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

耶鲁大学的王庆柱和他的同事们将从高价值商品的生产、流通和消费的角度，调查过去在“外围”地区的地方精英可能对国家组织的动态做出贡献的机构。考古学学科非常适合研究长期的社会动态和确定重大的社会政治和经济变化，特别是在理解政治进程的运作方面。世界上多个地区的研究强调，中央国家行政人员如何通过控制贵重商品的生产、流通和消费，使他们的权力合法化，并将地方精英纳入国家秩序。王和他的研究团队将把重点放在地方精英可用的权力上，并调查地方精英如何积极与国家谈判以实现自己的目标。王的研究项目专注于调查商代山东省的社会动态，从青铜的生产、分配和消费的角度，在河南省商代核心权力地区以东。研究团队不会接受将山东视为中央集权的商国家的一部分的传统观点，而是将测试另一种谈判模式，即强调地方精英的代理，以及构建社会互动和内部国家组织的更广泛的社会网络和机构。应用多代理方法进行数据收集和分析，该团队将调查山东的青铜生产和消费如何加强或重新谈判群体身份和社会关系，以及随着时间的推移，这些如何在本地化和跨地区的基础上发生变化。本研究还考察了商代中后期山东地方精英如何积极与河南商朝进行谈判，以及这种谈判对商国动态的潜在贡献。从青铜器的生产、分配、消费等角度考察山东地方精英与京城上层精英之间的互动关系，考察商代的社会政治经济组织，有助于对中国早期国家的运作和发展有一个新的认识。此外，这将有助于人类学和考古学对早期国家的比较视角，因为很少有关于早期国家过程的理论借鉴中国材料。

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.