The focus of this research is the Hongshan period (ca. 45003000 BCE) chiefly community of Fushanzhuang, centered on a group of elite burial mounds and other monuments, located in the Chifeng region of eastern Inner Mongolia. Our purpose was to determine to what degree, if any, inter-household economic specialization (as opposed to ritual specialization) underwrote the emergence of social hierarchy at Fushanzhuang, and perhaps more generally during the Hongshan period. Fieldwork began with an intensive systematic survey for, and the intensive surface artifact collection of, a large sample of the core communitys constituent households. These data, along with those collected during subsequent micro-regional surface survey for additional outlying settlement, were used to estimate Fushanzhuangs duration of occupation, and its areal and demographic parameters.
From analysis of surface-collected lithic artifacts we identified five distinct economic emphasesor specializationsamong households at Fushanzhuang. These emphases include initial tool production, tool finishing, tertiary tool production/maintenance, agricultural production, and generalism. Additional analyses of lithic reduction provided corroboration for these different activities. From analyses of ceramic decoration, paste, and vessel type, as well as information on personal ornaments, we inferred the presence of differences in both status and wealth accumulation between households, two dimensions of social ranking that did not correlate with one another. We also found that economic specialization did not co-vary with higher status at Fushanzhuang. Most of Fushanzhuangs higher status households were among its least specialized in terms of their activities. Nearly all higher status households were also among its least wealthy. In contrast, its most specialized householdsespecially those engaged in stone tool productiontended to be among the communitys wealthiest. Only a very few of these, however, also appear to have enjoyed higher than average social standing.
These findings suggest two separate but co-extant social hierarchies in Hongshan society: one based on the accumulation of wealth via economic specialization, the other based on something elseperhaps ritual authority. Thus, although economic specialization contributed to community coalescence, and to the creation of wealth differentials at Fushanzhuang, it cannot be said to have exclusively underwritten the development of social hierarchy there.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-06222006-134541 |
| Date | 04 October 2006 |
| Creators | Peterson, Christian Eric |
| Contributors | Katheryn M. Linduff, Robert D. Drennan, Marc Bermann, Gideon Shelach, Olivier de Montmollin |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-06222006-134541/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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