Settlement Pattern Study and the Search of the Origin of Chinese Civilization

Abstract

1. Settlement pattern study is one of the important areas in archaeology. I propose to define “settlement pattern” as “the housing arrangement of a human group.” Settlement is not an isolated house. It is the form in which a group of people of variable number living in close proximity. That is to say, it is the making of a settlement or the making of a group of settlements in a region by a human group. Settlement pattern is analogous to a mirror. It reflects the social organization and structure of the society that constitutes the settlements. Changes in settlement pattern are pertained to the development of human society and the changes in the organization and structure of the society. The archaeological study of settlement pattern is also called “settlement archaeology.” According to my understanding, the goal of archaeological study of settlement pattern is to monitor the social relationship of the past. It is a study of the past social organization and structure and the relationship between human group and environment. It provides important clues to the development of past societies through the study of the background and factors leading to the changes in settlement pattern. 2. The earliest settlement pattern study in China can be traced back to the excavations at Yinxu 殷墟 site in Anyang 安阳 in the 1930s and the excavations at Banpo 半坡 Neolithic settlement site in Xi’an 西安 in the first half of 1950s. To date, settlement sites that have been more-or-less completely excavated include Jiangzhai 姜 寨 at Lintong 临潼 and Xinglongwa 兴隆洼 at Aohan 敖汉 Banner, Inner Mongolia. Before the early half of 1990s, settlement pattern study in China was limited to the study of single settlement site. These studies concentrated on the questions of relative chronology and cultural characteristics of the site. They were inadequate in the pursuits of settlement plan and inter-settlement relationship. This weakness was attributable to the lack of the understanding of the importance of settlement clusters and the deficiency of in-depth settlement survey information. In recent years, Chinese archaeologists in collaboration with colleagues from other countries, have conducted full-coverage settlement surveys in the Huanhe 洹河 river valley, the Yi-Luo 伊洛 river valley and the Yinghe 颖河 river valley in Henan 河南, southeastern Shandong 山东 and Juxian 莒县 in Shandong, the Banzhijian 半枝箭 river valley in southeastern Inner Mongolia. They have revealed a large number of archaeological sites. The newly discovered sites in some of these areas increase the number of previously known sites in the same areas by several times! This is an indication of the importance of systematic and detailed settlement surveys. They lay the foundation for settlement pattern study. Settlement pattern study can be divided into synchronic and diachronic studies. Each of these categories can be further partitioned into microscopic and macroscopic studies.