Археология и древнекитайский род

 

 

Archaeology and the Ancient Chinese Lineage

 
Lothar von Falkenhausen
University of California, Los Angeles
 
Since archaeology is, at least in part, a social science, the study of ancient social organization is a central part of its purview. In the Chinese context, one principal challenge lies in making published archaeological finds speak to issues relevant to such an endeavor. But this is by no means a hopeless task. For instance, cemeteries and settlements from the Zhou 周 period (ca. 1046-256 BC), when analyzed appropriately, can yield important clues as to the internal structure of lineages during that time — information that is unavailable from transmitted textual records. Historians are still in the process of assimilating this recently-recovered knowledge. A short synthesis of what we know based on current evidence is attempted in the present paper^[1], which I respectfully dedicate to Professor Stanisław Kuczera as a small token of my long-standing admiration for his substantive and original contributions to the rigorous archaeological study of East Asian cultures^[2]. In particular, we shall see that archaeological materials reveal a significant — perhaps surprising — amount of social inequality within ancient Chinese lineages.
 
General Remarks on Lineages in Ancient China
As described in a now-classic article by the late K. C. Chang, ancient Chinese society took the form of a segmentary lineage system in which the position of every individual was determined by patrilineal descent (see [2]). Corporate lineages, whose members were descended from historically traceable ancestors in the relatively recent past, were the principal building blocks of the socio-economic order; they held landed estates, organized ritual activities, constituted military units, and assured the transmission of professional skills. Such lineages must be distinguished from clans, which were higher-order and much less tightly organized social units that traced their descent from mythical figures in the remote past^[3]. Each clan comprised a multitude of lineages. The ancient Chinese nation (in the sense of “nation” as a social rather than a political entity) may be conceptualized as a conglomerate of numerous lineages affiliated with a dozen or so clans and linked by bonds of patrilineal kinship (sometimes fictive) and intermarriage; its political counterpart, the kingdoms ruled (or perhaps rather, reigned over) by China’s earliest royal dynasties, were hierarchically structured alliances among the polities constituted by these lineages — alliances that changed through time as power constellations shifted^[4].
 
In this system, the principle of genealogical seniority determined the rank of each lineage, with the king the most senior descendant of the most senior lineage of the royal clan (the Ji 姬 clan in the case of the Zhou dynasty). Junior descendants held aristocratic ranks corresponding to their seniority, and below them were the masses of unranked commoners, who nevertheless also belonged to the same lineages. All political power and economic wealth was vested in the lineages and, within them, in their senior male members. Clans, by contrast, were important mainly for the descent reckoning of females; for the principle of clan exogamy required everyone to marry outside their clans, thus effectively forging links between the lineages affiliated with the royal clan and those of various non-royal clans. Thus integrated by ties of descent and intermarriage, the social order of ancient China could be conceived as one big family headed by the king of the reigning dynasty.
 
This is of course a highly idealized picture; but it renders the basic principles according to which the socio-political order was being conceived by its own participants during the Chinese Bronze Age (ca. 2000-250 BC). One challenge to such a system is that, with natural demographic growth, the number of descendants of prominent ancestors is bound to increase exponentially from generation to generation, thus potentially swelling the privileged ranks to a point that exceeds the society’s capacity of generating the surplus necessary to sustain them. To cope with this potential source of instability, the Li ji  禮記 (compiled from earlier materials in the first century BC) describes a dynamic system in which aristocratic ranks were inherited by eldest sons only, while all other males of the same generation were systematically downgraded by one notch in the hierarchy (see [58, Sangfu xiaoji 喪服小記, 32, p. 267 (59, p. 1495); 58, Dazhuan 大傳, 34, p. 280 (59, p. 1508)]); in this way, the junior members of lineages descended from prominent ancestors were eventually reduced to commoner status. Such a procedure kept the number of claimants to high status within manageable limits. Within any lineage, the vast majority of its members were unranked commoners.
 
Of course, there were also “Others” who did not belong to the big family headed by the king; these included the unfree population^[5], as well as unassimilated tribal groups that are known to have been living in close proximity of the early Chinese political centers, and to have been engaged in regular interactions with their inhabitants (see, e.g., [34]). One of the great mysteries in the study of ancient Chinese society — one that neither text-based history nor archaeology has been able to resolve to date — is the question of how large a percentage of the population of ancient China belonged to such groups outside the pyramidal lineage hierarchy that constituted, at least in its own perception, the core of Chinese society and of the Chinese political system.
 
Recent archaeological evidence suggests that at least the rudiments of a lineage-based socio-political order comparable to that of the Bronze Age had been established during the Late Neolithic (3^rd millennium BC) (see [25; 26; 16]). For the early part of the Bronze Age, in particular for the Shang period (ca. 1600-ca. 1046 BC), Tang Jigen’s 唐際根 recent work (the publication of which is eagerly expected) has produced important new insights (see [42]). I will here mostly concern myself with the succeeding Zhou dynasty (ca. 1046-256 BC), for which the archaeological data are complemented by inscriptions and transmitted texts. I am particularly interested in examining what insights excavated material evidence can offer, or may be expected to offer some day, into the nature of Zhou lineages.
 
Archaeological Data on Lineages
Potentially, I suppose, archaeology might be able, through systematic settlement-pattern surveys and the careful excavation of settlements, to say something about the dispersal over the land of lineages during different periods in ancient China. Such work would undoubtedly yield far more accurate insights than are currently available from textual records and unsystematic archaeological excavation on the size of the lower-ranking groups within the mainstream lineage order, as well as of the disenfranchised outsider groups. So far, however, such work is still in its beginning stages. For the Zhou period, in particular, our knowledge is virtually limited to the locations of walled towns^[6]. In a few cases, excavations have additionally revealed details on the construction of their walls. But very little is known about what kinds of activities went on inside such towns, and even less about villages and other types of settlements. The as-yet unreported data from the Sino-French collaborative project at Gongying, Nanyang (Henan) 河南南陽貢營 promise to provide, for the first time, a comprehensive view of living conditions at a non-urban settlement from the Zhou period^[7]. Whether they will permit us to distinguish the remains of different social groups within that settlement and to give demographic estimates as to their relative sizes remains to be seen.
 
Since pertinent settlement data are thus so far virtually lacking, almost all the material evidence currently available concerning Zhou social organization comes from tombs. These tombs are virtually all of adults, with an understandable yet problematic bias toward high-ranking individuals who were buried with objects of high value. Since ancient cemeteries were placed in the vicinity of settlements, their excavation can, at least potentially, reveal facets of the social organization of the inhabitants of these settlements. Both residence at settlements and burial in cemeteries are likely to have been based on lineage affiliation. In the case of cemeteries, this assumption, supported by the Zhou li 周禮 (a text compiled in part from earlier materials around 300 BC and much studied by Professor Kuczera)^[8]). See also [19; 5].]], could be verified by DNA analysis on human remains, and I hope such study will be undertaken sometime soon; to my knowledge, none has yet taken place. If this assumption holds, cemeteries may be expected to reflect the development and internal stratification of lineages residing nearby. To reconstruct these, the cemeteries must, of course, be excavated systematically — either in their entirety, or using a sampling strategy guaranteeing that representative remains of all social groups are recovered in proportion to their actual frequency.
 
So far, alas, excavation of Zhou cemeteries has not been guided by a concern with representative sampling. The only dataset usable for a quantitative analysis is from the 8^th-5^th century BC cemetery of an unnamed lineage at Shangma, Houma (Shanxi) 山西侯馬上馬, which was excavated almost in its entirety, yielding some 1387 tombs (see [68; 8; 11, ch. 3]). Their rank distribution may be deemed representative for that of the burying community (allowing for some bias against children and, apparently, junior wives, who must have been buried elsewhere). Apparently descended from a single couple that lived in the early 8^th century BC, the community grew to a size of between 400 and 600 individuals within some 150 years; parts of it seem to have moved away thereafter. Of course, these estimates do not include resident outsiders, who presumably would not have been eligible for burial at the lineage cemetery; a rough estimate of their number might be possible if one knew more about the number, size, and nature of residences at the associated settlement. On the other hand, the considerable differences in size and furnishings among the Shangma tombs show very clearly that the burying lineage comprised both a ranked (élite) and an unranked (commoner) segment, which comprised 13% and 87%, respectively, of the burial population. It is significant that the cemetery was open to ranked as well as unranked lineage members. Further research is needed to assess whether these findings — and in particular the proportion of ranked vs. unranked lineage members — are representative for Zhou society as a whole.
 
Cemetery Layout
Even non-representative funerary data can reveal some insights relevant to the reconstruction of Zhou society. For instance, at many cemeteries, tombs are arranged in rows, apparently following — at least more or less — the order of generations in a lineage. Such a situation is particularly clear at the cemeteries of the Guo 虢 lineage at Shangcunling, Sanmenxia (Henan) 河南三門峽上村嶺 (8^th-early 7^th centuries)^[9], and of an unknown lineage of the Shangdang 上黨 region at Fenshuiling, Changzhi (Shanxi) 山西長治分水嶺 (late 7^th-5^th centuries)^[10]. A pair of prominent tombs in the center of each generation-row seems to be the resting place of the most senior member in that generation and his wife. This pairing of husband-and-wife tombs is exceptional and apparently constitutes a mark of privilege (see below); virtually none of the other tombs in the generation-rows are paired. The differences in placement correlate with differences in tomb size and the number of funerary goods. As at Shangma, the overall impression is one of pronounced internal stratification within lineages, showing considerable social inequality among people who were related by ties of kinship. By funneling resources and status recognition through focal individuals, such systemic internal inequality may have served to sustain the social cohesion and solidarity within lineages. That there was indeed considerable cohesion seems reflected by the fact that, in spite of pronounced material and status inequality, both ranked and unranked members of lineages were buried in close proximity to one another.
 
A departure from this pattern may be observed in the tombs of rulers of border polities (hou 侯), who, at least in some places — e.g. at the 9^th-early 7^th century BC necropolis of Jin 晉 at Qucun, Quwo (Shanxi) 山西曲沃曲村 — were buried in separate funerary precincts of their own, apart from the cemeteries of their kinfolk^[11]. Such a burial practice arguably signalizes the increasing separation of that stratum from the ordinary lineage members, even from those holding an aristocratic rank; it signals an emerging class difference. Such a separation became even more entrenched during the Warring States period (ca. 450-221 BC), when rulers were buried in huge mounded mausoleum complexes^[12], whereas the size and form of tombs at ordinary lineage cemeteries changed but little from the earlier part of the Zhou period. This situation seems to be reflected in the distinction between rulers’ tombs (gongmu 公墓) and subjects’ tombs (bangmu 邦墓) in the Zhou li (see Zhou li, Chunguan: Zhongren [79, 41, p. 1694-1705] vs. Zhou li, Mudaifu [79, 41, p. 1705-1707]).
 
Earlier intimations of such a categorical separation may be seen at the Shang royal cemetery at Xibeigang, Anyang (Henan) 河南安陽西北 and, perhaps, at the recently discovered Zhou royal cemetery at Zhougongmiao, Qishan (Shaanxi) 陝西岐山周公廟, possibly indicating that local rulers during the Zhou period were usurping what had once been an exclusively royal prerogative. Nevertheless, for a considerable amount of time before ca. 500 BC (and in some places such as Chu 楚 in the south, continuing for several centuries thereafter), even some very powerful rulers of territorial polities within the Zhou realm continued to express, in the choice of the location of their resting places, a remarkable degree of ritual community with their lineage relatives.
 
Sumptuary Rules
Besides the cemetery layout, the size and contents of the tombs may also convey important insights into the social (and economic) structure of their burying communities. There were, of course, many ways of expressing status distinctions. The most important criteria include the presence and number (up to four) of sloped passages into the tomb (mudao 墓道); the size of the tomb pit; the presence or absence of a burial chamber (guo 槨); the presence and number of (nested) coffins (guan 棺); the presence and number of chariots, horses, and other animal and human victims; the number and material of sacrificial vessels; the presence and number of musical instruments; the presence and extent of body-covering jades; and the overall wealth of tomb furnishings. In general, the presence of a burial chamber may be taken as an indicator of ranked status. Another indicator is the presence of sets of ritual vessels, although at many cemeteries in North China, for reasons that are not entirely clear (perhaps simply lack of means), many tombs with burial chambers have failed to yield ritual bronzes. (In the Chu region, by contrast, tombs with burial chambers normally do contain bronze vessels.) Conversely, the absence of a burial chamber usually indicates commoner rank; only in cemeteries of exceptionally powerful lineages do ritual vessels occur — and even there, rarely — in tombs lacking a burial chamber. I am aware of such instances at Qucun and at the 7^th-5^th century BC Jin cemetery at Shangguocun, Wenxi (Shanxi) 山西聞喜上郭村^[13].
 
Aside from their mere presence, the different numbers of ritual vessels and bells found in tombs are commonly used to distinguish different tiers in the aristocratic hierarchy, and the co-occurrence of sets of different numbers of vessels at the same cemeteries is another indicator of considerable internal stratification within lineages. Sumptuary rules governing the constellations of meat-offering tripods (ding 鼎) and “suspended musical instruments” (yuexuan 樂縣: bells and stone chimes) are recorded in some late texts, but these records are neither comprehensive nor very specific as to their period of validity, and they contradict each other in part. The excavation of numerous tombs of important people during the last half-century has enabled archaeologists to reconstruct the Zhou sumptuary system to a level of detail heretofore unimaginable (see [84; 85, p. 62-114; 77; 27, p. 461-464; 81; 62; 24 (revised Chinese version: 60, p. 271-333); 63; 12; 11, passim]). It is now clear, for instance, that aside from ding and the “suspended musical instruments,” sumptuary rules also governed the numeric constellations of grain-offering gui 簋 tureens (an odd-numbered set of ding was usually correlated with the next-lower even number of gui), li 鬲 cooking-tripods with pouch-shaped feet, and rectangular hu 壺 water containers, among others.
 
Moreover, archaeologists now realize that these sumptuary rules changed over time. Rather than having been instituted at the time of the founding of the Zhou dynasty in the mid-eleventh century, they were only systematized around 850 BC as part of what seems to have been a comprehensive transformation of Zhou social institutions that Jessica Rawson has aptly called the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform (see [36; 37, pt. A: 108-10; 38; 39]. See also [6; 64; 7; 11, ch. 1; 51]). A unified set of sumptuary standards was adopted within what seems to have been a rather short time, extending over a wide area covering most of the Yellow, Huai, and Middle Yangzi River Basins. This may be interpreted as signalizing an impressive degree of ritual uniformity at the high-élite level of society and, in particular, a certain homogenization of ways of drawing social distinctions. Once instituted, these new rules appear to have changed relatively little over the two centuries or so following the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform.
 
It is true that even before the Reform, the wealth of funerary assemblages was closely correlated with the tomb owners’ social status and ritual prestige; but this was expressed in a far less standardized and systematic fashion than later on. And even during the period following the Reform, the archaeological record exhibits all sorts of messy idiosyncrasies in how the new rules were locally articulated, possibly reflecting slightly divergent lineage customs or individual preferences now beyond the reach of archaeological reconstruction.
 
Given the nature of the archaeological record, it would be unrealistic to expect excessive stringency in the enforcement of sumptuary rules in funerary contexts. Nevertheless, it is clear that differences in social status were materially expressed in ritual contexts by different sumptuary sets; and that individuals of different standing within a lineage enjoyed vastly different sumptuary privileges. The internal structure of each lineage thus replicated, at a miniature scale, that of society at large. Of course, lineages also differed from one another in their overall standing, as determined, in principle, by the differences in rank among their leaders (but also, evidently, by historically grown differences in wealth and power).
 
We should briefly pause here to consider how fundamentally this segmentary system, in which descent-based internal stratification within the lineage trumps social inequality based on class status, differs from a traditional European-style class society. Any attempt at comparing ancient China with the West must take this difference into account. Even though Chinese society underwent many changes after the Bronze Age, it seems likely that habitudes of social interaction shaped during the Zhou period — enshrined as they were in Confucian political philosophy — continued to exert a lingering impact during the later stages of Chinese history, and quite possibly well into modern times.
 
Gender Distinctions
Recent archaeological discoveries permit significant insights into the different treatment of males and females, a subject on which textual records are virtually silent^[14]. In the future, the analysis of skeletal remains — still a desideratum at present — may generate further relevant evidence.
 
First, as we have already seen, paired tombs of husband and wife were a sign of high rank. The rationale for this may possibly have lain in the fact that the marriage alliances across clan lines that were concluded by the most senior members of lineages carried a special political importance; one may perhaps deduce as well that wives of lineage heads had occupied high positions in their own natal lineages.
 
Second, the comparison of funerary assemblages (e.g. from the Jin rulers’ cemetery at Qucun, the Guo cemetery at Shangcunling, and the recently excavated cemetery of the Rui 芮 lineage at Liangdaicun, Hancheng [Shaanxi] 陝西韓城梁帶村) reveals male-female distinctions in sumptuary privileges^[15]. Not surprisingly, given that we are dealing with a male-centered descent system, women — even high-élite women — were treated less favorably than their husbands. At the two cemeteries just mentioned, wives of lineage heads were buried with sets of vessels pertaining to the rank below that of their husbands in the sumptuary hierarchy. At Qucun during the Late Western Zhou period, for instance, the male rulers of Jin had sets of five ding and four gui, whereas their principal consorts had sets of three ding and two gui; the number of other kinds of status-defining goods is also lower in tombs of females, and chime-bells are seen only in tombs of males.
 
In Eastern Zhou (770-221 BC) contexts, as well, there are numerous instances of similar systemic inequality; on the other hand, the late seventh-century tomb of the wife of a ruler of Huang 黃 at Baoxiangsi, Guangshan (Henan) 河南光山寶香寺 contains a splendid assemblage of jade objects to which there is nothing of even remotely corresponding wealth in the tomb of her husband (see [56]; see also [61]). This may be an atypical case, but it reminds us that in general, one should perhaps take some care not to reduce the issue of the relative social position of females vis-à-vis males to their respective positions in the sumptuary system; for the sumptuary system above all reflects their ritual rank. One suspects that there may have been other ways for élite women to assert themselves.
 
Even so, there is no denying that the distribution of wealth and power was systematically slanted toward males, reflecting, no doubt, the outsider status of females in the lineages; it is also relevant to note that the (lower) sumptuary privileges of females did not accrue to them as individuals, but were determined on the basis of those of their husbands, highlighting the dependent social as well as legal standing of women.
 
Changes Over Time
Instituted around 850 BC, the Zhou sumptuary system changed again greatly after ca. 600 BC, when differences between rulers and the rest of the lineage order became exacerbated. After that time, the traditional rank-defining sets of ding, gui, and other ritual vessels common since the time of the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform are encountered only in the tombs of the highest-ranking members of the society — the rulers, their immediate relatives, and the highest administrators of the states. These are seen with minimal (and for the most part merely stylistic) differences throughout the Zhou realm. Important cases include Xiasi, Xichuan (Henan) 河南淅川下寺 for Chu (see [55; 9; 11, ch. 8]), Leigudun, Suizhou (Hubei) 湖北隨州擂鼓墩 for Zeng 曾 (see [57; 78]), Ximennei, Shou Xian (Anhui) 安徽壽縣西門內 for Cai 蔡 (see [46]), Lijialou, Xinzheng (Henan) 河南新鄭李家樓 for Zheng 鄭^[16], Jinshengcun, Taiyuan (Shanxi) 山西太原金勝村 for Zhao 趙 (then still part of Jin) (see [80]), and a number of others. In tombs pertaining to the lower-ranking aristocratic ranks, new and simpler sets of ritual vessels were instituted, the details differing somewhat among the various local polities. Tombs of the highest-ranking aristocrats contain these new sets alongside the more traditional assemblages.
 
This co-occurrence suggests that they were used in two different rituals, one of which, more conservative in character and practiced throughout the Zhou culture sphere, was reserved to the highest élite, whereas the other, newer and more regionally specific, was practiced by all members of the aristocracy. Once again, it is interesting to observe that — at least during the sixth to mid-fourth centuries (and, in Chu, until the end of the Warring States period) — tombs pertaining to the highest élite level coexist with tombs of the more ordinary élite at the same cemeteries, suggesting that some members of the same lineages were entitled to participate in high-élite activities, whilst others — the vast majority — were not. The only exception to this new bifurcated pattern is Qin 秦 in the Northwest, which continued to adhere to its local version of the Late Western Zhou sumptuary system, only to abandon it abruptly in the mid-4^th century BC.
 
After ca. 600 BC, in tombs pertaining to the lower ranks of the aristocratic hierarchy, sumptuary privileges often either go unmarked (as in many tombs at Shangma), or were only expressed symbolically through mingqi 明器, imitation vessels made of inferior materials and/or at miniature scale. These of course were far cheaper than ritual bronzes; as a consequence, after ca. 400 BC, they are universally encountered even in tombs lacking burial chambers and thus believed to have belonged to unranked commoners. Aubrey Cannon has observed that, as soon as once-restricted objects become available to those formerly excluded from them, the élite typically loses interest in them and focuses on some new criterion for expressing its exclusivity (see [1]). This is indeed what seems to have happened in Eastern Zhou China. Although some intimation of the earlier sumptuary rules persisted in most parts of China until the end of the Zhou period, the traditional sumptuary distinctions appear to have lost their former significance. Instead, it became customary to express differences in economic wealth through the burial of items of non-ritual character associated with luxurious living, as well as with objects of cosmological connotations (including written manuscripts). While the barrier between the higher and lower élites became ever more impermeable, that between the lower ranks of the aristocracy and unranked commoners was obliterated; remote rulers towered over an increasingly undifferentiated mass of subjects. Among the latter, wealth and magical skills now took precedence over descent-based status differences.
 
In order to understand the full social significance of these changes, one must realize that they are, on the most direct level, the reflection of changes in religious ideas. The assemblages of ritual vessels buried in tombs from the earlier part of the Bronze Age — from Shang and even earlier times all the way through the first half of Eastern Zhou — had corresponded to those used by the surviving lineage members in their ancestral sacrifices. The underlying assumption had been that, energized by the sacrifices offered by their descendants, the deceased ancestors would intercede with higher-ranking divinities on behalf of their living progeny, securing supernatural blessings^[17]. This belief, still vividly expressed in Western Zhou period (ca. 1046-771 BC) ritual hymns and bronze inscriptions, seems to have become attenuated over time until, by the middle of the first millennium BC, it had degenerated into a mere formality.
 
The Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform seems to have initiated — perhaps unintentionally — a reorientation of the ancestral rituals toward the articulation of ties among the living descendants of the ancestors that were being addressed in the sacrifices; by the lifetime of Confucius (trad. 551–479), the rituals had been thoroughly refocused upon the living community, and the ancestral spirits were no longer commonly relied on as a source of supernatural help in the here-and-now. This is no doubt at least in part the reason for the diminishing resources expended on the ceremonial apparatus buried in tombs. Instead, in keeping with novel religious beliefs that may have been in part of western origin^[18], tombs became underground models of the world of the living, designed to be a permanent resting place from which the dead would no longer wish to exert any influence on the lives of their descendants. From propitious helpers, they had become transformed into potentially dangerous revenant ghosts^[19].
 
This reversal of earlier religious conceptions, ubiquitously reflected in the archaeological record, saliently parallels the well-known social changes during the Eastern Zhou period. By ca. 400 BC, the traditional lineage order had gradually become weakened, and the status of one’s ancestors no longer determined — or perhaps one should say, determined to a lesser degree than had ever been the case previously — the social position of an individual. The two basic tendencies behind these transformations were demographic growth and the increasing concentration of political power in the hands of despotic rulers aided by efficient bureaucracies and large armies. These tendencies in turn were systematically tied in with the well-known technological, economic, and intellectual advances during that seminal period in Chinese history^[20].
 
While lineages as corporate holders of political and economic power were now a thing of the past, descent-based kin groups continued to be the basic units of social (and, at least in some regions, military) organization during late Eastern Zhou times. One unresolved issue that future coordinated excavation of settlements and cemeteries may one day be able to address is to what extent residence in the bustling urban centers of this period (and burial at the extensive cemeteries associated with them) was still organized along kinship lines. The staying power of the old system, and its adaptability to new political, economic, and ideological realities, should not be underestimated.
 
Indeed, many facets of the Zhou lineage system and the ancestral cult that sustained it have persisted in the ethnographic present; but one should realize that much of what we can observe today (in China as well as in Korea and Vietnam) is the result of successive attempts at imposing a Li ji-based Confucian orthodoxy during the Song and Qing dynasties (see [4; 29; 3]). One additional task of archaeological research in the future could be to reveal indicators of local patterns of social organization during Han, Six Dynasties, and Tang times and to see to what extent they continued earlier precedents and/or prefigured later archaistic reorganizations.
 
Acknowledgments. This article has grown from a paper prepared for the Symposium on Ancient Chinese Culture, held at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, on March 9-13, 2005. I would like to extend my thanks to Professor Jing Zhichun, for organizing that exceptionally productive scholarly meeting, and to all participants for their constructive comments.
 
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1. ↑ Many of the core ideas presented herein are expounded at greater length in [11].
2. ↑ For Professor Kuczera’s own contribution to the study of ancient Chinese social organization, see, e.g., [18].
3. ↑ On this difference as a theoretical construct, see [30, p. 46]; the distinction matches the actual situation of Zhou China remarkably well.
4. ↑ For useful historical treatments of these processes, see, e.g., [66; 67; 89; 17; 65; 83; 23]).
5. ↑ Very little is known about slavery in the earlier part of the Bronze Age; whether it even existed may hinge on the definition of the term. On conditions at the transition to imperial times, see [44].
6. ↑ See [82]; for some critical reflections on ancient Chinese cities, see [13].
7. ↑ Alain Thote, personal communication. The excavation report is expected out soon.
8. ↑ Zhou li, Chunguan 春官: Zhongren 冢人 (see [79, 41, p. 1694-1705]); Zhou li, Mudaifu 墓大夫 (see [79. 41, p. 1705-1707
9. ↑ See [88; 54]; the second installment of this publication, though long ago announced to be immediately forthcoming, has still not been published. For a preliminary analysis, see [11, ch. 2 passim].
10. ↑ See [73]; this final report supersedes previously published preliminary reports.
11. ↑ The final report on this important necropolis has still not been published; for the six preliminary reports, see: [47; 48; 71; 72; 49; 50]. For a preliminary analysis, see [22].
12. ↑ Archaeologically the best-known of these is the unfinished necropolis of King Cuo [爂minus火over昔] of Zhongshan 中山 at Sanji, Pingshan (Hebei) 河北平山三汲; see [52].
13. ↑ Unfortunately, the Shangguo necropolis has been hideously looted in recent years; preliminary reports have been published as follows: [69; 70; 90; 86]. For a preliminary study of the reported finds, see [10].
14. ↑ For a pioneering set of papers on related issues, see [28].
15. ↑ For the archaeological reports on Shangcunling and Qucun, see notes. 9 and 11. An analysis of gender differences at the latter cemetery may be found in [45]; for a different interpretation, see [11, ch. 2]. On Liangdaicun, see [74; 75].
16. ↑ An up-to-date publication of a large assemblage of bronzes recovered in 1923 and allegedly from Lijialou is [53]; some complications are discussed in [14].
17. ↑ This understanding is well spelled out throughout [76], see also [43; 6].
18. ↑ There is some indication of cultural permeability between the Eastern Zhou culture sphere and Central Asia during Eastern Zhou times and indeed beyond. For some pioneering explorations, see, e.g., [60]. Now that an increasing number of scholars are equipped to consider archaeological materials from China in conjunction with those from other parts of Eursia, one may look forward to rapid progress in the elucidation of these important cultural processes.
19. ↑ This transformation was first described in [40; 41]. Recent evidence shows that it did not occur during Han times, as Seidel believed, but considerably earlier, during the final centuries of the Zhou period.
20. ↑ The magnitude and importance of the Eastern Zhou transformation, as well as the constant flow of new data, has so far impeded the writing of a satisfactory synthesis of the period. For piecemeal contributions in Western languages that may be considered in conjunction, see [15; 43; 20; 21; 11, ch. 7-9; 31; 32; 33; 35] and the relevant chapters in “The Cambridge History of Ancient China” (see, e.g. [39]).