, with settlements of different sizes and a political centre in which ritual bronzes featured. The empire redrew the landscape, with settlement migrating away from the wetlands into the hills where it could oversee the routes of communication into Southeast Asia.

Keywords

south ChinaYunnan provinceYizhouDianBronze Agefirst millennium BClandscape surveysettlement hierarchy
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 332 , June 2012 , pp. 353 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allard, F. 1998. Stirrings at the periphery: history, archaeology, and the study of the Dian. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 2(4): 321–41.Google Scholar
Allard, F. 2005. Frontiers and boundaries: the Han empire from its southern periphery, in Stark, M. (ed.) Archaeology of Asia: 233–54. Malden (MA): Blackwell.Google Scholar
Anderson, D. 1994. The Savannah River chiefdoms: political change in the late prehistoric Southeast. Tuscaloosa (AL): University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Chiou-Peng, Tzehuey. 2011. The technical history of early Asian kettle drums, in Bunker, E. & Latchford, D. (ed.) Khmer and related bronzes: 17–26. Chicago (IL): Art Media Resources.Google Scholar
Dearing, J. 2008. Landscape change and resiliance theory: a palaeoenvironmental assessment from Yunnan, SW China. The Holocene 18: 117–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drennan, R. & Xiangming, Dai. 2010. Chiefdoms and states in the Yuncheng basin and the Chifeng region: a comparative analysis of settlement systems in north China. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29: 455–68.Google Scholar
Feinman, G. 1998. Scale and social organization: perspectives on the archaic state, in Feinman, G. & Marcus, J. (ed.) Archaic states: 95–134. Sante Fe (NM): SAR Press.Google Scholar
Galaty, M. & Parkinson, W. (ed.). 2010. Archaic state interaction: the eastern Mediterranean in the Bronze Age. Santa Fe (NM): SAR Press.Google Scholar
Higham, C. 1996. The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zhengyao, Jin, Hisao, Mabuchi, Chase, Tom, De'An, Chen, Karoku, Miwa, Yoshimitsu, Hirao & Dianzeng, Zhao. 1999. Guanghan Sanxingdui jisigeng qingtongqi de huaxue zucheng he qian tongweisu bizhi yanjiu [Research on the lead isotope rations and chemical composition of bronzes from the Sanxingdui ritual pits in Guanghan], in Yanjisuo, Sichuan Sheng Wenwu Kaogu (ed.) Sanxingdui jisikeng [The ritual pits of Sanxingdui]: 490–99. Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe.Google Scholar
Kim, Nam C., Toi, Lai Van & Hiep, Trinh Hoang. 2010. Co Loa: an investigation of Vietnam's ancient capital. Antiquity 84: 1011–1027.Google Scholar
Lee, Yun Kuen. 2001. Status, symbol, and meaning in the Dian culture. Journal of East Asian Archaeology 3(1-2): 103–131.Google Scholar
Linduff, K., Drennan, R. & Shelach, G.. 2004. Early complex societies in NE China: the Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project. Journal of Field Archaeology 29: 45–73.Google Scholar
Liu, Li, Xingcan, Chen, Kuen, Lee Yun, Wright, H. & Rosen, A.. 2004. Settlement patterns and development of social complexity in the Yiluo region, north China. Journal of Field Archaeology 29: 75–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murowchick, R. 2002. The political and ritual significance of bronze production and use in ancient China. Journal of East Asian Archaeology 3(1-2): 133–92.Google Scholar
Stein, G. 1999. Rethinking world-systems: diasporas, colonies, and interaction in Uruk Mesopotamia. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Sun, Taichu & Xi, Xiong. 1983. Chronology, in Rawson, J. (ed.) The Chinese bronzes of Yunnan: 243–52. London: Sidgwick and Jackson and Cultural Relics Publishing House.Google Scholar
Sun, Xiangjun, Yushu, Wu, Yulou, Qiao & Walker, D.. 1986. Late Pleistocene and Holocene vegetation history at Kunming, Yunnan province, southwest China. Journal of Biogeography 13: 441–76.Google Scholar
Tong, Enzheng. 1991. Chiefdoms in southwest China: the Dian culture as an example. High Bronze Age of southeast China and south China. Hong Kong: Institute of Chinese Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Underhill, A., Feinman, G. M., Nicholas, L., Bennett, G., Cai, Fengshu, Yu, Haigeng, Luan, Fengshi & Fang, Hui. 1998. Systematic regional survey in southeast Shandong province. Journal of Field Archaeology 25: 453–74.Google Scholar
Watson, B. 1993. Sima Qian: records of the Grand Historian of China (translation). New York: Columbia University Press; Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Wright, H. T. 1977. Recent research on the origin of the state. Annual Review of Anthropology 6: 379–97.Google Scholar
Wright, H. T. 1984. Pre-state political formations, in Earle, T. K. (ed.) The evolution of complex societies: the Harry Hojier Lecture for 1982: 41–77. Malibu (CA): Undena Press.Google Scholar
Yang, Bin. 2005. Horses, silver and cowries: Yunnan in global perspective. Journal of World History 15(3): 281–322.Google Scholar
Yao, A. 2005. Scratching beneath iconographic and textual clues: a reconsideration of the social hierarchy in the Dian culture of southwestern China. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 24: 378–405.Google Scholar
Yao, A. 2010. Recent developments in the archaeology of southwestern China. Journal of Archaeological Research 18: 203–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, City Museum of Kunming & Guandu District Museum (YPICRA et al.). 2005. Kunming Yangfutou mudi [Kunming Yangfutou cemetery]. Beijing: Science Press.Google Scholar
Yunnan Provincial Museum. 1963. Fourth season of excavations of the ancient cemetery at Shizhaishan, Jinning, Yunnan. Kaogu 9: 480–85.Google Scholar
Zhang, Zengqi. 2001. Dian wenhua [Dian culture]. Beijing: Wenwu chuban she.Google Scholar