The Measurable Past: Highlights from the Second “Early China Development and Its Long-Term Impact” Workshop

A major theme of the first day was the formation of complex societies. Dr Wei Li of Fudan University examined Longshan-period settlements (龍山文化) in Luohe, Henan, showing how climate change, wetland retreat, agricultural intensification and pressure on resources shaped settlement patterns and competition. Dr Yang Bai of Liaoning University used social network analysis to revisit the Chahai site (查海遺址), suggesting that inequality may have first appeared not as obvious wealth gaps, but as differences in household participation in production, ritual and access to resources. Professor Zhibin Yan of Tsinghua University reconsidered bronze vessel assemblages in late Shang tombs, arguing that not all bronzes found in a burial should automatically be treated as the tomb owner’s personal ritual objects. Some may have entered the tomb through kinship networks, funerary gifts or inter-group exchange.

The afternoon sessions focused on state formation and institutional change. Senhao Hu, a doctoral student at IHSS, presented a quantitative study of iron weapons and interstate competition during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Using the China Archaeological Database (CADB) being construct by the CQH, he argued that states with greater access to iron weapons were more likely to expand and survive. Professor Jingcheng He of Jilin University examined clan emblems and occupational inscriptions on Shang and Zhou bronzes, showing how specialised lineages may have provided technical, ritual and administrative knowledge to early states. Professor Baomin Dong of Liaoning University examined the evolution of enfeoffment, aristocratic estates and counties, cautioning against a simple narrative in which early China moved directly from feudal rule to centralised administration. Professor Pei Wang of East China University of Political Science and Law explored the early meanings of Li (禮) and Xing (刑), arguing that law in early China emerged gradually from ritual order, royal authority, punishment and political identity.

The second day began with a keynote lecture by Professor Zhiwu Chen, who revisited the role of technology in the rise of complex societies. Conventional accounts often stress the productive value of technology: better tools increased output, supported population growth and encouraged social specialisation. Professor Chen proposed a different emphasis. In prehistoric and early historical societies, where violence and insecurity were central concerns, the military use of technology may have been more important than its productive use. Drawing on archaeological panel data from 8000 to 2000 BCE, he showed that large settlements and social complexity were more closely associated with stone weapons than with stone farming tools. This mechanism, he suggested, continued into the Bronze and Iron Ages.

Several papers then moved from early technological change to long-term historical patterns. Professor Clair Z. Yang of Washington University examined the political divergence between China and Europe, shifting attention from the familiar question of economic divergence to the development of political institutions. Wanda Wang, a doctoral student at the HKU Business School, presented a long-run study of China’s economic geography, showing how population centres formed in the Neolithic period remained remarkably persistent, until the rise of treaty ports and institutional opening in the nineteenth century helped reshape the spatial economy.

Professor Yuqi Chen of IHSS and HKU Arts, one of the workshop conveners, introduced the latest progress of the CADB (China Archaeological Database) mentioned earlier. Her presentation showed how AI can help extract structured information from archaeological reports, which often contain scattered and heterogeneous evidence in text, tables, images and plates. She stressed that the goal is not digitisation alone, but the creation of data that are traceable, verifiable and suitable for analysis. The discussion also highlighted the continuing importance of human review, quality control and clear coding standards.