Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: A Network Approach In Analyzing Early State Organization

耶鲁大学的王庆柱（音译）和他的同事将从高价值商品的生产、流通和消费的角度，研究“边缘”地区过去的地方精英的代理作用，这些代理可能对国家组织的动态做出了贡献。考古学这门学科非常适合调查长期以来的社会动态，以及识别重大的社会政治和经济变化，特别是理解政治进程的运作。世界多个地区的研究都强调中央政府如何通过控制有价值商品的生产、流通和消费，使其权力合法化，并将地方精英纳入国家秩序。Wang和他的研究团队将关注当地精英的权力，并调查当地精英如何积极与国家谈判以实现自己的目标。王的研究项目侧重于从青铜的生产、分布和消费的角度，调查商朝时期山东至河南商朝核心权力地区以东的社会动态。与传统观点认为山东是中央集权的商朝国家的一部分不同，研究团队将测试另一种谈判模型，该模型强调地方精英的代理以及更广泛的社会网络和机构，这些网络和机构构成了社会互动和内部国家组织。采用多代理方法进行数据收集和分析，研究小组将调查山东的青铜生产和消费如何加强或重新协商群体身份和社会关系，以及这些如何随着时间的推移在局部和区域间发生变化。本研究还考虑了山东的地方精英如何在商朝中后期与河南的商朝王室积极谈判，以及这种谈判如何潜在地促进了商朝的动态。从青铜器的生产、分配和消费的角度，考察商代山东地方精英与皇都上层精英互动的社会政治经济组织，将为中国早期国家的运作和发展提供新的认识。此外，它将有助于对人类学和考古学的早期国家作为一个整体的比较视角，因为很少有早期国家过程的理论借鉴了中国的材料。

Qingzhu Wang of Yale University, along with colleagues, will investigate the agency of past local elites in "peripheral" regions that might have contributed to the dynamics of state organization from the perspective of the production, circulation, and consumption of highly valuable goods.. The discipline of archaeology is well suited to investigation of social dynamics over long periods of time and identification of significant socio-political and economic change, especially for understanding the operation of political processes. Research in multiple areas of the world emphasizes how central state administrators legitimate their power and incorporate local elites into state order by controlling the production, circulation, and consumption of valuable goods. Wang and his research team will focus on power available to local elites, and investigate how local elites might actively negotiate with the state to accomplish their own goals. Wang's research project focuses on investigating social dynamics in Shandong province during the Shang period, to the east of the core Shang areas of power in Henan province, from the perspectives of bronze production, distribution, and consumption. Instead of accepting the traditional view that sees Shandong as an incorporated part of the centralized Shang state, the research team will test an alternative Negotiation Model that emphasizing the agency of local elites and the broader social networks and institutions that structure social interactions and internal state organization. Applying a multi-proxy approach for data collection and analysis, the team will investigate how bronze production and consumption in Shandong acted to reinforce or renegotiate group identities and social ties, and how these changed on a localized and inter-area basis over time. This research also considers how the local elites in Shandong might have actively negotiated with the Shang royal court in Henan during the Middle and Late Shang periods, and how the negotiation potentially contributed to the dynamics of the Shang state. By investigating the socio-political and economic organization of the Shang Dynasty from the perspective of interaction between local elites in Shandong and high elites in the royal capitals from the perspective of production, distribution and consumption of bronze objects, this research will provide a new understanding of the operation and development of early states in China. Furthermore, it will contribute to a comparative perspective on early states in anthropology and archaeology as a whole, since few theories of early state processes have drawn upon Chinese materials.