About the middle of the first millennium BC, continental East Asia saw the rise of a market economy in which a metallic currency was beginning to play an important role. The following centuries were a time of unprecedented economic florescence. Technological innovations and intensification in the rural sector enabled significant demographic growth: the number of cities multiplied, and as their function morphed from élite ceremonial centers to densely populated hubs of mass-production and trade, a new urban culture came into being. Rather than depending on an individual's descent and kinship, social divisions were now mainly wealth-based, and the pervasive use of writing enabled new intellectual breakthroughs. Complementing relevant textual studies, this book surveys the currently available archaeological evidence of this transformation, tracing its preliminary stages back to the beginning of the first millennium BC and following its development down to the onset of China's imperial age.



Lothar von Falkenhausen is Distinguished Professor of Chinese Archaeology and Art History at UCLA, where he has taught since 1993. His research concerns the archaeology of the Chinese Bronze Age, focusing on large interdisciplinary and historical issues on which archaeological materials can provide significant new information. He has published copiously on musical instruments, including a book, Suspended Music: Chime Bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China (1993); Chinese bronzes and their inscriptions; Chinese ritual; regional cultures; trans-Asiatic contacts; the history of archaeology in East Asia; and method and theory in East Asian archaeology. His Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000-250 BC): The Archaeological Evidence (2006) received the Society for American Archaeology Book Award.



Introduction



Part I: The Rural Economy



Introduction to Part I



Chapter 1: The Expansion of Rural Settlement



Chapter 2: Villages and Their Surroundings



Chapter 3: Agricultural Technology and the "Iron Revolution"



Conclusions to Part I



Part II: The Urban Economy



Introduction to Part II



Chapter 4: The Changing Urban Landscape



Chapter 5: The Expanding Economic Role of Cities



Chapter 6: From a Redistributive Economy to a Market Economy



Chapter 7: Mass Production and Quality Control



Chapter 8: Epigraphic Perspectives on Craft Production



Chapter 9: Consumer Perspectives



Conclusion to Part II



Part III: Transregional Economy



Introduction to Part III



Chapter 10: Inland and Coastal Salt Production



Chapter 11: Copper Mining and Smelting along the Middle Yangzi River



Chapter 12: Stoneware Production in the Southeastern Coastal Region



Conclusions to Part III



General Conclusions