The emergence of walled towns in prehistoric middle Yangtze River valley: Excavations at the Zoumaling site

Abstract

Nineteen Neolithic earthen walled-towns have been discovered in the middle Yangtze River valley, seventeen of which were dated to the Lower or Upper Qujialing period (5500–4500 cal BP). Nowhere else in East Asia did so many man-built walled-towns exist at the time. The rise of walled-towns arguably coincided with emerging social complexity in the region, which leads some researchers to conclude a correlation between the two. However, inadequate discussion has been made on the topic (and especially how differentiation emerged and developed with town emergence in the region). To such an end, many first-hand data with enough details are needed.The present paper introduces recent excavations and discoveries at Zoumaling, one of the oldest earthen walled-towns in the middle Yangtze River valley of south China. Our data sheds light on the town's structure and layout, residential patterning, construction and occupation history, local subsistence economy, burial practice, and non-food production activities. A mode of local production and consumption seems clear for the sedentary, agriculture-based Qujialing communities at the walled-town site. The labor investment in walled-town construction was beyond the capability of self-sufficient households and could have been achieved mostly if not all by corporate groups. Within the walled-town, a few households achieved higher status or greater wealth (or both) and they might have obtained leadership or wealth in walled-town construction and maintenance. Further studies of household assemblages at the Zoumaling walled-town, as well as comparisons with contemporaneous walled-towns elsewhere, are needed to elaborate how interhousehold differences related to town emergence and contributed to the formation of social differentiation.