publications

2025

1. 

   New evidence for early Indian Ocean trade routes into the South African interior [Article]

   Alexander Antonites, Annie R. Antonites, Christian E. Peterson, and 2 more authors

   2025

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2023

1. 

   Desigualdad y poder desde hace más de 8,000 años en el Continente Americano y China: Una visión desde la antropología [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, C. Adam Berrey, and Christian E. Peterson

   In América Latina y el Caribe - China. Historia, Cultura y Aprendizaje del Chino 2022, Enrique Dussán [ed.], pp. 79–99. Union de Universidades de America Latina y el Caribe: Mexico City, 2023

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2022

1. 

   CA* Comment on "Shimao and the rise of states in China: Archaeology, historiography and myth," by Yitzchak Y. Jaffe, Rod Campbell, and Gideon Shelach-Lavi. [Comment]

   Christian E. Peterson

   Current Anthropology 63(1):108–109, 2022

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2021

1. 

   Chifeng diqu de luluo xingtai yanjiu / Settlement patterns research in the Chifeng region [Book]

   Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project [eds.]

   2021

   Bib

   @book{RN12,
     title = {<i>Chifeng diqu de luluo xingtai yanjiu / Settlement patterns research in the Chifeng region</i> <u>[Book]</u>},
     author = {[eds.], Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project},
     publisher = {Wenwu Press: Beijing},
     year = {2021},
   }

2. 

   Kaoguxue zhong de quyu juluo renkou / Regional settlement demography in archaeology [Book]

   Robert D. Drennan, C. Adam Berrey, and Christian E. Peterson

   2021

   Bib HTML

   @book{RN13,
     title = {<i>Kaoguxue zhong de quyu juluo renkou / Regional settlement demography in archaeology</i> <u>[Book]</u>},
     author = {Drennan, Robert D. and Berrey, C. Adam and Peterson, Christian E.},
     publisher = {Wuhan University Press: Wuhan},
     year = {2021},
   }

3. 

   Local economies and household spacing in early chiefdom communities [Article]

   C. Adam Berrey, Robert D. Drennan, and Christian E. Peterson

   PLoS ONE 16(5): e0252532, 2021

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   Archaeological research has by now revealed a great deal of variation in the way early complex societies, or chiefdoms, developed. This variation is widely recognized, but our understanding of the forces that produced it remains relatively undeveloped. This paper takes aim at such understanding by exploring variation in the local economies of six early chiefdoms; it considers what implications this variation had for trajectories of chiefdom development, as well as the source of that variation. Economic exchange is a primary form of local interaction in all societies. Because of distance-interaction principles, closer household spacing within local communities facilitated more frequent interaction and thus encouraged productive differentiation, economic interdependence, and the development of well-integrated local economies. Well-integrated local economies, in turn, provided ready opportunities for aspiring leaders to accumulate wealth and fund political economies, and pursuit of these opportunities led to societies with leaders whose power had a direct economic base. Wider household spacing, on the other hand, impeded interaction and the development of well-integrated local economies. In such contexts, aspiring leaders were able to turn to ritual and religion as a base of social power. Even when well-integrated local economies offered opportunities for wealth accumulation and a ready source of funding for political economies, these opportunities were not always taken advantage of. That variation in the shapes of early chiefdoms can be traced back to patterns of household spacing highlights the importance of settlement and interaction in explaining not just chiefdom development, but societal change more generally.

2020

1. 

   Environmental risk buffering in Chinese Neolithic villages: Impacts on community structure in the Central Plains and the Western Liao Valley [Article]

   Robert D. Drennan, Christian E. Peterson, and C. Adam Berrey

   Archaeological Research in Asia 21:100165, 2020

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   Much of the literature on the role played by environment in complex society development focuses on temporal correspondence between climate change and human social change. Many such studies fall into a series of traps: the unwarranted assumption that correlation equals causation; failure to evaluate the statistical significance of the association; simplistic characterization of climate change’s human impact or of the nature of human social change itself; and focusing on a spatial scale too large to intersect with the human decision-making processes where social change begins. Here we compare decisions made about buffering agricultural risk by Neolithic farmers in two regions of northern China. Hongshan farmers in the Western Liao Valley chose to cope with agricultural risk at the individual household level and lived in scattered farmsteads and dispersed villages, while Yangshao farmers in the Central Plains chose cooperation and interdependence between households living in large compact villages. These decisions were clearly rooted in the particular environmental conditions of the two regions and had far-reaching and unanticipated consequences for the two long-term trajectories of complex society development. The forces that shaped the trajectories of the Western Liao and the Central Plains differently fit a pattern that is global in scope. Examining the decisions made by Neolithic farmers in response to an essentially static feature of their environments contributes more to our understanding of the dynamics of long-term human social change (and the environment’s role in it) than attempting to correlate social changes to particular climate changes.

2019

1. 

   Archaeological assessment reveals Earth’s early transformation through land use [Article]

   Lucas Stephens, Dorian Fuller, Nicole Boivin, and 97 more authors

   Science 365(6456):897–902, 2019

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   Humans began to leave lasting impacts on Earth’s surface starting 10,000 to 8000 years ago. Through a synthetic collaboration with archaeologists around the globe, Stephens et al. compiled a comprehensive picture of the trajectory of human land use worldwide during the Holocene (see the Perspective by Roberts). Hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists transformed the face of Earth earlier and to a greater extent than has been widely appreciated, a transformation that was essentially global by 3000 years before the present. Science, this issue p. 897; see also p. 865 A map of archaeological knowledge on land use reveals a planet transformed by humans by 3000 years ago. Environmentally transformative human use of land accelerated with the emergence of agriculture, but the extent, trajectory, and implications of these early changes are not well understood. An empirical global assessment of land use from 10,000 years before the present (yr B.P.) to 1850 CE reveals a planet largely transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists by 3000 years ago, considerably earlier than the dates in the land-use reconstructions commonly used by Earth scientists. Synthesis of knowledge contributed by more than 250 archaeologists highlighted gaps in archaeological expertise and data quality, which peaked for 2000 yr B.P. and in traditionally studied and wealthier regions. Archaeological reconstruction of global land-use history illuminates the deep roots of Earth’s transformation and challenges the emerging Anthropocene paradigm that large-scale anthropogenic global environmental change is mostly a recent phenomenon.

2018

1. 

   Letting the Gini out of the bottle: Measuring inequality archaeologically [Chapter]

   Christian E. Peterson, and Robert D. Drennan

   In Ten thousand years of inequality: The archaeology of wealth differences, Timothy A. Kohler, and Michael E. Smith [eds.], pp. 39–66. University of Arizona Press: Tuscon, 2018

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2. 

   Deep inequality: Summary and conclusions [Chapter]

   Timothy A. Kohler, Michael E. Smith, Amy Bogaard, and 8 more authors

   In Ten thousand years of inequality: The archaeology of wealth differences, Timothy A. Kohler, and Michael E. Smith [eds.], pp. 289–317. University of Arizona Press: Tuscon, 2018

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2017

1. 

   Greater post-Neolithic wealth disparities in Eurasia than in North America and Mesoamerica [Article]

   Timothy A. Kohler, Michael E. Smith, Amy Bogaard, and 15 more authors

   Nature 551(7682):619–622, 2017

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   Analyses of house-size distributions in the Old and New World showed that wealth disparities increased with the domestication of plants and animals and with increased sociopolitical scale.

2. 

   Hongshan households and communities in Neolithic northeastern China [Article]

   Robert D. Drennan, Christian E. Peterson, Xueming Lu, and 1 more author

   Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 47:50–71, 2017

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   Analysis of a large sample of household artifact assemblages from residential zones dating to the Hongshan period (4500–3000 BCE) in northeastern China complements regional-scale settlement study and excavation of house structures, platforms, and tombs. Prestige differentiation between household units is recognizable but modest. Productive differentiation is also present, indicating a very small degree of economic interdependence between households involving the utilitarian goods of daily life. Exchange did transcend both local and regional-scale communities, but movement of goods seldom exceeded a few kilometers. Standards of living were similar across households, with no sign of wealth differentiation. Confirming what has previously been suggested about the role of belief systems in Hongshan social integration, the strongest differentiation detectable in the household evidence involved religious roles and ritual activities. The elaboration of ceremonial architecture and funerary ritual of the Hongshan core zone is thus seen not to correspond to larger regional-scale communities, greater projection of political power, a more specialized economy, larger-scale exchange of goods, or accumulation of wealth. These commonly imagined aspects of early complex society were strikingly underdeveloped in Hongshan society, given its complex ceremonial architecture, elaborate burial treatment of presumed ritual specialists, and famous jade carvings.

3. 

   A place of pilgrimage? Niuheliang and its place in Hongshan society [Article]

   Robert D. Drennan, Xueming Lu, and Christian E. Peterson

   Antiquity 91(355):43–56, 2017

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   The complex of Niuheliang, in north-eastern China, with its concentration of ceremonial architecture and unusual art, has been considered the most highly developed polity of the Hongshan period, representing the integration of a large territory. In contrast, the supposed absence of residential remains has been advanced to suggest that it was a vacant ceremonial centre. Systematic survey of the area is now helping to clarify relationships between ceremonial sites and occupation patterns. Densities of utilitarian pottery sherds were used to map settlement and estimate population levels in relation to the locations of ceremonial architecture and concentrations of ritual pottery. This reveals that despite unproductive soils, the area had a relatively high, although scattered, population, focused in part on ritual locations. The results support a role for Niuheliang as a place of pilgrimage, but within a nexus of settled communities that sustained its ceremonial activities.

4. CCADB

   Upper Daling region Hongshan household and community dataset. Comparative Archaeology Database, University of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh [Digital database]

   Christian E. Peterson, Xueming Lu, Robert D. Drennan, and 1 more author

   2017

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   The Upper Daling Hongshan Household and Community Dataset contains the detailed data from intensive surface collection of 5-m squares in three Hongshan period (4500–3000 BCE) residential zones (Dongshanzui, Sanjia, and Erbuchi). The dataset provides the data and describes the field methods used for their collection. Interpretations and conclusions have been presented by Drennan et al. (2017).

5. CCADB

   Upper Daling region Hongshan household and community dataset: An introduction. 21 pp. Comparative Archaeology Database, University of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh [Digital resource]

   Christian E. Peterson, Xueming Lu, Robert D. Drennan, and 1 more author

   2017

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2016

1. 

   Comparative analysis of Neolithic household artifact assemblage data from northern China [Article]

   Christian E. Peterson, Robert D. Drennan, and Kate L. Bartel

   Journal of Anthropological Research 72(2):200–225, 2016

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   Household refuse is ideally suited for the comparative study of social and economic inequality. Compositional variation revealed by nonmetric multidimensional scaling of artifact assemblage data from multiple households is readily interpreted as evidence for qualitative differences in social prestige, wealth, and productive activities. Different configurations of these variables reflect differences in social structure and the underlying bases of inequality between communities. Comparing the average of the Euclidean distances from which each scaling was produced provides a direct and quantitative means of assessing differences in the magnitude of assemblage differences interpreted as social inequality between cases. Gini indices calculated from the same household artifact assemblage data provide a similarly direct and quantitative means of measuring differences in wealth inequality between communities. In this paper, household artifact assemblage data from three Neolithic settlements in three different areas of northern China are analyzed. Our analysis reveals differences between some of China’s earliest complex societies in terms of the kinds and degrees of inequality represented.

2015

1. 

   Regional settlement demography in archaeology [Book]

   Robert D. Drennan, C. Adam Berrey, and Christian E. Peterson

   2015

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   Archaeological analysis at the regional scale investigates the past by studying how people distributed themselves and their activities across a landscape of hundreds or thousands of square kilometers. Archaeological field survey methods developed over half a century combine with powerful new quantitative tools for spatial analysis (including GIS) to unleash new potential for identifying and studying ancient local communities and regional polities. Varied approaches to estimating regional population sizes in both relative and absolute terms are synthesized and their advantages and disadvantages assessed. Tools for quantitative analysis of regional demographic data are presented. Field survey methods developed around the world are compiled from widely scattered sources and best practices for collecting archaeological data to sustain demographic analysis are delineated. Concepts for improved sampling design in regional survey work are derived from fundamental statistical principles. In conclusion, promising directions for future methodological development are identified.

   @book{RN1,
     title = {<em>Regional settlement demography in archaeology</em> <u>[Book]</u>},
     author = {Drennan, Robert D. and Berrey, C. Adam and Peterson, Christian E.},
     publisher = {Eliot Werner Publications, Inc.},
     address = {Clinton Corners, New York},
     year = {2015},
   }

2. 

   Jiangzhai: Zhongguo yizuo xinshiqi zhongqi cunluo de shehui yu yongji jiegou / Jiangzhai: Social and Economic Structure of a Middle Neolithic Village [Article]

   Christian E. Peterson, and Gideon Shelach

   Nanfang Wenwu [Southern Relics] 4:250–265, 2015

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2014

1. 

   Hongshan regional organization in the Upper Daling valley [Book]

   Christian E. Peterson, Lu Xueming, Robert D. Drennan, and 1 more author

   2014

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   A detailed report on regional-, local-, and household-scale research on Hongshan societies (4500-3000 BCE) in northeastern China. Regional demography and community patterns are analyzed for an area of 200 square kilometers surrounding the excavated ceremonial site of Dongshanzui. More intensive study of Hongshan residential remains through surface collection, magnetometer survey, and stratigraphic tests informs the interpretation of the results of regional-scale survey. Dongshanzui’s public architecture, along with additional unexcavated ceremonial platforms, are shown to be at the heart of a regional-scale concentration of Hongshan residential occupation that represents an independent small chiefly polity with no more than 1,000 inhabitants. Its neighbors were other similar small polities related to each other through peaceful interaction but without larger-scale political integration. Complete text in English and Chinese.

   @book{RN2,
     title = {<em>Hongshan regional organization in the Upper Daling valley</em> <u>[Book]</u>},
     author = {Peterson, Christian E. and Xueming, Lu and Drennan, Robert D. and Da, Zhu},
     publisher = {Center for Comparative Archaeology, University of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh},
     year = {2014},
   }

2. 

   Settlement and social dynamics in the Upper Daling and Chifeng regions of northeastern China [Article]

   Robert D. Drennan, Christian E. Peterson, Xueming Lu, and 2 more authors

   Asian Archaeology 2:50–76, 2014

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   The Neolithic and Bronze Age remains of northeastern China have traditionally been organized into a sequence of spatially extensive archaeological cultures. Scholars typically describe a particular homogeneous "lifeway" thought to characterize each culture. Because this approach provides little room for discussion of internal social dynamics, most accounts of social change depend heavily on notions of cultural and demographic replacement, external cultural influence, or long-distance interaction. Subdividing large-scale archaeological cultures into variants based on more subtle detail of artifact style does not approach internal social dynamics more closely. Comparison across multiple systematic regional-scale settlement studies can, however, throw into sharp relief aspects of the internal dynamics underlying trajectories of social change in different parts of a single "monolithic" culture area. This paper engages in just such a comparison of two recent settlement studies in northeastern China in an effort to hypothesize about internal social dynamics.

3. CCADB

   Upper Daling regional settlement dataset. Comparative Archaeology Database, University of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh [Digital database]

   Christian E. Peterson, Xueming Lu, Robert D. Drennan, and 1 more author

   2014

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   The Upper Daling Region Settlement Dataset contains the detailed data from pedestrian regional survey of 200 square kilometers in the upper drainage of the Daling River, as well as magnetometer survey and stratigraphic testing in several areas of Hongshan period residential occupation. It complements the book Hongshan Regional Organization in the Upper Daling Valley (available from the University of Pittsburgh Center for Comparative Archaeology), which contains analysis and interpretation of the dataset, as well as full discussion of field methods.

2013

1. 

   Understanding Hongshan period social dynamics [Chapter]

   Christian E. Peterson, and Lu Xueming

   In A companion to Chinese archaeology, Anne P. Underhill [ed.], pp. 55–80. Wiley-Blackwell: Malden, MA, 2013

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   A longstanding theme in Chinese archaeology is the emergence of “Chinese civilization”. Hongshan societies represent the first clear steps toward complex social, political, and economic organization in this part of the world. And yet, it is Hongshan symbolism and ideology that has most captivated archaeologists, with many pinpointing Hongshan society as the originator of some quintessentially Han Chinese cultural elements. This chapter lays the groundwork for a fuller understanding of Hongshan period social dynamics in northeast China by focusing instead on ceremonialism and social hierarchy, settlements and communities, and household productive differentiation. In so doing, it seeks to better position Hongshan society within the broader field of comparative analysis by achieving finer chronological control within the Hongshan period. Concrete suggestions are offered for the shape that future research should take.

2012

1. 

   Jiangzhai: Social and economic organization of a middle Neolithic Chinese village [Article]

   Christian E. Peterson, and Gideon Shelach

   Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31:265–301, 2012

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   The Early Yangshao period (5000–4000 BC) village of Jiangzhai is the most completely excavated and reported of any early agricultural community in the middle reaches of northern China’s Yellow River Valley. This comprehensive dataset can better our understanding of early agricultural village societies and complex society development, especially the emergence of economic inequality. Analyses of Jiangzhai’s architectural remains and their arrangement; estimates of household population, storage capacity, and animal consumption; and analyses of household artifact assemblages are used to reconstruct the social and economic organization of this important Neolithic settlement. Our analyses suggest that differences in economic organization at the household level are responsible for patterns of intra-settlement economic differentiation previously attributed to higher-order “corporate” institutions. Rather than a segmental society composed of redundant homologous units, Jiangzhai displays substantial variability among residential sectors and constituent households in terms of activity emphases and surplus accumulation. Substantial intrasite variation in socioeconomic organization has previously been thought characteristic only of more complex Late Neolithic societies in the middle Yellow River Valley region.

2. 

   Comparative archaeology: A commitment to understanding variation [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, Timothy Earle, Gary M. Feinman, and 9 more authors

   In The comparative archaeology of complex societies, Michael E. Smith [ed.], pp. 1–3. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2012

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3. 

   Challenges for comparative study of early complex societies [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, and Christian E. Peterson

   In The comparative archaeology of complex societies, Michael E. Smith [ed.], pp. 62–87. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2012

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   Early complex society studies, like anthropology in general, are strongly rooted in comparative analysis. Cultural evolutionists of the mid-nineteenth century (Tylor 1865; Morgan 1877; Spencer 1880–97) relied entirely on comparative ethnography to create speculative accounts of the antecedents of contemporary societies. A century later, Sahlins (Sahlins and Service 1960), Service (1962), Fried (1967), and other scholars did the same without assuming that “savages” would naturally aspire to better things, and slowly work their way through “barbarism” toward the “civilized” condition of Victorian Britain. Value-neutral vocabulary was sought and forces driving social change were considered, but the entire comparative enterprise still depended on imagining that some contemporary societies were like the unknown ancestors of other more complex contemporary societies. There was virtually no direct information about human societies before those that could be observed in the ethnographic present or through historical sources. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, that situation has changed dramatically. It is no longer necessary to speculate about diachronic processes from synchronic snapshots of societies not historically related to each other, because of a flood of direct archaeological evidence about long-term trajectories of social change. We still do not know as much about the past of any region as we would like to, but we do now know more about many regions than we are fully able to make sense of. Comparative study is important to this task of, quite literally, making sense of abundant detailed information.

4. 

   Patterned variation in regional trajectories of community growth [Chapter]

   Christian E. Peterson, and Robert D. Drennan

   In The comparative archaeology of complex societies, Michael E. Smith [ed.], pp. 88–137. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2012

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   Societies in many regions all over the world started down the path toward large-scale social formations, so the number of trajectories available for comparative study is large. Although most of these regional trajectories are not well known, the few that are well enough documented for comparative study are more than comparisons can easily handle. A focus on early civilizations leads to comparing large world areas (Mesopotamia, Nile Valley, North China, Mesoamerica, Central Andes, etc.) because early civilizations are very large-scale social formations – finally, each of these world areas contained only one civilization. The beginnings of large social formations, which is the subject of this chapter, however, can be found in multiple separate regions within any of these areas. It is the specific trajectories of societal change within these smaller regions that we seek to compare, not culture-historical constructs like archaeological cultures, horizons, or traditions. For comparing trajectories, attention must be focused on human activities and the organization of social relationships in a place, and culture history is not the most effective or direct approach to these subjects. We treat each regional trajectory as a separate instance to be compared with others.

5. 

   Doing regional archaeological settlement patterns survey in northeast China [Textbook Contribution]

   Christian E. Peterson

   In Archaeology and prehistory: Pathways through time [2nd Canadian ed.], Michael Chazen, pp. 354–355. Pearson Education Canada: Toronto, 2012

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6. CCADB

   Fushanzhuang community dataset. Comparative Archaeology Database, University of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh [Digital database]

   Christian E. Peterson

   2012

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   This dataset complements the 2006 dissertation "Crafting" Hongshan Communities? Household Archaeology in the Chifeng Region of Eastern Inner Mongolia, PRC, by Christian E. Peterson (available from University of Pittsburgh’s Electronic Theses and Dissertations Database). It provides detailed data on the quantities and location of archaeological remains recovered during intensive surface collections at the Fushanzhuang site, located in the Chifeng region of eastern Inner Mongolia, China.

2011

1. 

   The comparative study of chiefly communities in the Eurasian steppe region [Article]

   Robert D. Drennan, Bryan K. Hanks, and Christian E. Peterson

   Social Evolution and History: Studies in the Evolution of Human Societies 10(1):149–186, 2011

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   The chiefdom has been taken by many scholars to be a highly specific and unvarying societal type, but the emergence of the larger human communities that have often been labeled chiefdoms took a number of different paths in different regions. Comparative analysis of the kinds of archaeological evidence most directly relevant to the social organization of these chiefly communities demonstrates considerable variety within the Eurasian steppe. Chalcolithic Tripol’ye central communities grew exceptionally rapidly to very large size, with equally large hinterland populations; their developmental dynamic likely centered strongly on the accumulation of wealth based in the agro-pastoral subsistence economy. Larger communities and regional-scale sociopolitical organization also characterized Bronze Age Sintashta and Iron Age Gorokhovo-Sargat communities. Although these were later in time, they contained fewer inhabitants and showed less indication of different standards of living for different households. Much greater elaboration of burial ritual and fortifications suggests more elite emphasis on prestige competition and warfare in these two latter cases. This contrast between the scale and basis of social hierarchy in Tripol’ye communities, on the one hand, and Sintashta and Gorokhovo-Sargat communities, on the other, does not match the way in which a greater dependence on specialized mobile herding sets Gorokhovo-Sargat subsistence and settlement systems apart from the other two.

2. 

   Settlement patterns in the Chifeng region [Book]

   Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project [eds.]

   2011

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   This volume and the accompanying online dataset provide the complete results of a regional settlement study of 1,234 square kilometers in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of northeastern China. Results of systematic study of the relationship between surface and subsurface remains are presented, based on sites that were surveyed as part of the regional survey, and subsequently intensively surface collected and test excavated. The volume concludes with a comprehensive synthesis of the regional trajectory of social change from 6000 BCE to 1300 CE, offered as a basis for comparison with those of other regions where complex societies developed.

   @book{RN3,
     title = {<em>Settlement patterns in the Chifeng region</em> <u>[Book]</u>},
     author = {[eds.], Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project},
     publisher = {University of Pittsburgh Center for Comparative Archaeology: Pittsburgh},
     year = {2011},
   }

3. 

   Absolute dating [Chapter]

   Gideon Shelach, Robert D. Drennan, and Christian E. Peterson

   In Regional archeology in eastern Inner Mongolia: A methodological exploration / Neimenggu dongbu (Chifeng) quyu kaogu diaocha jieduanxing baogao, Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project [eds.], pp. 19–22. Science Press: Beijing., 2011

4. 

   Lithics, faunal remains, and bone artifacts [Chapter]

   Christian E. Peterson

   In Regional settlement patterns in the Chifeng region, Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project [eds.], pp. 23–26. University of Pittsburgh Center for Comparative Archaeology: Pittsburgh., 2011

5. 

   Methods for regional demographic analysis [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, and Christian E. Peterson

   In Regional settlement patterns in the Chifeng region, Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project [eds.], pp. 57–79. University of Pittsburgh Center for Comparative Archaeology: Pittsburgh., 2011

6. 

   Methods for delineating community patterns [Chapter]

   Christian E. Peterson, and Robert D. Drennan

   In Regional settlement patterns in the Chifeng region, Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project [eds.], pp. 80–87. University of Pittsburgh Center for Comparative Archaeology: Pittsburgh., 2011

7. 

   Sequence of social change [Chapter]

   Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project

   In Regional settlement patterns in the Chifeng region, Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project [eds.], pp. 101–140. University of Pittsburgh Center for Comparative Archaeology: Pittsburgh., 2011

2010

1. 

   Hongshan chiefly communities in Neolithic northeastern China [Article]

   Christian E. Peterson, Lu Xueming, Robert D. Drennan, and 1 more author

   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107:5756–5761, 2010

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   The Hongshan societies of northeastern China are among East Asia’s earliest complex societies. They have been known largely from elaborate burials with carved jades in ceremonial platforms. The most monumental remains are concentrated in a “core zone” in western Liaoning province. Residential remains are less well known and most investigations of them have been in peripheral regions outside the core zone. Recent regional settlement pattern research around the well known ceremonial site of Dongshanzui has begun to document the communities that built and used Hongshan core zone monuments and to assess their developmental dynamics. The core zone, like the Hongshan periphery, appears to have been organized into a series of small chiefly districts within which ceremonial activities were important integrative forces. Their estimated populations of less than 1,000 are not much larger than those of districts in the periphery, and the evidence does not suggest that these districts were integrated into any larger political entity. The greater elaboration of core zone monumental architecture is thus not attributable to demographically larger communities or to larger-scale political integration. Future research should focus on documenting the organization of statuses and economic activities within these core zone communities to assess potential differences from peripheral communities in these regards.

2. 

   Liaoning Dalinghe shangyou liuyu kaogu diaocha jianbao / Report on the Liaoning Daling river basin archaeological survey [Article]

   Xueming Lu, Christian E. Peterson, Robert D. Drennan, and 1 more author

   Kaogu 5:24–35, 2010

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3. 

   Degrees and kinds of inequality [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, Christian E. Peterson, and Jake R. Fox

   In Pathways to power, T. Douglas Price, and Gary M. Feinman [eds.], pp. 45-76. Springer: New York, 2010

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   Much recent archaeological literature has stressed the variety of forms that early non-egalitarian societies may take. This variety has been characterized as “horizontal” variation (Drennan 1996, Feinman 2000) in contrast to the “vertical” dimension of social ranking most emphasized in the traditional cultural evolutionary literature. Much of cultural evolutionary thinking has, of course, a strongly unilineal character, and refocusing on horizontal variation has enabled fuller recognition of the very multilineal character of the emergence of hierarchical societies.

4. 

   The evolution of Early Yangshao period village organization in the middle reaches of northern China’s Yellow River valley [Chapter]

   Christian E. Peterson, and Gideon Shelach

   In Becoming villagers: Comparing early village societies, Matthew S. Bandy, and Jake R. Fox [eds.], pp. 246–275. University of Arizona Press: Tucson, 2010

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   The authors describe how village life changed over the four thousand years of the Peiligang and Yangshao phases. Concentrating on the Yangshao phase, they examine political, economic and social changes by describing changes in village organization, house form, settlement hierarchy, burial practices, population, households, and social hierarchy, including gender differences.

2009

1. 

   Collaborative research in East and Southeast Asia [Special Issue]

   Christian E. Peterson, and Ben Marwick [eds.]

   SAA Archaeological Record 9(3), 2009

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2. 

   Lower Xiajiadian Period Demography and Sociopolitical Organization—Some Results of Collaborative Regional Settlement Patterns Research in NE China [Short Communication]

   SAA Archaeological Record 9(3):32–35, 2009

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3. 

   La Comunidad y el cacicazgo: Un estudio comparativo de patrones de asentamiento regional en el Alto Magdalena, el Valle de Oaxaca, y Mongolia Interior / The community and the chiefdom: A comparative study of regional settlement patterns in Upper Magdalena, the Valley of Oaxaca, and Inner Mongolia [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, and Christian E. Peterson

   In Economía, prestigo y poder: Perspectivas desde la arqueología, Carlos A. Sánchez [ed.], pp. 168–205. Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia: Bogotá., 2009

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2008

1. 

   Centralized communities, population, and social complexity after sedentarization [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, and Christian E. Peterson

   In The Neolithic demographic transition and its consequences, Jean-Pierre Bouquet-Appel, and Ofer Bar-Yosef [eds.], pp. 359–386. Springer: New York, 2008

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   The emergence of centralized supra-local communities followed a number of different pathways, and varied considerably in its pacing in different regions. The establishment of settled agricultural life often set the stage for the emergence of these larger scale and more complex societies by creating the larger, denser populations without which they could not have occurred. The variation observed in the degree and nature of centralization as well as the extremely long time lag between the onset of the Neolithic and the emergence of supra-local centralized communities in some regions, however, make it clear that regional demographic and political centralization is neither a unitary phenomenon nor an automatic consequence of the Neolithic demographic transition. Larger more centralized communities do, nonetheless, owe specific debts to initial Neolithic processes in their regions, since central aspects of their distinctive regional characters are already present in the earliest sedentary agricultural villages that precede them. At least some of these characteristics were quite possibly inherited, in turn, from even earlier hunting and gathering bands.

2. 

   Fushanzhuang yizhi ge’an yanjiu / The Fushanzhuang site case study [Short Communication]

   Christian E. Peterson

   Chifeng Xueyuan Xuebao [Journal of Chifeng College, Special Issue No. 1: Monograph of Hongshan Culture Research]:88, 2008

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2006

1. 

   Patterned variation in prehistoric chiefdoms [Article]

   Robert D. Drennan, and Christian E. Peterson

   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103(11):3960–3967, 2006

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   Comparative study of early complex societies (chiefdoms) conjures visions of a cultural evolutionary emphasis on similarities and societal typology. Variation within the group has not been as systematically examined but offers an even more productive avenue of approach to fundamental principles of organization and change. Three widely separated trajectories of early chiefdom development are compared here: the Valley of Oaxaca (Mexico), the Alto Magdalena (Colombia), and Northeast China. Archaeological data from all three regions are analyzed with the same tools to reveal variation in human activities, relationships, and interactions as these change in the emergence of chiefly communities. Patterning in this variation suggests the operation of underlying general principles, which are offered as hypotheses that merit further investigation and evaluation in comparative study of a much larger number of cases.

2. 

   Distributional patterns: Resources, communities, and polities / Patrones de distribución: Recursos, comunidades, y unidades políticas [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, Dale W. Quatrin, and Christian E. Peterson

   In Prehispanic chiefdoms in the Valle de la Plata, Volume 5: Regional settlement patterns / Cacicazgos prehispánicos del Valle de la Plata, Tomo 5: Patrones de asentamiento regionales, Robert D. Drennan [ed.], pp. 99–154. University of Pittsburgh Memoirs in Latin American Archaeology, No. 16: Pittsburgh, 2006

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   Comprehensive presentation of the results of regional archeological settlement study in the Valle de la Plata of southwestern Colombia. The emergence of small prehispanic chiefly polities is delineated. Each had a few thousand inhabitants spread through some 100 square kilometers and was focused on a complex of burial monuments which served as a ceremonial center. These centralized polities developed in the more productive parts of the Valle de la Plata, but control over agricultural resources does not seem to have been an important part of their developmental dynamic. Complete text in English and Spanish.

3. PHD.DISS.

   "Crafting" Hongshan communities? Household archaeology in the Chifeng region of eastern Inner Mongolia, PRC. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh. [Thesis]

   Christian E. Peterson

   2006

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   The focus of this research is the Hongshan period (ca. 4500-3000 BCE) chiefly community of Fushanzhuang, centered on a group of elite burial mounds and other monuments, located in the Chifeng region of eastern Inner Mongolia. Our purpose was to determine to what degree, if any, inter-household economic specialization (as opposed to ritual specialization) underwrote the emergence of social hierarchy at Fushanzhuang, and perhaps more generally during the Hongshan period. Fieldwork began with an intensive systematic survey for, and the intensive surface artifact collection of, a large sample of the core community’s constituent households. These data, along with those collected during subsequent "micro-regional" surface survey for additional outlying settlement, were used to estimate Fushanzhuang’s duration of occupation, and its areal and demographic parameters.From analysis of surface-collected lithic artifacts we identified five distinct economic emphases—or "specializations"—among households at Fushanzhuang. These emphases include initial tool production, tool finishing, tertiary tool production/maintenance, agricultural production, and "generalism". Additional analyses of lithic reduction provided corroboration for these different activities. From analyses of ceramic decoration, paste, and vessel type, as well as information on personal ornaments, we inferred the presence of differences in both status and wealth accumulation between households, two dimensions of social ranking that did not correlate with one another. We also found that economic specialization did not co-vary with higher status at Fushanzhuang. Most of Fushanzhuang’s higher status households were among its least specialized in terms of their activities. Nearly all higher status households were also among its least wealthy. In contrast, its most specialized households—especially those engaged in stone tool production—tended to be among the community’s wealthiest. Only a very few of these, however, also appear to have enjoyed higher than average social standing.These findings suggest two separate but co-extant social hierarchies in Hongshan society: one based on the accumulation of wealth via economic specialization, the other based on something else—perhaps ritual authority. Thus, although economic specialization contributed to community coalescence, and to the creation of wealth differentials at Fushanzhuang, it cannot be said to have exclusively underwritten the development of social hierarchy there.

2005

1. 

   Communities, settlements, sites, and surveys: Regional-scale analysis of prehistoric human interaction [Article]

   Christian E. Peterson, and Robert D. Drennan

   American Antiquity 70(1):5–30, 2005

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   The study of developing complex societies can fruitfully focus on the human interactions that define communities, which have always been at the heart of settlement pattern research. Yet little attention has been paid to how communities of varying scales can actually be identified in archaeological survey data. Most often sites have simply been assumed to correspond to communities, although this practice has been criticized. Methods are offered to delineate communities at different scales systematically in survey data, and their implications for field data collection strategies are explored comparatively for cases from northeast China, Mesoamerica, and the northern Andes.

2. 

   Early chiefdom communities compared: The settlement pattern record for Chifeng, the Alto Magdalena, and the Valley of Oaxaca [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, and Christian E. Peterson

   In Settlement, subsistence, and social complexity: Essays honoring the legacy of Jeffrey R. Parsons, Richard E. Blanton [ed.], pp. 119–154. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA: Los Angeles, 2005

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2004

1. 

   Comparing archaeological settlement systems with rank-size graphs: A measure of shape and statistical confidence [Article]

   Robert D. Drennan, and Christian E. Peterson

   Journal of Archaeological Science 31:533–549, 2004

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   Rank-size analysis of settlement systems in archaeology has focused strongly on departures from log-normality, but it is not clear that a log-normal pattern should ordinarily be expected. Direct comparison of observed rank-size curves to each other is of greater utility in identifying chronological change and inter-regional variation in settlement dynamics as reflected in rank-size patterns. A coefficient of shape is proposed to facilitate comparison and to serve as a basis for bootstrap assessment of statistical confidence in any differences that are observed. The approach is illustrated with analysis of archaeological settlement data from China, Iran, Peru, and Mexico. These analyses provide insight into how many settlements must be observed to achieve high confidence and into the impact of curve shape on confidence.

2. 

   Zaoqi qiuzhangzhi qunti de juluo xingtai bijiiao yanjiu–Yi Neimenggu dongbu, Andisishan beibu he Meizhou zhongbu sange diqu weili / Comparative settlement pattern research on early Chiefdom communities in eastern Inner Mongolia, the northern Andes, and Mesoamerica [Article]

   Robert D. Drennan, and Christian E. Peterson

   Jilin Daxue Shehuikexue Xuebao [Jilin University Journal of Social Sciences] 5:15–31, 2004

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2003

1. 

   Regional archeology in eastern Inner Mongolia: A methodological exploration / Neimenggu dongbu (Chifeng) quyu kaogu diaocha jieduanxing baogao [Book]

   Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project [eds.]

   2003

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   This book presents maps and discussion of changing settlement patterns through seven thousand years across an intensively surveyed area of 765 square kilometers in northeastern China that lies near the traditional frontier between the large settled agricultural zone of the Yellow River basin and the varied, sometimes mobile, pastoral, and agricultural adaptations of Eurasia. Attention is focused on field and analytical methods for reconstructing ancient populations and their distributions.

   @book{RN4,
     title = {<em>Regional archeology in eastern Inner Mongolia: A methodological exploration / Neimenggu dongbu (Chifeng) quyu kaogu diaocha jieduanxing baogao</em>  <u>[Book]</u>},
     author = {[eds.], Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project},
     publisher = {Science Press: Beijing},
     year = {2003},
   }

2. 

   Methods for archeological settlement study / Juluo kaogu yanjiude shijian [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, Teng Mingyu, Christian E. Peterson, and 6 more authors

   In Regional archeology in eastern Inner Mongolia: A methodological exploration / Neimenggu dongbu (Chifeng) quyu kaogu diaocha jieduanxing baogao, Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project [eds.], pp. 122–151. Science Press: Beijing., 2003

3. 

   Approaches to regional demographic reconstruction / Quyuxing renkou guimo chongjian zhi changshi [Chapter]

   Robert D. Drennan, Christian E. Peterson, Gregory G. Indrisano, and 5 more authors

   In Regional archeology in eastern Inner Mongolia: A methodological exploration / Neimenggu dongbu (Chifeng) quyu kaogu diaocha jieduanxing baogao, Chifeng International Collaborative Archeological Research Project [eds.], pp. 152–165. Science Press: Beijing., 2003

4. 

   Taphonomy of an early Pleistocene archaeofauna from Xiaochangliang, Nihewan basin, north China [Chapter]

   Christian E. Peterson, Chen Shen, Chen Chun, and 2 more authors

   In Current research in Chinese Pleistocene archaeology, Chen Shen and Susan G. Keates [eds.], pp. 79–94. BAR International Series 1179. Archaeopress: Oxford, 2003

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