Agenda

Trading routes between China’s great rivers and emerging regional elites during China’s Bronze Age

Professor Maria Khayutina, Institute of Sinology of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich

The rise of bronze-casting technology in the Northern and Central China correlated with an intensification of interactions within and between these regions. The necessity to procure raw materials unavailable near the sites of production and consumption, as well as the quest for finished metal products in a gradually expanding area became major factors of interregional communication. It is yet poorly understood how communication between large urban production/consumption centers in the Yellow River valley – the capitals of the so-called “Three Dynasties” – and their suppliers in the Yangzi Valley or elsewhere was organized and how it functioned in sociopolitical, political-economical, and historical-geographical terms. Based on archaeological excavations and surveys and using the GIS technology, the present paper identifies and investigates one (or perhaps “the”) trade route connecting the middle Yangzi Valley with the Central Plains. It analyses the rise and decline of this route during ca. 1600-900 BCE against the background of large-scale geopolitical processes in the early Chinese interaction sphere. It suggests that the location in “strategic bottlenecks” (Earle et al. 2015) through which metal ores, finished metal products and other prestige goods were transported northwards or southwards facilitated the emergence of new socio-political elites among local groups, who, in their turn, were instrumental in the maintenance of trading networks but vulnerable in the face of economic risks. 

Maria Khayutina currently holds the position of a guest professor at the Institute of Sinology of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. Her research focuses on social and political history of Early China, including early polity formation, agency in the production of social and political structures, kinship organization, historical geography, memory culture and the history of concepts. The present case study constitutes a part of her forthcoming book Kinship, Marriage and Politics in Early China (13-8 c. BCE) in the Light of Ritual Bronze Inscriptions, planned for publication with Routledge.

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The conference is organised by Professor Maddalena Barenghi and Professor Laura De Giorgi as part of the activities promoted by the MaP - Marco Polo Centre for Global Europe-Asia Connections, Ca'Foscari University Venice