Ancient Central China
Centers and Peripheries along the Yangzi River

An up-to-date synthesis of archaeological discoveries in the upper and middle Yangzi River region of China, including the Three Gorges Dam reservoir zone.

Rowan K. Flad (Author), Pochan Chen (Author)

9780521727662, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 21 January 2013

428 pages, 63 b/w illus. 16 maps
22.9 x 15.3 x 2.4 cm, 0.67 kg

'Ancient Central China is replete with up-to-date information (especially on Sichuan and the Three Gorges) and the authors' work at Zhongba and on the Chengdu Plain is a shining example of what is possible in Chinese archaeology. The history of scholarship in the region is especially rich and the authors' synthesis of palaeo-climate and geography is the best I know of in Chinese archaeology … Ancient Central China contains simultaneously some of the most stimulating theoretical proposals in Chinese archaeology and a much needed synthesis of an understudied region presented in provocative fashion.' Antiquity

Ancient Central China provides an up-to-date synthesis of archaeological discoveries in the upper and middle Yangzi River region of China, including the Three Gorges Dam reservoir zone. It focuses on the Late Neolithic (late third millennium BC) through the end of the Bronze Age (late first millennium BC) and considers regional and interregional cultural relationships in light of anthropological models of landscape. Rowan K. Flad and Pochan Chen show that centers and peripheries of political, economic and ritual activities were not coincident, and that politically peripheral regions such as the Three Gorges were crucial hubs in interregional economic networks, particularly related to prehistoric salt production. The book provides detailed discussions of recent archaeological discoveries and data from the Chengdu Plain, Three Gorges and Hubei to illustrate how these various components of regional landscape were configured across Central China.

1. Introduction: centers and peripheries in the ancient Yangzi River Valley
Part I. Setting the Stage: 2. The environment of Central China
3. Historiography and the topography of research: a history of archaeology in Central China
Part II. Political and Cultural Topographies: 4. The Sichuan Basin: Shu and its predecessors
5. The Middle Yangzi: the archaeology and history of Chu and its predecessors
6. Periphery at the center: the Ba and archaeological cultures in the Three Gorges
Part III. Topographies of Economic Activity and Ritual: 7. Economic topographies: production, exchange, and the integrating role of salt
8. Ritual topographies: sacrifice and divination
9. Ritual topographies: burials and social identity
10. Conclusion: landscapes of interaction and the interaction of landscapes.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Prehistoric archaeology [HDDA], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Asian history [HBJF]