Department of Anthropology at San Francisco State University has enjoyed an extended solid relationship with Chinese archaeologists and colleagues in Hubei Province since 1991 when Gary W. Pahl began a two-year stint with the Fulbright program in Hubei Province. Intensive collaboration with Professor He Nu, Director of Field Archaeology of the Jingzhou Regional Museum in Jingzhou, Hubei led to archaeological field team work in Hubei and a National Academy of Sciences Grant to bring Professor He to SFSU for 1995-1996 academic year for collaborative project planning, research, and team teaching in Archaeology of the Far East course at SFSU.

Both archaeologists have joined interests in continued work on walled-towns and glyph study found in the Jianghan Region (a Neolithic cultural designation in Chinese Archaeology) surrounding the flood plain extending out from the confluence of the Yangtze and Han River (Fig. 1). Twelve archaeological walled towns of the Late Neolithic have been surveyed and tested over several seasons with the result that we now suggest that many of the walled-towns should be understood as leveed-towns by design and joint group projects conceived as water management strategies in a saturated, riverine, lacustrine, and wetland landscape. Notably, this finding is an augmentation of the traditional interpretation of Late Neolithic walled-towns as indicative of large- scale conflict demonstrably supported in the Huanghe River Valley and later there in dynastic times as well.

Medieval Chu State and modern Jingzhou

Looking at the model of the castellated walls of the walled town of Medieval Chu State and modern Jingzhou (Fig. 2) we have found that the analogy of leveed-towns of the Late Neolithic can be supported through careful comparison with the watergates (Fig. 3) of the Chu walled-town in the water-logged riverside situation of the city. Initial intent of the Chu walls watergates and moats focuses on attention to omni-present water and threat of flooding in its low-lying location as is the same with the Neolithic leveed-towns. The Chu walls also clearly repelled would be invaders judging from their height, vertical walls, and castellations. Nonetheless, historical records recount a myriad of flood threats when the watergates were closed by sliding wood planks into slits constructed into the sidewalls at the entrance to the Watergate. Earth, rock, and sand could then be loaded in from the well skylight over the Watergate entrance (Fig. 3) to back the wood planks and stave off the flood waters.

Late Neolithic leveed towns of the Jianghan

For the Late Neolithic leveed towns of the Jianghan we have found that many of the flood prone sites are surrounded by moats, canals, ditches, ponds for pisciculture and water supply, dams, and other water management constructions. Earthen piles on the walls of leveed towns flank Chu equivalent "watergates" as reserves of earth for filling in the "watergates" in periods when flood waters threatened. All of the leveed towns do exhibit at least one large elevated platform construction and other built up areas. We propose that the high flat constructions are ritual areas given to local ceremony based on their purposeful elevation, artifacts, and features recovered on them indicating ceremony, sacrificing, libations, and probably feasting (Fig. 4).

Jianghan Flood Plain Walled Towns

Of particular interest is the observation that the leveed towns serve in their various sizes as configurations of settlement which parallel the advancements of complex chiefdom societies identified for the Huanghe Valley walled towns with attributes of settlement hierarchy among sites and functional variation within and among sites. The specialized ritual areas, variation of construction quality and size of structures is matched by the appearance of glyphs evolved beyond "makers marks" or simple decor but not arriving at anything which could be identified as a writing system. Exciting interpretations are emerging from the contextual controlled recovery of the glyphs and the glyph related artifacts and feature. Stay tuned.

GATEWAYS

Journals of Field Archaeology
Systematic, Regional Survey in SE Shandong Province, China
by Anne P. Underhill and others

Search Engines Worldwide
Access to one of the largest search engine links on the internet

NEH
National Endowment for the Humanities