Resource, Transportation and the Political Landscape of the Chinese Bronze Age

Summary

The political landscape of the Chinese Bronze Age was characterized by controlling the key resource situated in the distant regions from the Luoyang Basin. The study of key natural resources and their transportation networks should therefore be an important facet of research into state formation during the Chinese Bronze Age. The extraction and transportation of key resource, and its relationship with the cultural landscape addresses the basic political framework of the states in Early China. With the geoarchaeological survey into the turquoise and cinnabar mines in the Qinling Mountain Range, this paper explores the political landscape of the first Bronze-Age state, Erlitou, through analysis of geography, resource flow, transportation, and archaeological sites in the Qinling Mountain Range. Moreover, by integrating the materials from 3rd to 2nd Millennium BC in a broader geographical scale, this paper details the dynamic process leading from the prosperity of the fringe areas of the Loess Highland to the Luoyang-centric network. This transformation is not only reconfiguration of the political landscape, but also the preparation of knowledge prerequisite for the political landscape of the Chinese Bronze Age.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21115