Doctoral Research Webinar: The War vs. Productivity Channel: How New Technology Led to Complex Societies in Neolithic China

In this Quantitative History Webinar, Senhao Hu of Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IHSS) will examine how ground-stone technology contributed to the rise of complex societies during the Neolithic.

The standard account—rooted in Gordon Childe’s productivity-channel hypothesis—argues that grinding improved farming implements and increased agricultural productivity, thereby generating food surpluses that supported population growth and complex-society development. In contrast, this study tests an alternative hypothesis: while agricultural and battlefield applications of the new technology both mattered for human welfare, the war channel was more decisive for the formation of complex societies. Specifically, more lethal stone weapons increased conflict threats, which in turn encouraged populations to agglomerate into larger, fortified settlements for defense—ultimately triggering social complexity.

Using the China Archaeological Database, this research analyzes a panel of 487 grid cells across “China Proper” over more than four millennia (6000–2000 BCE). The results show that, as a proxy for the war channel, stone-weapon grave goods consistently and significantly predict both the presence and intensity of large-settlement formation. By comparison, stone-farming-tool grave goods (a proxy for the productivity channel) do not show a comparable effect. Instrumental-variable estimations and two independent war-threat proxies—fortified cities and violence-caused skeletal injuries—further support the argument.

Importantly, the war channel through which ground-stone technology shaped complex-society development persists beyond the Neolithic, continuing through the Bronze Age (2000–770 BCE) and the Iron Age (770–221 BCE).

Senhao Hu’s co-author: Zhiwu Chen (HKU Business School and IHSS)