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

耶鲁大学的王庆柱（Qingzhu Wang）将与同事沿着，从高价值商品的生产、流通和消费的角度，调查过去地方精英在“边缘”地区的代理，这些代理可能对国家组织的动态做出了贡献。考古学的学科非常适合调查社会动态在很长一段时间内，并确定重大的社会政治和经济变化，特别是了解政治进程的运作。世界多个领域的研究强调中央政府管理者如何通过控制有价值商品的生产、流通和消费来合法化他们的权力，并将地方精英纳入国家秩序。王和他的研究团队将专注于地方精英的权力，并调查地方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调查商代山东省的社会动态，从青铜生产，分配和消费的角度来看，河南省的商代权力核心地区以东。研究团队不接受将山东视为中央集权的商国的一部分的传统观点，而是测试另一种谈判模型，强调地方精英的代理权和更广泛的社交网络以及构建社会互动和内部国家组织的机构。该团队将采用多代理方法进行数据收集和分析，研究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本地和区域间发生变化。本研究还探讨了商代中后期山东地方精英与河南商皇家的积极交涉，以及这种交涉对商国动态的潜在影响。从山东地方精英与皇家都城上层精英在青铜器生产、流通、消费等方面的互动关系考察商代社会政治经济组织，将为理解中国早期国家的运行与发展提供新的视角。此外，它将有助于人类学和考古学作为一个整体对早期国家的比较视角，因为早期国家过程的理论很少借鉴中国的材料。

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.