Min Li
Li, Min (Ph.D, University of Michigan, 2008) is an associate professor of East Asian archaeology with a joint appointment at Department of Anthropology and Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. His archaeological research spans from state formation in early China to early modern global trade network. He is also co-director of the landscape archaeology project in the Bronze Age city of Qufu, China. His first book Social Memory and State Formation in Early China with the Cambridge University Press is published in May, 2018.
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Papers by Min Li
Conceptually, storytelling and oral history are part of tra- ditional knowledge that enrich anthropological research and empower heritage communities. In their speeches and debates, Zhou elites from late first millennium BCE frequently made references to legendary narratives about the political dynamics of the late third millennium BCE, treating this era as a for- mative phase for the rise of early kingship. A rigid dichotomy between a scientific approach and a cultural historical approach is neither desirable nor necessary.
Second, Jaffe, Campbell, and Shelach-Lavi neglected or misrepresented existing scholarship on Shimao archaeology. They argue that the current scholarship on Shimao is skewed by a unilinear perspective that privileges the Central Plains. In his comment, Flad further points out that the authors took issue with my extensive treatment of Shimao in my book (Li 2018). My book, however, is nowhere to be seen in the paper.
The discovery of Shimao in the Ordos region, traditionally considered a periphery in Chinese history, indeed raises questions about the rise of the Bronze Age states in the region historically known as the Central Plains and beyond. Instead of privileging the Central Plains story, my book explores the rise of this spatial concept as a process of “becoming central,” whereas
the rise of early states around the Luoyang Basin took place after a series of kaleidoscopic shifts in political landscape through millennia. To conceptually remove ourselves from a Central Plains–based perspective, I introduced a terrain-based classification scheme and asked how the Luoyang Basin as a highland gateway was transformed into the central hub of a political network that straddled both the highland basins and the low lowland plains.
I argued that Shimao rose from an increasing convergence of K.C. Chang’s “prehistoric Chinese interaction sphere,” Gregory Possehl’s “Middle Asian interaction sphere,” and the “North Asian interaction sphere” outlined in my book (Li 2018:87). Shimao and Taosi served as conduits for the flow of Eurasian technology, ritual knowledge, and goods during the late third millennium BCE. They were also syncretic places where new institutions emerged from expanding interactions and processes of political experimentation. The area histori- cally known as the Central Plains rose to prominence only in association with the rise of Erlitou (ca. 1900–1600 BCE) in the Luoyang Basin after the decline of highland Longshan centers of Shimao and Taosi. Even after the rise of Zhengzhou and Anyang reinforced the prominence of Central Plains states, peer polities flourished in far-flung regions (e.g., Sanxingdui and Jinsha in the Sichuan Basin), where aspects of Shimao legacy were incorporated into their ritual jade assemblages.
本文探討早期中國《禹貢》九州空間理想的形成與傳承。對文體風格演變趨勢的分析支持《禹貢》地理思想形成的長紀年假説，指出這種思想在戰國時代已經 成爲諸子百家的知識前提，並存在多種版本與傳承脉絡。因此，這種古老的天下觀 是戰國、秦漢時期大一統理念的重要知識來源，並非在戰國晚期由魏國創造。考察《禹貢》空間理想的起源、傳承與社會背景，需要一個大幅度拓展的時空框架和知識 基礎。當代考古學對經學的貢獻在於超越文本的範疇，探究文獻背後知識前提的形成過程。
urban foundations. Instead, they were built as political centers and abandoned as such without evolving into an enduring urban tradition. This paper will focus on the parallel networks of power operation in these states, the tensions leading to their urban demise, and the evidence for resistance against state powers. The deeply embedded kinship networks and the historical legacies of these successive political developments contributed to the fragility of early states. The reconfiguration of political landscape in
early China at the end of the Second Millennium BC addressed the tensions derived from governing a state with complex political legacies and gave rise to the classical tradition in early China.
Books by Min Li
Conceptually, storytelling and oral history are part of tra- ditional knowledge that enrich anthropological research and empower heritage communities. In their speeches and debates, Zhou elites from late first millennium BCE frequently made references to legendary narratives about the political dynamics of the late third millennium BCE, treating this era as a for- mative phase for the rise of early kingship. A rigid dichotomy between a scientific approach and a cultural historical approach is neither desirable nor necessary.
Second, Jaffe, Campbell, and Shelach-Lavi neglected or misrepresented existing scholarship on Shimao archaeology. They argue that the current scholarship on Shimao is skewed by a unilinear perspective that privileges the Central Plains. In his comment, Flad further points out that the authors took issue with my extensive treatment of Shimao in my book (Li 2018). My book, however, is nowhere to be seen in the paper.
The discovery of Shimao in the Ordos region, traditionally considered a periphery in Chinese history, indeed raises questions about the rise of the Bronze Age states in the region historically known as the Central Plains and beyond. Instead of privileging the Central Plains story, my book explores the rise of this spatial concept as a process of “becoming central,” whereas
the rise of early states around the Luoyang Basin took place after a series of kaleidoscopic shifts in political landscape through millennia. To conceptually remove ourselves from a Central Plains–based perspective, I introduced a terrain-based classification scheme and asked how the Luoyang Basin as a highland gateway was transformed into the central hub of a political network that straddled both the highland basins and the low lowland plains.
I argued that Shimao rose from an increasing convergence of K.C. Chang’s “prehistoric Chinese interaction sphere,” Gregory Possehl’s “Middle Asian interaction sphere,” and the “North Asian interaction sphere” outlined in my book (Li 2018:87). Shimao and Taosi served as conduits for the flow of Eurasian technology, ritual knowledge, and goods during the late third millennium BCE. They were also syncretic places where new institutions emerged from expanding interactions and processes of political experimentation. The area histori- cally known as the Central Plains rose to prominence only in association with the rise of Erlitou (ca. 1900–1600 BCE) in the Luoyang Basin after the decline of highland Longshan centers of Shimao and Taosi. Even after the rise of Zhengzhou and Anyang reinforced the prominence of Central Plains states, peer polities flourished in far-flung regions (e.g., Sanxingdui and Jinsha in the Sichuan Basin), where aspects of Shimao legacy were incorporated into their ritual jade assemblages.
本文探討早期中國《禹貢》九州空間理想的形成與傳承。對文體風格演變趨勢的分析支持《禹貢》地理思想形成的長紀年假説，指出這種思想在戰國時代已經 成爲諸子百家的知識前提，並存在多種版本與傳承脉絡。因此，這種古老的天下觀 是戰國、秦漢時期大一統理念的重要知識來源，並非在戰國晚期由魏國創造。考察《禹貢》空間理想的起源、傳承與社會背景，需要一個大幅度拓展的時空框架和知識 基礎。當代考古學對經學的貢獻在於超越文本的範疇，探究文獻背後知識前提的形成過程。
urban foundations. Instead, they were built as political centers and abandoned as such without evolving into an enduring urban tradition. This paper will focus on the parallel networks of power operation in these states, the tensions leading to their urban demise, and the evidence for resistance against state powers. The deeply embedded kinship networks and the historical legacies of these successive political developments contributed to the fragility of early states. The reconfiguration of political landscape in
early China at the end of the Second Millennium BC addressed the tensions derived from governing a state with complex political legacies and gave rise to the classical tradition in early China.