A Companion to Chinese Archaeology (Underhill/A Companion to Chinese Archaeology) || Recent Discoveries and Some Thoughts on Early Urbanization at Anyang

A Companion to Chinese Archaeology, First Edition. Edited by Anne P. Underhill.© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Recent Discoveries and Some Thoughts on Early Urbanization at Anyang

Zhichun JING 荆志淳 , TANG Jigen 唐际根 , George RAPP , and James STOLTMAN

The second millennium BC , conveniently labeled as early Bronze Age, was a historical epoch of transformative signifi cance, which witnessed epic cultural transmissions and social transformations involving the rise of the fi rst cities, states, and civilizations in both the Yellow river and Yangzi river valleys ( Bagley 1999 ; IA,CASS 2003a ; Thorp 2005; Liu 2009 ). The study of these earliest cities and civilizations has been one of the dominant subjects of archaeological research in China. However, past studies on early urbanism have focused heavily on the origins and development of cities and associated state societies, with an emphasis on the identifi cation of so-called “traits,” “markers,” or “criteria” of a civilization or a state society. The earliest cities of early Bronze Age China have often been treated as, or assumed to have formed as, a result of the same or similar material and social processes of urbanization, and to be of the same nature, differing only in settlement size and complexity, chronological position, and political domination over others. Relatively little discussion is focused on the actual meaning and dynamic nature of cities that may show substantial variation in their workings from place to place and over time.

During the past decade or so, the ascendancy of systematic regional survey in China has focused increasing attention on the interactions of early urban centers with their surrounding landscapes at a regional scale ( Tang et al. 1998 ; Liu et al. 2002 ; Under-hill et al. 2008 ). This development has provided a long-needed contextualization of

CHAPTER 17

344 ZHICHUN JING, TANG JIGEN, GEORGE RAPP, AND JAMES STOLTMAN

cities within their broader social and economic worlds, and it has also challenged traditional preoccupations with cities, elites, and other perceived trappings of “civi-lizations” in archaeology. These broader regional perspectives are extremely valuable, but they must be complemented by the study of the internal organization and dynam-ics of urban settlements.

Anyang 安阳 is a modern city in the northern Henan panhandle where two of the earliest cities developed in early Bronze Age China. These two urban sites are named Yinxu 殷墟 and Huanbei 洹北 (Figure 17.1 ; see also Chapter 16 ), and they have been collectively inscribed on the UNESCO ’ s World Heritage List (2006). In this chapter, we discuss some recent discoveries in Anyang, followed by some thoughts concerning the nature of the Shang 商 cities and the material and social processes of early urbanization, particularly at Yinxu.

BRIEF HISTORY OF EXPLORATION IN ANYANG

Anyang is best known as the location of the last capital of the Shang dynasty ( c. 1600–1046 BC ), especially for the earliest body of writing yet found in East Asia, primarily

Figure 17.1 Map showing major loci of cemetries, residential zones, workshops, and other features at Huanbei and Yinxu.

RECENT DISCOVERIES AND SOME THOUGHTS ON EARLY URBANIZATION AT ANYANG 345

inscribed on cattle shoulder-bones and turtle plastrons. According to many ancient Chinese historic texts, the Shang was traditionally considered the second of the so-called “Three Dynasties.”

Historically, the region surrounding Anyang was known to scholars as Yinxu, the “Ruins of Yin” for many centuries. Yinxu was rediscovered through scientifi c excava-tions beginning in 1928 after a search of almost thirty years for the geographic source of inscribed oracle bones that were initially recognized in 1898 by Wang Yirong 王懿荣 (1845–1900), an eminent scholar studying bronze and stone inscriptions. The oracle-bone inscriptions found at Yinxu document divinations performed on behalf of nine kings whose names match with the last kings of the Shang dynasty as recorded in later transmitted texts like Shi Ji 史记 ( Grand Scribe ’ s Records ); therefore, Yinxu is identifi ed as the last capital of the Shang dynasty. The period for the reigns of these nine kings from Wu Ding 武丁 (the 21st king) to Di Xin 帝辛 (the 29th king) is referred to as the late Shang dynasty ( c. 1250–1046 BC ).

The exploration of Yinxu began with a search for so-called “dragon bones” bearing archaic graphs, which led the fi rst generation of Chinese archaeologists to excavate near a village called Xiaotun 小屯 in 1928. From 1928 to 1937, 15 seasons of exca-vation were conducted on both sides of the Huan river 洹河 under the auspices of Academia Sinica 中央研究院 , which established its archaeology program largely for the investigations in Anyang. These early excavations unearthed impressive founda-tions of pounded earth, enormously richly furnished royal tombs, shocking human and animal sacrifi ces, copious inscribed bones and shell, and a splendid bronze casting industry. There is little doubt that the development of modern archaeology in China was largely shaped by these early excavations; the fi rst generation of excavators in Anyang, especially Li Ji 李济 (1896–1979), Dong Zuobin 董作宾 (1895–1963), Liang Siyong 梁思永 (1904–1954), Gao Quxun 高去寻 (1909–1991), Hu Houxuan 胡厚宣 (1911–1995), Shi Zhangru 石璋如 (1902–2004), and Xia Nai 夏鼐 (1910–1985) had a direct and long-lasting impact on subsequent archaeological practice in China.

In 1950 the archaeological work at Yinxu was resumed after 12 years of interrup-tion by the Japanese invasion and the following civil war. The Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences from which the Chinese Academy of Social Sci-ences was split in 1977) established the Anyang work team in 1958, and a permanent work station just west of the village of Xiaotun in 1959. Since then, the Anyang work team has been mainly responsible for excavations at Yinxu, and numerous new dis-coveries have been made. More importantly many new methods and techniques of excavation, artifact analysis, and epigraphic interpretation have been implemented to investigate the late Shang society and its material culture. Late Shang remains have been found to extend far beyond the temple-palace district at Xiaotun and the cem-etery of the kingly lineage at Xibeigang 西北岗 . An earnest effort has been devoted to the building of a pottery-based chronology that divides the occupation of the site into four stages, Yinxu I–IV, which allows the tracking of the material and social processes of the settlement through time rather than providing only static descriptions of fi ndings. The adoption of the new excavation method with a focus on opening up wide horizontal areas has revealed a full range of settlement remains related to daily activities of both elites and ordinary people, particularly residence-related features such as house foundations, storage and refuse pits, drainage channels, soil and water


pits, and pottery workshops, in addition to tracts of burials which formerly were the sole focus of excavation and research. Yinxu has now seen more than eighty years of excavation, and the wealth of information it has produced is unrivalled.

The combined efforts of several generations of archaeologists over the past 80 years have unveiled Yinxu as a cult center of the kings of the last Shang dynasty; more importantly it was a vast urban settlement, with a concentrated population, spread across the Huan river over an area of about 25 sq km (Figure 17.1 ). With the palace-temple compounds and royal cemeteries of lineages of zi -princes ( zizu 子族 ) at Xiaotun in the center and the cemetery of the kingly lineage ( wangzu 王族 ) in the northwest, the landscape is dotted with scores of lineage-based neighborhoods com-posed of residential buildings and associated cemeteries, and workshops for manu-facturing bronzes, jades, bones, and ceramics. Recently, many roads and moats (or canals) that connect these neighborhoods as well as the palace-temple district have been detected. These excavations have revealed that late Shang society was a complex, full-fl edged Bronze Age civilization, characterized by class stratifi cation as material-ized in the consumption of bronze and other art forms in life as well as the afterlife, a theocracy based on ancestor worship through sophisticated royal divination, central-ized management of human and natural resources, and a deeply rooted tradition of cultural diversity.

In contrast to Yinxu, much less is known about a slightly earlier urban settlement discovered in Anyang in the fall of 1999, named Huanbei, the largest walled city of the early Bronze Age. The discovery of Huanbei was something of a surprise ( Tang et al. 2000, 2010a ; Jing et al. 2004 ), given that Anyang has been so extensively explored by archaeologists since the 1920s. Huanbei probably arose in the middle or end of the 14th century BC , and lasted for less than one century; this period is now conveniently labeled the middle Shang.

HUANBEI

Since the initial discovery of Huanbei in 1999 through a joint effort between the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IA,CASS) and the University of Minnesota, many seasons of survey and excavation have been under-taken by the Institute of Archaeology in collaboration with the members from the University of British Columbia, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin ( Jing et al. 2004 ; Tang et al. 2010a ). Huanbei is situated immediately northeast of Yinxu across the Huan river (Figure 17.1 ).

The city walls The walled area of the Huanbei site is approximately square, measuring about 470 ha, 2,150 m east–west by 2,200 m north–south. The enclosed wall is oriented about 13° northeast (Figure 17.1 ), characteristic of many architectural buildings of Shang culture such as city walls, palace-temples, residential houses, and tombs of different sizes.

Intensive probing disclosed that most parts of the wall did not survive except its footings. It is also quite possible that the main body of the wall was not built at all


before the city was abandoned. The foundation trenches are mostly 7–11 m wide at their opening with a depth of about 4 m. The foundation trench of the south wall is fi lled only with poorly rammed earth or simply non-pounded soil. This is different from the east, west, and north sections of the city wall where well-pounded rammed earth with clear pounding layers and impressions were found. The east wall is raised to about 0.3 m above the original ground level (the opening of the foundation trench), while the north and west walls are level with the original ground. What is revealed from intensive probing and trial excavation strongly suggests that the con-struction of the city wall might not have been completed before this urban settlement was abandoned. The traditional practice for the construction of early cities was to build city walls after the initial civic and residential buildings. The fact that continu-ous cultural deposits were not limited to the walled area also seems to support this argument.

The inner city: the palace-temple district The walled inner city is located southeast of the center of the larger city ( Tang et al. 2010b ). It is a rectangular shape, measuring 515 m wide from west to east, 795 m long north–south, and 41 ha in area, and oriented about 13° east of true north (Figure 17.1 ). The foundation trench of the wall is about 6–7 m wide and 0.7–1.2 m deep, while the wall above the original ground has an average width of 5–6 m and a remaining height of 0.3–1 m.

About sixty individual buildings have been detected within the inner city. These buildings as a whole are aligned about 13° east of true north, which is consistent with the city ’ s overall orientation defi ned by exterior and inner city walls. The central axis of each individual building, however, is about 103° in most cases, suggesting an orderly planning of building construction.

The inner city walls and building remains found inside are all made of hard-pounded earth displaying an extremely high density and uniform material composi-tion, quite different from those buildings found in the areas outside the inner city at Huanbei where foundations are composed of less densely pounded earth with mixed source materials. Two distinctive types of soil were used only for the walls of the inner enclosure and the buildings inside: (1) dark-brown silt clay/clay silt (alluvium) in the trench, and (2) yellowish silt (loess) above the foundation trench. The former was most likely from the in situ A-horizon soil (a top soil horizon that formed at the surface, usually containing a relatively high content of humifi ed organic matter) of fl oodplain alluvium; however the latter might have come from the area farther west. The deliberate use of different soils for building construction in the inner city may indicate a special meaning attached to certain physical properties of these soils, notably colors and their symbolic meaning.

The two largest compound foundations (named F1 and F2) found inside the inner city have been partially excavated ( Tang et al. 2003 ; He and Tang 2010 ) (Figure 17.2 ). Compound F1 is a rectangular enclosure consisting of elevated platforms on the perimeter and the courtyard enclosed in the middle. The excavations have exposed the whole west platform and two-thirds of both the north and south plat-forms. The east end of the rectangular enclosure is determined only by probing because it extends into the airport fi eld where no excavation is allowed. The overall


area of the compound is about 1.6 ha, 174 m wide from east to west and 85–91.5 m deep from north to south. The longitudinal axis of the compound is 103°, oriented transversely to the general orientation of inner city (13°). This compound of a palatial nature is the largest single piece of architecture of the Shang period or even for the entire Bronze Age that has ever been found and excavated ( Jing et al. 2004 ).

The structures within this excavated compound include the gatehouses with two gateways on the south side, the elevated main hall on the north side, the gallery (the roofed corridor) west of the main hall, the west side hall, and the long galleries on both sides of the gatehouses. It is likely that the east-side hall is located in the unex-cavated eastern part of the compound.

Figure 17.2 Excavation of palace-temple compounds F1 and F2 at Huanbei.


Compound F1 is bordered by walls on both west and south sides, but its north side is fl anked with open galleries. In addition, there are two passages across the north platform. All these indicate that F1 might not be a self-contained compound. Only 27 m north of F1 is compound F2 with a similar structure and orientation. It is also a rectangular enclosure consisting of elevated platforms on the perimeter and a courtyard enclosed in the middle. The excavations have exposed southeast and northwest portions of the elevated platform. The overall area of the compound is about 6,300 sq m, 92 m wide from east to west and 68.5 m deep from north to south. The longitudinal axis of the compound is the same as F1, 103°. Compound F2 is very likely just part of a complete courtyard complex that is oriented 13°. The chief buildings (F1 and F2) have their longitudinal axes perpendicular to the general ori-entation of the whole complex (Figure 17.2 ).

The structures of Compound F2 include a central gateway in the south, and a back gateway near the northwest corner in the north, the elevated main hall in the north, a gallery west of the main hall, the west and east galleries, and long galleries on both sides of the central gateway in the south. Like F1 and other buildings within the inner city, the foundations of F2 are composed of two types of pounded earth: (1) very dark brown or gray clay and silt clay in the foundation trench; and (2) yellowish silt or clay silt above the foundation trench.

In spite of the absence of sacrifi cial evidence in compound F2, some 40 sacrifi cial remains were located on the platforms of pounded earth as well as inside the courtyard of compound F1. Those associated with the main hall were generally distributed near staircases and at the center of the walled chambers. There are two types of remains found near staircases: (1) scattered animal bone fragments (mostly sheep bones) distributed in the front of the staircase, which may be the remains of meat sacrifi ces; (2) small sacrifi cial pits, usually located near the east corner between the staircase and the platform (except staircases 1, 6, 8). These small sacrifi cial pits were cut into or embedded in the pounded earth of foundation trenches, strongly suggesting that they were closely associated with the construction of the main hall. Usually a single person was buried in each pit, while four of the pits were additionally furnished with handle-shaped jade ornaments ( bingxingshi 柄形饰 ). Two of the walled chambers (1, 3) on the main hall have dog sacrifi cial pits located in the center of the room. The dog pits are about 0.5 m long, 0.3 m wide, and are embedded in the platform foun-dation. It is likely that other chambers, which have not been excavated beyond the platform surface, have similar dog pits.

Sacrifi cial remains associated with the west side hall were found near the front of three staircases facing the courtyard. Similar to the fi ndings near the front of the main hall ’ s staircases, they are all fragmented animal bones: pig for the north staircase, sheep for the center staircase, and large mammal bones (unknown species) for the south staircase. In addition, seven sacrifi cial pits of various sizes were found in the courtyard along the edge of the west side hall. These pits are similar to the “void pits” (discussed below) found near the gatehouses on the south platform.

The most abundant sacrifi cial materials were found near the gatehouses in the south, and at least 20 sacrifi cial remains were located. Owing to the limited extent of excavation on both north and south sides of the east portion of the gatehouses, it is likely that those uncovered here only represent a part of the sacrifi cial remains. These sacrifi cial remains include: (1) one rectangular human sacrifi cial pit; and (2)


many square or irregular shaped “void pits” that might be for special sacrifi cial prac-tices. Both types of pits are found in the courtyard within 1–5 m of either the front (outside the courtyard) or the back (inside the courtyard) of the gatehouses. They are superimposed by surface deposits of the courtyard, but cut into the foundation-trenches; therefore, these sacrifi cial remains were buried during the construction of platform foundations. Near the northwest corner of gateway 2 inside the courtyard, a rectangular sacrifi cial pit contains one half of a cut human skull with visible marks left by a bronze yue 钺 axe.

The presence of abundant sacrifi cial deposits and the absence of the remains of residential activities (such as refuse pits, pottery vessels, etc.) suggest that at least compound F1, if not the whole complex including both compounds, might be a central place for the king to perform sacrifi cial rites and make offerings to the high gods, the high powers (including nature powers, former lords, predynastic ancestors), and dynastic ancestors.

While the two largest single compounds (F1 and F2) are located near the center of the inner city, most building foundations are distributed densely in the northern part of the inner city. Between them is an empty space of about 110 m wide where few remains were found. The complex, including F1 and F2, was most likely an ancestral temple or “governmental” palace. In contrast to compounds F1 and F2, more residential refuse deposits were detected around the buildings in the north that were densely placed in orderly fashion, suggesting that they were likely residences of royalty, nobility, and other high-status individuals.

Given the quality, size, and density of buildings and other associated remains inside the inner city, as well as its central location within the Huanbei site, it can be inferred that the area enclosed by the inner city walls most likely served as the palace-temple district at Huanbei.

Collapse deposits of burned walls and roofs were found overlying most foundations, but only sparse traces of residential activities were observed on the top of foundation platforms. This strongly suggests that the inner city as a whole was destroyed by a deliberate fi re that may have led to the abandonment of the whole city.

YINXU

Cemetery tracts seem to be the most ubiquitous feature at Yinxu, and extensive burials have been found almost everywhere across the landscape. Over 10,000 burials have been properly excavated at Yinxu. In addition to the royal cemetery at Xibeigang and cemeteries of royal lineages at Xiaotun, hundreds of graves, if not thousands, have been found at such loci as Dasikongcun 大司空村 , Hougang 后岗 , Xuejiazhuang 薛家庄 , Miaopu North 苗圃北地 , and Guojiazhuang 郭家庄 in the east, Liujiazhuang North 刘家庄北地 , Liujiazhuang South 刘家庄南地 , Renjiazhuang 任家庄 , Tijiakou 梯家口 , and Qijiazhuang 戚家庄 in the south, and Sipanmo 四盘磨 , Baijiafen 白家坟 , Meiyuanzhuang 梅园庄 , Beixinzhuang 北辛庄 , and Xiaomintun 孝民屯 in the west. And many more continue to be found as a new ground is subject to excavation (Figure 17.1 ).

The dominance of burials in the reporting of archaeological fi nds from Yinxu has generated an impression or even a “conclusion” that Yinxu was a necropolis: a place


primarily for burying the dead in addition to performing cultic activities (Thorp 1980). For example, the so-called West Zone 西区 is often thought of as a vast ground designated only for cemeteries or as a public cemetery. But such a picture is much distorted largely due to the grave-oriented excavation long practiced in Anyang. Since the mid-1990s, the adoption of new excavation methods has revealed a totally different settlement pattern that more reliably refl ects historical reality. New excava-tions have unearthed a much fuller range of remains that the Shang people left behind, including not only numerous graves, but also abundant features related to the people ’ s daily activities, such as residential buildings, refuse pits, roads, drainage systems, canals, wells, soil pits, crop-storage pits, and workshops for ceramics, lithics, bones, and bronzes. In many localities previously designated solely as cemeteries such as West Zone, recent excavations have revealed the presence of extensive remains related to habitation.

The respectful care the Shang people had for the dead, whether rich or poor, shown by placing the majority of them in more or less institutionalized shaft pits, also con-tributed to concentrations of graves that are indicative of a dense population at Yinxu.

SPATIALLY SEGREGATED LINEAGE-BASED CEMETERIES

For the Shang people, there were common needs for both the living and the dead. The living had obligations to care for the dead whose lives were simply altered and did not end by death. Therefore, the dead had to be buried near where the survivors resided so that the living could fulfi ll their obligations and serve the dead through making offerings and performing ritual prayer. Furthermore, status and identity transcended death. Distinctions of status, wealth, and kinship among the living had to be maintained, if not enhanced, among the dead. Special care in the forms of grave goods and animal and human sacrifi ces was offered to the royal and elite dead who were apparently even promoted by death (see Keightley 1978 ).

The divinations performed by the Shang kings refer to numerous lineages or lineage groups. Keightley ( 1999, 2004 ) argues that the zu -lineage 族 functioned as a corporate descent group in social, ritual, and political activities of the late Shang society, and the king exercised his authority over a confederation of patrilineal descent groups. Shang society was organized into socially stratifi ed and culturally differenti-ated zu lineages that were linked to the royal house by “a differential hierarchy of kinship ties, benefi ts, privileges, and obligations” ( Keightley 1999 ). On the top of the dynastic hierarchy was the kingly lineage ( wangzu ) that included both the ruling king and his sons who often served as heads of their own minor lineages ( zizu , line-ages of the zi princes). The lineages of zi princes were composed of all those royal descendants who had created their own collateral minor lineages ( duozizu 多子族 , many princely lineages) ( Keightley 1999 ; Zhu 2004 ). In addition, there were lineages with relatively remote kin relations with the royal, main-line lineage from which they had segmented at least two generations earlier. These lineages, such as Bi , Bing 竝 , Cha , Gu, Que 雀 , and Yue 戉 offered cult to the more distant ancestors of the main-line of royal descent; and many of them are believed to be located in the places far away from Yinxu. All these lineages can be collectively called the royal lineage (or clan) that served as the central axis of the late Shang state, a polity in


which political, social, and religious institutions and practices were largely entangled and undifferentiated.

The stratifi ed royal lineage is manifested in spatial segregation of the cemetery of the kingly lineage from cemeteries for lineages of the zi princes. The former is located at Xibeigang (north of Houjiazhuang village), neighboring Huanbei to the east, a place ancestral to the late Shang kings, but isolated from the rest of the settlement at Yinxu. Such spatial segregation signaled the special status of the royal dead, the kings and their consorts. The latter are mostly placed in the royal neighborhoods of lineages of zi princes around the ceremonial core inside the palace-temple district, where the living kings performed rites of sacrifi ce and divination and worshiped their ancestors, and where they were also separated from those of the non-royal lineages (Figure 17.1 ).

Cemetery of the kingly lineage The cemetery of the kingly lineage, often less precisely called the royal cemetery, at Xibeigang is composed of two clusters of large shaft tombs that range 10–13 m deep. The west sector includes seven tombs with four sloping or stepped ramps opening into a nearly vertical shaft, and 1 incomplete tomb shaft without any ramp. The east sector contains fi ve tombs, one with four ramps, three with two ramps, and one with a single ramp, accompanied by extensive tracts of sacrifi cial pits arranged in rows. Each row has multiple pits with hundreds of victims, mostly males with some females and some children, perhaps representing a single dedicatory sacrifi ce performed for the royal dead. Treatment of the dead in these sacrifi cial pits includes whole skeletons, decapitated skeletons, and skulls only. Some were bound and buried alive; and some were beheaded or dismembered. Many sacrifi cial pits contain animal remains: horses most commonly, but also dogs, pigs, sheep, dogs, birds, and even elephants. These large tombs have their longer ramps generally oriented at about 13° east of north, refl ecting the Shang ’ s general concern with this specifi c orientation, because most burials of lower classes, building foundations, and even the burials of sacrifi cial victims conform to this same orientation.

All royal tombs at Xibeigang were heavily looted in antiquity and in modern times, but their monumental size makes it plausible to tie them to the Shang royal house. Extrapolation from the much smaller, but unlooted, tomb of Fu Hao 妇好 may suggest that the royal dead placed in these large shaft tombs were provided with an enormous amount of ritual bronze vessels and weapons, jades, and other ceremonial and personal objects in addition to a large number of human and animal sacrifi ces. The wealth and the victims accompanying the royal dead to the next world demon-strated that the king ’ s superior status would remain the same after death. Death was viewed as continuity of life rather than a new beginning; it provided an effective opportunity for survivors to validate the central values of the elite culture.

Cemeteries of lineages of zi princes As discussed above, under the kingly lineage were lineages of zi princes that are also of royal descent. Archaeological and epigraphic data suggest that these zi prince line-ages resided within the so-called “palace-temple district” (see the discussion later) and had their own neighborhoods where they lived their lives and buried their dead.


In 1976 an astonishing royal tomb, M5, which has been linked to Fu (Lady) Hao, a powerful consort or royal woman associated with Wu Ding, was discovered in the western part of the temple-palace district; it was the fi rst royal tomb excavated at Yinxu that had not been looted by grave robbers. In spite of no trace of the principal dead, the tomb contained at least 16 human victims and six dog sacrifi ces. There were more than 1,900 grave goods (not even counting small objects such as bronze bosses [ tongpao 铜泡 ], and over 6,780 cowries), including 468 bronzes, 755 jade carvings, 110 lithic items (including rock sculptures and gemstones), 564 bone objects (not counting very fragmented hairpins), 3 ivory carvings, and 11 pottery vessels, indicating the immeasurable wealth that the living were willing to bury with the dead of royal status. Among 210 bronze ritual vessels unearthed from M5 are 109 inscribed with “Fu Hao,” which allows scholars to identify this tomb as the fi nal resting place of one of Wu Ding ’ s many consorts. Fu Hao appears in oracle-bone inscriptions almost 200 times. She is documented for making sacrifi cial offerings and assembling troops for battle, and leading campaigns against hostile polities of the north, and she was probably the mother of one of the next kings, Zu Geng 祖庚 or Zu Jia 祖甲 , who cast vessels offered to her. If the identifi cation of Fu Hao is accepted, she would be the earliest historical grandee in Chinese history whose mate-rial legacy has been archaeologically documented ( IA,CASS 1980b ).

Two other tombs (M17 and M18), only 22 m east of M5, are also identifi ed as royal burials dating to the reign of Wu Ding. Surrounding these three middle-sized and richly furnished tombs are many small graves, forming a cemetery of one of the zi princes of the late Shang. Associated with the cemetery are many building founda-tions and other associated remains of residential activities ( IA,CASS 2004 ). Alto-gether, they constitute a typical lineage-based neighborhood, perhaps a royal neighborhood for a zi -prince lineage.

An excavation in 2000–2001 near the southeast corner of the palace-temple dis-trict unearthed another richly furnished royal tomb, M54, which was not looted. The tomb, dated to phase II of the Yinxu period, is also a rectangular shaft pit aligned north to south; it measures 5.04 m long: 3.3 m wide at the opening and 7.3 m deep. Unlike Fu Hao ’ s tomb and many burials of high-status individuals, the skeleton of the principal dead in M54 is partially preserved. Identifi ed as a male, the skeleton faces north, and is prone with extended limbs and both hands beneath his abdomen. Accompanying the principal dead were 15 human victims and 15 sacrifi cial dogs. M54 was supplied with more than 570 grave goods (not counting 881 bronze arrowheads and 149 bosses, 125 gold foil fragments, and 1,472 cowries); including 265 bronze weapons, ritual vessels, chariot fi ttings, and implements, 222 ceremonial and ornamental jades, 21 pottery vessels, 60 bone carvings and tools, 2 ivory carv-ings, and 1 bamboo basket ( IA,CASS 2007 ). The rich selection of bronzes, jades, and other objects, some originating from considerable distance and some of them antiquities, suggest an important status or role that he held in the network of social relations ( Jing et al. 2011 ).

Seven bronze yue large fl at axes, were found in M54, which is rare among the burial fi nds at Yinxu; one of them is as large as those found in Fu Hao ’ s tomb. Fur-thermore, there are many bronze weapons such as large dao 刀 knives with curved points, ge 戈 dagger axes, mao 矛 spear points, among others, possibly indicating that the deceased was a high-ranking military offi cer. This inference is supported by


inscriptions, mostly “Ya Chang” 亚长 cast on nearly two-thirds of the bronze vessels and weapons. Ya is generally interpreted as a military title (such as marshall) of the late Shang period, while Chang is a royal lineage name recorded in oracle-bone inscriptions. It may be inferred that the occupant of M54 was a chief of the zu lineage called “Chang.” Tomb Chang Zi Kou 长子口 found at Taiqinggong 太清宫 in Luyi 鹿邑 county, Henan province, is a large grave dating to the end of the Shang and the beginning of the Zhou period; it yielded bronze vessels inscribed mostly “Chang Zi Kou” of which the character Chang is basically identical to that cast on the M54 bronzes ( Henan 2000 ). We may speculate that the occupants of both M54 and the royal burial at Chang Zi Kou were from the same lineage group. The “Chang” lineage group lasted from early Yinxu period through the beginning of the Western Zhou period, and it was highly regarded by the Shang royal house according to oracle-bone inscriptions. The occupant of M54 was likely an aristocrat with military power. Our isotope analysis in progress suggests that this principal occupant was not born in Anyang, but was most likely from the south where diet was primarily based on rice instead of millet.

Like M5 and M54 that are located inside the palace-temple district, most other richly furnished tombs in other localities at Yinxu display a similar predominance of bronze weapons and chariot-related pieces such as bow-shaped objects in grave goods; among them are M160 at Guojiazhuang, M1046 at Liujiazhuang North, M303 and M539 at Dasikongcun, and M269 at Qijiazhuang East. From their para-phernalia, these tombs were most likely for military fi gures, suggesting the promi-nence of a warrior class in late Shang society.

M54 is surrounded by many lower-class graves and residential foundations (IA,CASS 2007), which likely form another royal lineage-based neighborhood located in the southeast corner of the palace-temple district. The zi princes of this royal lineage perhaps performed divination on their own at least during the early phase of Wu Ding ’ s reign, as documented in the oracle-bone inscriptions found at Huayuanzhuang East (IA,CASS 2003b).

A relatively large tomb with two ramps was found inside the Anyang work station immediately west of the “ditch” at Xiaotun Locus West. It had been extensively looted ( Yue and Yue 2009 ), but its presence, along with many small graves and resi-dential foundations nearby, suggest a neighborhood of possibly royal ( zi -prince) status.

Cemeteries of non-royal lineages Burials have an extensive distribution beyond the palace-temple district at Xiaotun. At each locus, they tend to be clustered in one or more large groups that are com-monly interpreted as being sublineage- or lineage-based. Each large group is usually composed of a number of smaller clusters, each of which was likely related to a social unit of descent corresponding to an extended family ( Tang 2004a ). These grave groups vary in size and duration of use. The tombs in each group usually exhibit relatively consistent patterns in grave structure, orientation, and burial goods. Within and between grave groups, status differentiation is signaled by the tomb size and structure, the absence or presence of human victims, bronze ritual vessels and weapons, jades, and other grave goods. Many grave groups include one or a few


middle-sized tombs, some even with ramps, surrounded by more numerous, smaller graves.

Within each group are some graves containing bronze vessels, many of which bear inscriptions that are commonly interpreted as the names of a zu lineage, the so-called lineage insignia or emblem ( zuhui 族徽 ). When a common emblem inscription is found on bronzes from several graves within a grave group or multiple vessels in a single grave, the group may be identifi ed as a cemetery for that particular lineage or sublineage. Such identifi cation is sometimes complicated by the presence of several different emblem inscriptions in different burials of a cemetery or even in a single burial. Sometimes the same emblems occur on bronzes from both Yinxu and sites remote from the royal capital, thus distribution of lineages and their cultural connec-tions may be inferred. Some of these lineage names cast on bronzes are found in oracle-bone inscriptions ( Zheng 1995 ).

Figure 17.3 A shows a typical sublineage or lineage-based cemetery at Liujiazhuang North. At least eight clusters are identifi ed, and each cluster is a burial ground for an extended family used over periods of varying duration. Cluster VII occupies a much larger area than other clusters and is spatially isolated. This cluster contains a large phase II tomb accompanied by two chariot pits and surrounded by small graves. During phase III, a large tomb with four ramps was constructed on the east side. Its south ramp measures 13.8 m long and the north ramp 7.5 m, while both east and west ramps are relatively short, less than 3.6 m. Ten human victims, one adult and nine children, were found near the opening of the cross-shaped chamber. Two horse pits were found to be likely associated with the tomb. Grave M988 mimics features of the gigantic four-ramp graves at Xibeigang, but at a much-reduced scale. It may be inferred that cluster VII was most likely for the chiefs of the lineage or sublineage and their extended families.

It may be diffi cult, if not impossible, to determine exact identities of those lineages associated with most grave groups and their relationships with the royal lineage. But the analysis of bronze and oracle-bone inscriptions and archaeological data suggests that most of these lineages were not part of the royal lineage (or clan) although some might be linked to it through marriage and other forms of alliance.

NEIGHBORHOODS WITHIN THE GREAT SHANG SETTLEMENT

Except for the cemetery of the kingly lineage at Xibeigang, almost every cemetery is close to or superimposed on sites with remains of earlier or later residential activities, such as refuse pits, building foundations, wells, soil pits, roads, drainages, workshops, and granary pits ( Tang and Jing 2009 ). It is common that an earlier habitation plot was later converted to a cemetery, and sometimes a cemetery could be re-occupied for habitation.

Figure 17.3 B shows the co-presence of burials and habitation remains at Sipanmo Southwest, a typical situation of what can often be observed during excavations at Yinxu. Excavation revealed 37 burials, 21 refuse pits, 1 house foundation, and 2 isolated postholes that might be the remains of residential structures. In addition, as many as 93 looters ’ pits were found within the site limits placed mostly on graves, clearly indicative of the severity of tomb-looting and site destruction at Yinxu.

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The excavated area was fi rst used for habitation during phase II, as indicated by remains left by household activities, including building foundation (F1) and refuse pits (Figure 17.3 B, above). Later, this habitation area was converted to a cemetery. There are 37 graves clustered in two groups, I and II (Figure 17.3 B, middle). Cluster I comprises 16 burials, while Cluster II includes 21 burials. Burials in both groups are oriented about 270° (i.e., 30° west of present-day north). These groupings and orientations suggest the excavated cemetery was a formal disposal ground for the dead, each group most likely based on an extended family of the same lineage or sublineage. Not many grave goods were found largely due to extensive looting (Figure 17.3 B, bottom). However, human skeletons were identifi ed in most graves. Among the 37 burials only one is a child.

The word yi 邑 , which refers to a type of settlement, appears frequently in oracle-bone inscriptions. The description of yi includes its construction, location, size, as well as references to specifi c settlements and the number of settlements, which suggest that yi designates the local (residential) settlements of different sizes. Many of these yi settlements, particularly those built inside the Great Settlement Shang 大邑商 (Da Yi Shang), the name for Yinxu as seen in oracle-bone inscriptions, are spatially segregated from and socially linked with their neighbors, and they perhaps correspond to what may be termed neighborhoods.

A neighborhood is defi ned as “a residential zone that has considerable face-to-face interaction and is distinctive on the basis of physical and/or social characteristics” ( Smith 2010 : 139). Such a defi nition emphasizes social interactions integral to struc-turing and sustaining a neighborhood. A typical neighborhood or petty settlement at Yinxu would be composed of one or more habitation sectors and one or more clusters of graves; and it often contained a relatively large courtyard-style compound, or a group of such compounds that functioned as lineage temples or were used for the residences of lineage chiefs and their families ( Meng 2003 ).

Since cemeteries associated with each neighborhood were sublineage- or lineage-based, it can be reasonably inferred that such a neighborhood would be organized similarly, if not exactly in the same way. In other words, neighborhoods were spatially segregated by lineage. The neighborhood was the place within which members of the lineage experienced most of their daily lives, and interacted with each other as well as the dead; and it was often occupied and used for generations through part or the whole time period of the dynasty. It is also very likely that some spatially segre-gated neighborhoods were identifi ed by occupation, particularly craft production ( Chang 1980 ). For example, Xiaomintun and Miaopu North were specialized neigh-borhoods for bronze-casting, Beixinzhuang for processing bone objects, and part of Lijiazhuang North for making serving and storage pottery vessels.

Like many other ancient cities in the world, neighborhoods at Yinxu were largely created through bottom-up local processes (the actions of local residents). Neighbor-hoods that are spatially close to each other, and socially and economically connected comprise a larger residential zone, termed a district that is more often created by top-down processes (actions by administration authorities). A district could have either administrative or social identity ( Smith 2010 ). Neighborhoods at Yinxu may be classifi ed into two categories in terms of general wealth and status: (1) royal neighborhoods for the king and zi -prince lineages, and (2) ordinary neighborhoods for non-royal lineages as well as some lineages that might be related to the main line


of royal lineage by worshiping remote common ancestors. Perhaps, a number of royal neighborhoods made up the palace-temple district centered at Xiaotun. But the conclusion remains elusive whether ordinary neighborhoods were organized into larger residential zones, and if so, how they were organized. Given the fact that the public buildings and spaces were not unusual in ordinary neighborhoods, and there was a presence of major chariot roads and the canals cutting through neighborhoods over a very large portion of the whole city, we can speculate that certain top-down processes indeed played a very important role in organizing the people ’ s experience of daily life at Yinxu.

THE PALACE-TEMPLE DISTRICT

The political and religious core at Yinxu was the palace-temple district, centered on Xiaotun Locus North. It measures about 70 ha, commonly thought to be delimited by a large ditch that runs from the Huan river in the north about 1,100 m toward the south, and makes a right-angle turn southwest of Huayuanzhuang toward the east about 650 m before rejoining the river ( IA,CASS 1994 ). Recent work and our re-analysis of previous data question the existence of such a ditch ( Tang and Jing 2009 ; Yue and Yue 2009 ). It is likely that the palace-temple district extends west from Xiaotun Locus North to Sipanmo, in other words across the so-called “ditch”; and it could be twice as large as previously thought. An intensive coring program is being planned to clarify whether this ditch indeed exists and delimits the area we call the palace-temple district. Leaving aside the exact spatial extent of the palace-temple district to be determined, the area within this “ditch” is at least a core segment of the palace-temple district within which are many of the most important discoveries made at Yinxu, including royal tombs M5 and M54 as discussed above.

In the east section of this “ditch”-bordered area, excavations in the 1930s unearthed a total of 53 rammed-earth foundations that spatially constituted three clusters: Group A, Group B, and Group C. These clusters were identifi ed by excavators respectively as remains of palaces, temples, and altars because of their size, and the sacrifi cial burials and inscribed oracle bones associated with Group B and Group C.

Chariot burials with or without human victims and horses, and scores of sacrifi cial pits were found in the open space south of one of Group B foundations (B7). Most sacrifi cial pits held one or multiple decapitated skeletons and animal victims. They are strong evidence of sacrifi ce performed to make offerings to the high powers and ancestors in the temple precinct. Sacrifi ce was one of the defi ning features of Shang ritual. Numerous charges in the oracle-bone inscriptions were about sacrifi ces offered to the ancestors.

From the 1970s onward, many excavations and surveys at Xiaotun North Locus have been conducted, disclosing at least 150 additional building foundations of dif-ferent sizes. In 1989 the Anyang work station excavated a large complex consisting of three foundations some 80 m southeast of Group B; and it was labeled Group D, covering an area of about 5,000 sq m ( IA,CASS 2010 ). A group of over 50 founda-tions, the majority of which are of small size, were located to the northwest of Xiaotun during the fi eld seasons of 1976–1977 and 1984–1985 (IA,CASS 2004). A major program of probing and trial excavation was undertaken in 2004 across a large area


to the north and northwest of Xiaotun. More than 100 foundations of rammed earth were detected, and among other important fi ndings was a large artifi cial pond – measuring about 560 m long north–south, at least 4.5 ha in area and as deep as 12 m – located immediately west of the foundations for Group A and Group B ( Anyang 2009 ; Du 2010 ).

On the basis of recent fi ndings, Du ( 2010 ) re-analyzed three groups of foundations excavated in the 1930s and proposed a new interpretation that identifi es Group A as residential compounds (royal residences), Group B as palaces (for administration), Group C as altars, and Group D as an ancestral temple. All four groups seem to have been in use continuously from the reign of Wu Ding to the end of the dynasty. However, our analysis suggests that the foundations of Group A and some of Group B (including bronze-casting remains) are earlier than the reign of Wu Ding, perhaps dating to the Huanbei period ( Tang 2004b ).

More than 35,000 inscribed shells and bones have been excavated at Yinxu, found almost exclusively in the palace-temple district except for a dozen fragmented pieces found in a number of other localities nearby ( Wang Yunzhi 2010 ). A large pit (YH127) was found in 1936 on the western edge of the Group B foundations that contained more than 17,000 inscribed turtle shells and eight cattle-bones from the reign of Wu Ding ( Dong 1994 ). In 1973, another major fi nd south of Xiaotun village produced more than 4,800 inscribed bones and about 70 shells dated to the middle reigns of the late Shang dynasty ( Guo 1997 ; IA,CASS 1980a ). The 684 inscribed shells and fi ve bones from Huayuanzhuang East, excavated in 1991, are also very important, because more than 300 of them are complete. These inscriptions are dated to the early phase of Wu Ding ’ s reign, and they are records of divinations performed by zi princes, instead of the king ( IA,CASS 2003b ).

Divination was one of the most important institutions of the Shang royal house. The most dominant divinatory subject was systematic offerings made to dead kings and their consorts, indicating the importance of ancestor worship in Shang society. Ancestor worship was directly tied to the exercise of political and religious power. By presiding over the divination process with associated ritual sacrifi ce, the king, known as “I, the one man,” could legitimize his unique position to communicate with his ancestors who were able to intercede with Di (the high god) who presided over a hierarchy of the high powers and dynastic ancestors, and had the ability to infl ict good or bad fortune on the dynasty as a whole. By performing divinations and making offerings to satisfy the needs of his ancestors, the king was able to infl uence the will of the ancestral spirits and the religious power that they possessed, to “appeal for the ancestral blessings, or dissipate the ancestral curses, which affected the com-monality” ( Keightley 1978 ), and to implement a new ideology of social order and hierarchy. In other words, the king depended upon his ancestors for his religious dominance and political power, and institutionalized divination and sacrifi ce were the most effective means to sustain his unique relationship with the ancestors and the high powers ( Chang 1983 ; Keightley 2004 ).

In sum, recent discoveries have revealed new insights into the settlement patterns of the palace-temple district and its functions. Situated in the northeast are the foun-dations of Group B, Group C, and Group D and associated sacrifi cial burials and oracle-bone deposits at Xiaotun North and Northeast, and in the center is Xiaotun South where large deposits of inscribed bones were found. They constitute the core


of the palace-temple district where the primary activities were divination, sacrifi ce, and rituals performed by or on behalf of the kings. The core of the palace-temple district is bordered by a large water feature in the northwest, and surrounded in the south and west by royal neighborhoods where members of zi -prince lineages, as well as their servants, lived and were buried together.

SIMPLIFICATION AND URBANIZATION AT YINXU

After the discovery of Huanbei, an immediate question was its relationships with long-known Yinxu because the two centers were built in such close proximity. Were they built by the same group of people or not? The “unexpected” discovery of Huanbei has encouraged us to reassess traditional models of the Shang civilization and to seek new ways toward interpreting and understanding the identity and meaning of Huanbei and Yinxu, including the social and population dynamics, and the earliest cities of China ’ s early Bronze Age.

In terms of general processes and changes in material culture, some fundamental changes between Huanbei and Yinxu are evident. On the one hand, there were new elements in the development of material culture, particularly the invention of system-atic writing primarily used by the kings and their diviners to keep records of divina-tion, and the sudden appearance of “foreign styles” or “foreign objects” such as horse-driven chariots, bronze mirrors, and others. On the other hand, some tradi-tional social practices continued but were conducted in fundamentally different ways; they were either on a much larger scale or at a much greater intensity, and endowed with different meanings. These social practices include intensifi ed divination and human sacrifi ce, the construction of royal tombs of monumental scale, and intensifi ed craft production, particularly bronze-casting that involved unprecedentedly high integration of techniques, decorative styles, and functions. In terms of the processes of urban planning and development, Huanbei was created largely through top-down processes, while Yinxu was seemingly much more self-organized (bottom-up local processes). All these changes strongly suggest that Huanbei and Yinxu were not just two sequential “Shang” cities but were perhaps different in their very nature with respect to who created them, and how they were created and sustained.

At this stage, there is still a lack of suffi cient data to understand the urban processes involved in the emergence of Huanbei. We will limit the following discussion to Yinxu. There has been a tendency to compress the two centuries of urban develop-ment at Yinxu into a single historical event, viewing late Shang society as if it were monolithic, and thus ignoring the processes through which it was created, developed, and collapsed.

Increasing data clearly suggest that the early phases of the occupation at Yinxu (particularly during the reign of King Wu Ding) show much more variability and diversity in forms and styles of artifacts (pottery, bronzes, even jades) and architec-tures than the later phases, possibly suggesting a high degree of heterogeneity of material culture and population in the beginning of urbanization at Yinxu, and a process of simplifi cation toward the end of the dynasty. Similarly, following the con-ception developed by Scott ( 1998 ) of “legibility” effected by modern states, Yoffee ( 2005 ) argues that the evolution of the earliest states was often complicated by the


simplicity created by states. What occurred in many earliest cities in the world was a tendency toward simplifi cation, standardization, and legibility.

“Foreign” or “nonlocal” objects (“imports” or “copies”) and styles are not unusual among the fi ndings from Yinxu, particularly during the reign of King Wu Ding. They are totally different from those typical “Shang” traditions as represented by the fi nd-ings of the early Shang at Zhengzhou (see Chapter 16 ) and the middle Shang at Huanbei. Many “foreign” objects, such as some jades, proto-porcelain, stoneware, horse-driven chariots, animal-headed bronze knives and the like, are indicative of interaction with distant territories, either through direct trade and exchange, or emulation of forms and styles from other cultures ( Rawson 1995 ; Shaughnessy 1988 ). Some domestic pottery wares and buildings, while stylistically anomalous, might represent the presence of nonlocal people who resided at Yinxu.

For example, enormous new fi ndings from the 2003–2004 excavation at Locus Xiaomintun, particularly buildings and pottery vessels of “nonlocal” style, are unan-ticipated as well as intriguing ( Wang Xuerong and He 2007 ). Among them are 86 subterranean houses or house complexes, technologically and stylistically contrasted with those houses of so-called typical Shang style, usually built upon a raised founda-tion made of pounded earth. A large number of pottery vessels found within those subterranean houses are of “exotic” styles, suggesting connections with neighboring or even distant cultures in Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, and Inner Mongolia. We are currently involved in analyzing the material composition of these ceramics by employing petrography and scanning electron microscopy, in order to evaluate their local versus nonlocal status by comparison with established baseline compositional data for local pottery wares ( Stoltman et al. 2009 ). The subterranean houses and associated nonlocal pottery wares are all dated to the earliest phase at Yinxu. Who were these people who inhabited this specifi c community, and consumed those pottery wares of “nonlocal” styles? Were these pottery vessels locally manufactured or simply imported? What do these new fi ndings inform us of the nature of the neighborhoods at Xiaomintun and its relations with other neighborhoods?

The process of simplifi cation (and standardization) was most striking in ceramics which were becoming less diverse in form, style, and manufacturing technology from the beginning to the end of the dynasty. During the late phases, more and more crude facsimiles, known in later historical texts as “spirit objects” ( mingqi 明器 ), were mass-produced for use in small graves.

The evolution of simplicity in material culture and social practice also has the support of some divinatory practices as recorded in oracle-bone inscriptions. After the reign of Wu Ding, divination became more systematic, more formalized, and less comprehensive, in association with a more routinized administration and regularized cultic and political practice ( Keightley 1999 ). There was an increasing impersonaliza-tion of the dead in ancestor worship, evidenced by the highly formalized and rigid fi ve-ritual cycle of sacrifi ces, the generic temple names for the royal dead, the ranking of ancestors according to generational seniority, and more sacrifi cial wealth offered to more remote ancestors. By the last two reigns of the dynasty, divination had become highly structured, and there was an absence of individual preference for specifi c rituals and offerings ( Keightley 2004 ).

During the reign of Wu Ding, the diviners used complementary positive and nega-tive charges, and the charges the king made addressed a wide range of topics such


as the will of Di, the high god, the blessings of the high powers, weather, harvests, sacrifi ces, warfare, the king ’ s health, the meaning of the king ’ s dreams, childbearing of royal consorts, hunting, the mobilization of conscripts, relations with other poli-ties, the outlook for the coming day or night and the next 10-day week, the arrival of tribute payments, the building of settlements, divine assistance or approval and more. By the last two reigns of the dynasty, many of these topics disappeared from divination, with the focus now limited to the performance of ancestral cults following a rigid schedule, the uniformly auspicious forecast for the next 10-day week or coming night, and queries about the royal hunts. Balanced, positive–negative charge pairs were no longer used. Even the script style of inscriptions became minuscule and more standardized.

Keightley ( 1999 ) argues that all these changes in form and content of divination refl ected a ritual reform, launched by Zu Jia, the 23rd king, that made ancestors endowed with more power but less important, and gave the kings more control over negotiation and communication with their ancestors. Such ritual reform would sim-plify the means by which the Shang kings legitimized and sustained their unchal-lengeable authority to rule the world.

Diviners who served at the royal house or elite groups derived their names primarily from the places of their origins or the names of their lineages. There were some 120 diviners with identifi able names through the late Shang dynasty. During the reign of King Wu Ding, there were more than 70 diviners with known names. While there were no more than a few diviners and scribes during the reign of the last king, quite often the king alone acted as diviner, suggesting that these functionaries (and the people they represented or were related by kinship, trade, or the places of their origins) in the beginning of the urban center at Yinxu might have come from many previously separate local communities and/or distant territories.

Linguistic and cultural diversities have been identifi ed in some recent studies of oracle-bone inscriptions ( Takashima and Yue 2000 ) and bronze inscriptions ( Tan 2005 ). The word order (syntax) involving double-object construction, the modifi ca-tion structure, and the use of demonstratives, particles, and vocabularies are much more diverse and complex in the early phases than the later ones, strongly suggesting the presence of different dialects, particularly during the early reigns of the late Shang dynasty. In other words, late Shang was a society that incorporated varieties of speech different from the court diviners of King Wu Ding.

In short, more and more archaeological and epigraphic data, together with isotope analyses of human remains, suggest that that the Shang city at Yinxu was intentionally and actively created to serve the needs and interests of socially and culturally differ-entiated groups. Yinxu was most likely the meeting ground of previously separate peoples who may have come from local communities and/or distant territories and spoken different dialects or even languages, particularly during the initial phase of urbanization, with a more standardized dialect and writing form toward the end of the dynasty. Here, ethnogenesis (the formation of new group identities) may have been a critical process through which different social and cultural groups interacted with each other – and more importantly – were recombined under new kinds of leadership, probably by means of a new ideology of social order and hierarchy ( Yoffee 2005 ). Intensifi ed human sacrifi ce and divination, the construction of monumental royal tombs, increasingly specialized production and consumption of crafts were


materialization of such an ideology that embodied a new order of social relations among the living, the dead and gods ( Keightley 1978 ; Chang 1983 ).

OUTLOOK FOR FUTURE WORK

What is presented above is a brief discussion of some recent discoveries made in Anyang, an archaeologically important region for the investigation of the earliest cities and civilizations. Some preliminary thoughts are also put forward on the historical and material processes of the urban settlement at Yinxu. But many more questions await to be answered. In our ongoing investigation in Anyang, there are three domains of specifi c questions we will make earnest efforts to study: (1) Population composition and mobility, and the formation of urban identities – why, how, and by whom were the cities created? Were the people who created and lived in early cities ethnically homogeneous? Were these people local inhabitants or immigrants from distant territories, or some kind of combination? How did different social groups interact and recombine to form new social identities? (2) Spatial and social clustering of urban neighborhoods – were neighborhoods and districts within cities structured or segregated ethnically and/or socially and/or economically? How were open spaces established? In what ways did bottom-up processes and top-down processes interact to generate change in urban form? What roles did neighborhoods and open spaces play in processes of urban sprawl and expansion? (3) Changes in urban form and processes from Huanbei to Yinxu – did they differ, and if so to what extent, in terms of how cities were deliberately created and how the neighborhoods and districts of different kinds were structured? Were the causes leading to the abandonment of urban settlements the same or not? If not, what factors in each case contributed to the abandonment?

According to traditional texts, the Shang moved its capital several times before it was fi nally ensconced at Yin 殷 (otherwise known as Anyang: Chang 1980 ) although there was not even a single mention of such capital removal in oracle-bone inscriptions. If the capital move was what indeed happened, it must be empirically demonstrated with archaeological data and not simply assumed. Many additional questions must be answered, such as, why did the Shang move its capital? Did it simply emulate its previ-ous cities or other existing cities or see the removal as a new opportunity to create something different in order to avoid problems perceived or encountered before?

All these specifi c questions are particularly critical to a better understanding of the material and social processes and dynamics of early urbanization in Anyang, and the generation of new knowledge about ancient urbanism in general. Such a study is very challenging and the investigation itself is a long-term process, but the reward will be great.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Anne Underhill, editor of this Companion, for inviting us to contribute a chapter and for her constructive suggestions and constant encouragement. We also thank the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy


of Social Sciences for supporting our long-term collaborative research in Anyang. Our work is also supported by the US National Science Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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