The Sense of Order: Contextual Analysis of the Habitus and Social Spaces in Baiyinchanghan Neolithic Site, Northeast China

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Baiyinchanghan site is one of the most important sites of the Xinglongwa Culture (7,500-6,500 B.P.) in NE China. By employing Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus theory, this research explores social relations and cultural ideas by studying occupants’ habitus and social spaces. The habitus and social spaces in this site are demonstrated clearly through its well-organized houses, floors and artifacts with different functions placed at specific places. Contextually, habitus in this site forming in daily practice unconsciously is a kind of social norm, which could be called ‘a sense of order’, in a social context that people encountered with social risks during the hunt-gathering to agriculture transition. The sense of order was strengthened by the importance of digit "three", which was demonstrated by the tripartite classification of many cultural phenomena. The social spaces and habitus may also be related to gender-based labor division. In addition, the differences of social spaces and habitus between Zones A and B, not only could be resulted from distinct economic backgrounds, but also be divided to form two people groups. These differences could be interpreted as their strategy to strengthen the sense of identity in confronting with resource competition.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25195