Hongshan households and communities in Neolithic northeastern China

Abstract

Analysis of a large sample of household artifact assemblages from residential zones dating to the Hongshan period (4500–3000 BCE) in northeastern China complements regional-scale settlement study and excavation of house structures, platforms, and tombs. Prestige differentiation between household units is recognizable but modest. Productive differentiation is also present, indicating a very small degree of economic interdependence between households involving the utilitarian goods of daily life. Exchange did transcend both local and regional-scale communities, but movement of goods seldom exceeded a few kilometers. Standards of living were similar across households, with no sign of wealth differentiation. Confirming what has previously been suggested about the role of belief systems in Hongshan social integration, the strongest differentiation detectable in the household evidence involved religious roles and ritual activities. The elaboration of ceremonial architecture and funerary ritual of the Hongshan core zone is thus seen not to correspond to larger regional-scale communities, greater projection of political power, a more specialized economy, larger-scale exchange of goods, or accumulation of wealth. These commonly imagined aspects of early complex society were strikingly underdeveloped in Hongshan society, given its complex ceremonial architecture, elaborate burial treatment of presumed ritual specialists, and famous jade carvings.