Page 526 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

remains an issue, most scholars have abandoned the identification of the Xia period as the
beginning of Chinese civilization. Some place the origins of civilization in the Longshan cul-
ture period (c. 2500-2000 BCE); others date it nearly a thousand years earlier — to Phase IV of
the Banpo culture (c. 3200 BCE). A strong argument can be made for the latter, for it represents
a period during which there occurred several qualitative changes in how society was organized.
These include the following:
• By the Chalcolithic period, professional craftsmen had emerged — individuals who
created objects of pottery, stone, jade, and copper.
• The household, characterized by a division of labor, by now comprised the basic unit of
society. Most seem to have been relatively poor, but a few amassed wealth and power and
in so doing controlled organizations that had previously existed within the clan.

• Settlements and cemeteries began to assume distinctive characteristics. Settlements com-
prised "ordinary" and "central" settlements, the latter characterized by a large population
and a large scale; some were physically organized as walled towns (often surrounded by a
moat), and the power and wealth of the society were concentrated within the walls. These
central settlements became the political and religious centers of specific cultures. Ceme-
teries as well begin to reflect social divisions, marked by the scale and the structure of the
burial, as well as the quality and the quantity of burial goods. Graves of wealthy house-
holds were situated either at the center of the clan's cemetery or at some distance from
the graves of their less affluent contemporaries.
• Theocracy and monarchy developed out of religion and warfare to form governing institu-
tions. They might exist simultaneously, with equal status, or they might be embodied in an
elite that held both military and theocratic power.
Though some identify Phase IV of the Banpo culture with the origins of civilization, it may
be more plausibly be viewed as civilization proper — the true guguo (ancient state) or fangguo
(states). The Longshan culture coincides — albeit roughly — with the legendary Yao-Shun pe-
riod, during which (we are told) the powerful kings of the fangguo exercised the power of Xuan
xianyu neng ("selecting people with virtue and ability"). By the Xia period — at least among the
Xia culture — the power of the fangguo had been destroyed and a unified kingdom appeared,

which by the Western Zhou period, had developed into a feudal and hereditary system.

i Su i994b.

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