Development of Complex Societies in Southeastern Shandong, China: Settlement Patterns from the Neolithic to the Han Period

A comprehensive account of a pioneering archaeological project in the province of Shandong that transformed understandings of regional settlement patterns

From 1995 to 2007, researchers from China and the United States conducted a systematic, full-coverage regional archaeological survey in southeastern Shandong Province, China, covering an area of more than 1,400 square kilometers. This pioneering multiyear international project transformed the archaeological understanding of regional settlement patterns from the Neolithic to the Han period in southeastern Shandong. As an update of the 2012 synthesis published in Chinese, this volume is the most detailed account of the project in English. The team discovered many new sites, including the earliest known Neolithic settlements in the area, and revealed distinctly different regional settlement patterns in the hinterlands of the two largest late Neolithic sites, Liangchengzhen and Yaowangcheng. The book includes field procedures, methods of analysis, and descriptions of major sites generously illustrated with maps as well as photographs of key artifacts and archaeological localities.

Distributed for the Yale Peabody Museum

Hui Fang is dean of the School of History and Culture at Shandong University. Anne P. Underhill is professor of anthropology at Yale University and curator at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Gary M. Feinman is MacArthur Curator of Mesoamerican, Central American, and East Asian Anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Linda M. Nicholas is adjunct curator of anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Fengshi Luan is professor of archaeology in the School of History and Culture at Shandong University. Haiguang Yu is professor of archaeology in the School of History and Culture at Shandong University.