Shelach G, Jaffe Y.
The Earliest States in China: A Long-term Trajectory Approach. Journal of Archaeological Research. 2014;22 (4) :327-364.
Publisher's VersionAbstractThe origins, development, and makeup of early state societies in Chinahave long been a favorite topic of research, though there has recently been anupsurge of attention among archaeologists in China and abroad. Research has beendominated by the identification of the Erlitou site from the early second millenniumBC as the center of the earliest state in China, sometimes identified with the XiaDynasty. Recently, several scholars have employed neo-evolutionary criteria for theidentification of Erlitou society as China’s earliest state in an attempt to provideobjective criteria for the traditional historiographical narrative. Overarching socialand ecological models of cultural change have been severely criticized by anthro-pological archaeologists, and many archaeologists studying the development of ancient societies prefer to focus on individual case studies or specific institutionsrather than on the state. In contrast to recent archaeological scholarship that hascalled for its total abandonment, we find the “state” a useful concept for under-standing local trajectories as well as cross-cultural comparisons. In this article wesuggest a way of incorporating the warnings against simplistic overarching modelswhile maintaining the notion of rapid sociopolitical change associated with stateformation. Based on an analysis of the long-term trajectory, we identify, in northChina, two phases of rapid transformations: the first, starting around 2500 BC, whenseveral unstable regional states evolved and declined, and the second, around 1600BC, when an intraregional state, usually identified with the historical Shang, rapidly evolved.