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In comparison to other regions in the world, there have been only limited studies on the archaeology of early urbanization in China, partly due to the lack of adequate information available for such studies. Issues on urbanism in China are also intertwined with questions concerning state formation, which have been controversial . Previous research has been focused primarily on the Shang Dynasty, particularly in its centers at Zhengzhou and Anyang in Henan. Several models have been proposed by these scholars to help to characterize the political contexts of early urbanism in China. These include models of city-states, segmentary states, territorial states, and village states (for a detailed discussion see Liu and Chen 2003). There is no consensus among scholars, however, regarding the nature of urbanization in China, and these two Shang cities, which have been the focus of discussion, may in fact not represent the earliest cities, but relatively mature stages of urban development. What we need to study are the processes during which the¤rst urban centers emerged in China. There are three traditions in the study of urban organization, all inherent in the writing of Childe (1950). First, there is the economic tradition, which characterizes urban organization as marked by specialization; this is exempli¤ed by Wright’s (1969) study of early Mesopotamian towns emphasizing the specialization of production and by Zeder’s (1991) study of Mesopotamian cities, which develops the specialization of production and distribution in depth. Second, there is the sociological tradition in which elite groups in the central settlement underwrite an urban lifestyle, as demonstrated by Adams (1965, 1966, 1981). Third, there is the ideational tradition in which the central settlements are icons of the universe, as illustrated by Wheatley (1971). Although all these features co-occur in the processes of urban development, each scholar tends to emphasize one of these (Wright, personal communication 2004). My approach to urbanism follows the economic tradition, investigating production and distribution of material goods, which characterize the ¤rst cities in China. 9 Urbanization in China Erlitou and Its Hinterland Li Liu There is little doubt in the minds of many scholars that the titles of the ¤rst city, the ¤rst state, and a capital of the ¤rst dynasty of the Xia are attributable to one site, that of Erlitou in Yanshi City, Henan Province (Figure 9-1). It is widely believed that the Erlitou site was the last capital city of the Xia Dynasty recorded in ancient texts. Since the Xia were conquered by the Shang people, who established the succeeding dynasty, according to textual records, the reconstructions of Xia-Shang relationships have dominated interpretations of the archaeological remains discovered at Erlitou and other sites in the Yiluo region. However, not all archaeologists and historians accept this view. Some have questioned the historic relation between Erlitou and Xia, and others have argued that the Erlitou polity was no more than a complex chiefdom (for more discussion and references see Liu and Chen 2003). The lack of consensus concerning the time and location of the origins of urbanism in China may be attributed to the available archaeological data. Erlitou has been treated as a source of standard typological and chronological sequences, and excavations have paid more attention to individual palaces and burials than to the spatial layout of the site and the political-economic systems of the region. This situation has prevented us from understanding the processes of social transformation that occurred at a regional level. Recent research on settlement patterns in the Yiluo River valley suggests that a rapid settlement nucleation may have taken place in the eastern hinterland of Erlitou during the Erlitou period, as indicated by a marked increase in site numbers , total occupation area, and size of the largest regional center (Liu et al. 2002/ 2004). Other studies on the relationships between core and peripheral settlements during the Erlitou period point to the development of a centralized sociopolitical organization, whose territorial expansion was primarily driven by the procurement of key resources (such as metal and salt) in the regions adjacent to the Yiluo basin (Liu and Chen 2001, 2003). The regional political-economic landscape of the Erlitou culture, therefore, indicates the emergence of a large monocentered polity. It may be characterized as a territorial state, the model proposed by Bruce Trigger (1993, 1999), which refers to a political entity with a single ruler who controlled a large area through a hierarchy of provincial and local administrators and administrative centers. On the basis of this model, the...

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