Ancient Central China
Centers and Peripheries along the Yangzi River

Ancient Central China provides an up-to-date synthesis of archaeological discoveries in the upper and middle Yangzi River region of China, including the Three Gorges Dam reservoir zone. It focuses on the Late Neolithic (late third millennium BC) through the end of the Bronze Age (late first millennium BC) and considers regional and interregional cultural relationships in light of anthropological models of landscape. Rowan K. Flad and Pochan Chen show that centers and peripheries of political, economic and ritual activities were not coincident, and that politically peripheral regions such as the Three Gorges were crucial hubs in interregional economic networks, particularly related to prehistoric salt production. The book provides detailed discussions of recent archaeological discoveries and data from the Chengdu Plain, Three Gorges and Hubei to illustrate how these various components of regional landscape were configured across Central China.

Reviews & endorsements

'Ancient Central China is replete with up-to-date information (especially on Sichuan and the Three Gorges) and the authors' work at Zhongba and on the Chengdu Plain is a shining example of what is possible in Chinese archaeology. The history of scholarship in the region is especially rich and the authors' synthesis of palaeo-climate and geography is the best I know of in Chinese archaeology … Ancient Central China contains simultaneously some of the most stimulating theoretical proposals in Chinese archaeology and a much needed synthesis of an understudied region presented in provocative fashion.' Antiquity

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Product details

• Date Published: March 2013
• format: Paperback
• isbn: 9780521727662
• length: 428 pages

• dimensions: 229 x 153 x 24 mm
• weight: 0.67kg
• contains: 63 b/w illus. 16 maps
• availability: In stock