Falkenhausen and MacIver, "Poverty in Late Bronze Age China"

Contents I II Contents Graduiertenkolleg 1878 Studien zur Wirtschaftsarchäologie Band 4 Herausgegeben von Martin Bentz – Michael Heinzelmann Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH | Bonn 2020 Contents Richard Bussmann & Tobias Helms (eds) Poverty and Inequality in Early Civilizations Proceedings of the International Conference November 17–18, 2017, University of Cologne Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH | Bonn 2020 III IV Contents gefördert durch die DFG Herausgegeben von Martin Bentz – Michael Heinzelmann Alle Rechte sind dem Graduiertenkolleg 1878 „Archäologie vormoderner Wirtschaftsräume“ vorbehalten. Wiedergaben nur mit ausdrücklicher Genehmigung. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detailliertere bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über ‹http://dnb.dnb.de› abrufbar. Satz: Habelt-Verlag, Bonn Druck: druckhaus köthen GmbH & Co. KG © 2020 Habelt-Verlag, Bonn Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Am Buchenhang 1, 53115 Bonn ISBN 978-3-7749-4239-4 Contents V Contents Preface Richard Bussmann Poverty and Inequality in Early Civilizations: Introduction VII 1 Discourses, documents and archaeology Richard Bussmann Poverty and Non-elite Culture in Ancient Egypt 11 Winfried Schmitz Day Labourers and Servants: Poverty in Archaic Greece 27 Reinhard Pirngruber Poverty and Inequality in First Millennium BCE Babylonia: Evidence from the Texts 39 Funerary communities Leslie Anne Warden Poverty? Approaching Economic Disparity in Third Millennium Egypt 49 Angelika Lohwasser “…Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar-man…”: Inequality in the Funerary Population of the Cemetery of Sanam 61 Lothar von Falkenhausen and Andrew MacIver Poverty in Late Bronze Age China: Its Archaeological Dimensions 73 Settlement archaeology Henrike Backhaus and Tobias Helms Tracing Socio-Economic Inequality in an Early Mesopotamian City-State Gary Feinman and Linda Nicholas Framing Inequality in Ancient Civilizations 89 107 Responses to poverty Thomas Widlok Who and What is Poor Anyway? Poverty in Anthropological Perspective 119 VI Contents Poverty and Inequality in Early Civilizations: Introduction VII Preface The fourth volume of the series “Studien zur Wirtschaftsarchäologie” presents the proceedings of the conference “Poverty in Early Civilizations: a Comparative View”, held at the University of Cologne on 17 and 18 November 2017. The conference was organized on behalf of the Research Training Group 1878 “Archaeology of pre-modern economies”, funded by the German Research Council and hosted jointly by the University of Cologne and the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University of Bonn. The proceedings include papers, given at the conference, and a few additional contributions by other authors. The speakers and the titles of their talks are listed below in the order, in which the papers were delivered during the conference. We would like to thank all speakers and authors for their contribution to this volume and to the stimulating discussions during the conference. We are also grateful to the German Research Council (DFG), the Competence Area IV of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Cologne and the Franz-und-Eva-Rutzen-Stiftung for their financial support of the conference and of the publication of this volume. Many thanks also go to Dr Caitlin Chaves Yate for improving the English wording of contributions by authors whose first language is not English. Pia Evening has kindly helped establising formal consistency across the papers. Cologne and Mainz, 2020 Richard Bussmann and Tobias Helms List of speakers and titles of the papers delivered at the conference: Thomas Widlok, Cologne: Who and what is poor anyway? Poverty in processual anthropological perspective Lothar von Falkenhausen, Los Angeles: Poverty in late Bronze Age China – what do we know about it, and what are we missing? Winfried Schmitz, Bonn: Bettler, Tagelöhner und Gesinde. Armut im archaischen Griechenland Elisabeth Herrmann-Otto, Trier: Poverty and slavery in the ancient Roman society: relationship between identity and difference Nicolai Grube, Bonn: Identifying poverty amongst the Classic Maya Gary Feinman and Linda M. Nicholas, Chicago: Inequality: a perspective from the prehispanic Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico Heather Miller, Toronto: Being poor in the Indus civilization Richard Bussmann, Cologne: Discourse and reality: poverty in ancient Egypt Andreas Dorn, Uppsala: Workmen’s huts in the Valley of the Kings: different living standards at home and at the worksite – a workmen’s community far away from poor Reinhard Pirngruber, Vienna: Poverty in Babylonia: evidence from the texts Susan Pollock, Berlin: The missing poor in early Mesopotamian states VIII Richard Bussmann Poverty in Late Bronze Age China: Its Archaeological Dimensions 73 Poverty in Late Bronze Age China: Its Archaeological Dimensions Lothar von Falkenhausen, UCLA / Xibei University Andrew MacIver, UCLA Poverty, implying absence of material, is inherently difficult to study from an archaeological perspective. But a contrast between “haves” and “have-nots” can sometimes be drawn based on mortuary evidence. As a case study, this chapter looks at finds from two Late Bronze Age cemeteries in Houma (Shanxi, China): Shangma (ca. 800-450 BC) and Qiaocun (ca. 450-200 BC). Whereas the Shangma tombs (discussed more in detail in a previous study) instantiate an internally stratified lineage comprising both rich and poor members, most of the tombs at Qiaocun contain very little material, and they seem to have belonged to individuals of low economic status. We seek to measure this inequality through the application of statistics (Gini coefficient). This can only be done separately for each dataset. In spite of their overall poverty, the Qiaocun data seem to show a higher degree of inequality than those from Shangma. What can we extrapolate about the overall situation of impoverished people in late pre-Imperial China? Poverty denotes deprivation – impoverishment – as a departure from an assumed socioeconomic norm. It becomes salient only when there is a contrast between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. In China, such a contrast certainly existed by the Late Bronze Age (Zhou dynasty, ca. 1046-256 BC). Overall, in pre-Imperial China, the correlation of social status and funerary wealth in the archaeological record is more direct and uncomplicated than elsewhere in the ancient world.1 Although the evidence is skewed toward the ranked aristocracy, recent excavations afford some glimpses into the life of the non-élite ranks during this period. Complementing recent attempts to assess inequality based on diet,2 we seek herein to pinpoint poverty through the analysis of mortuary datasets. For this we shall focus on Shangma and Qiaocun, two cemeteries located in present-day Houma city in southern 1 2 Falkenhausen 2006, 74-7. Dong et. al. 2015, 2017. Shanxi province. Part of the fertile Fen River basin, this area was the core of the regional polity of Jin until 453 BC. Thereafter it became part of the newly founded state (after 344 BC, kingdom) of Wei; in the early third century BC, it was conquered by the rising hegemonical power of Qin, which eventually unified all of China in 221 BC. Shangma The Shangma cemetery3 dates between ca. 800 and 450 BC. From 589 BC through the turn of the Fourth century BC, the capital of Jin, Xintian, flourished nearby, but Shangma belonged to a separate lineage settlement that was older than that city, going back to the mid-Ninth century BC. Excavated in its entirety, the 3 Shanxi 1994. 74 Lothar von Falkenhausen & Andrew MacIver cemetery – 1387 tombs in all, virtually all intact – represents a pyramidal hierarchy of mortuary ranks mirroring the internal structure of the “burying lineage”.4 The main archaeological criteria for measuring socioeconomic difference at Shangma are burial furniture and funerary goods. For burial furniture, one may distinguish four ranks: (1) Tombs featuring a burial chamber with nested double coffins, (2) Tombs featuring a burial chamber with a single coffin, (3) Tombs featuring a single coffin but no burial chamber, and (4) Tombs featuring a neither burial chamber nor coffin. For funerary goods, the main division is between tombs containing sacrificial bronze vessels (Type A) – or, later, their ceramic substitutes (Type B) – and those that did not. The latter, which are particularly relevant to the present study, can be further subdivided into tombs containing utilitarian ceramics and, sometimes, sundry minor objects (Type C); sundry minor objects but no ceramics (Type D); and no funerary goods whatsoever (Type E). Coordinating these two parallel hierarchies, one finds that ritual vessels or their ceramic substitutes are found exclusively in tombs that feature a burial chamber, indicating aristocratic rank. At Shangma, the proportion of such tombs was 13.5% vis-à-vis 86.5% without burial chamber, which means that unranked lineage members outnumbered ranked members by a factor of ca. 7.4 to 1. It remains unclear whether this proportion is typical for Zhou-period lineages. Compared to contemporaneous cemeteries in the Yellow River Basin, the Shangma tombs appear modest, perhaps indicating that the “burying lineage” was regarded as poor overall.5 Within the Shangma “burying community”, as well, we can observe signs of relative poverty. This is true even within the higher-ranking category: although all ritual vessels came from tombs with burial chambers, only 16.7% of tombs with burial chambers (a mere 2.2% of the total) actually contained ritual vessels; and although the incidence of ritual vessels is higher in burial-chamber tombs with nested coffins (31.5%, as opposed to 10.1% in burial-chamber tombs with single coffins), 5.2% of burial-chamber tombs with nested coffins and 7.6% burial-chamber tombs with single coffins contained no funerary goods whatsoever. This disconnection between rank and wealth is more exacerbated at Shangma than at contemporaneous cemeteries of lineages of higher overall standing.6 Some of the aristocratic members of the Shangma burying lineage, though theoretically entitled to ritual vessels, evidently did not have the economic means to be buried with them. Were they considered as “poor”, and if so, by whom – merely by their ranked peers, or by all members of the lineage? As to the commoner stratum of the Shangma burying lineage, were its members collectively considered “poor” vis-à-vis their ranked kin? And do the archaeologically observable wealth differences within the unranked stratum indicate differences in social privilege? For instance, 49 tombs (3.5% of the Shangma cemetery population) lacked any kind of burial furniture, and 64.7% of those tombs contained no funerary goods. But such an absence is also observed in 14.7% of burial chamber-less tombs with single coffins and even, as we have seen, in the ranked élite stratum of the lineage. Only 11.8% of tombs without any burial furniture contained utilitarian ceramics, as opposed to 68% of tombs without burial chambers containing single coffins. Evidently, the occupants of the former were paupers as compared to those of the latter. On the other hand, the Shangma community may have comprised archaeologically invisible Others (e.g., outsiders or slaves) who were even poorer than the occupants of tombs lacking both burial furniture and funerary goods. Such a possibility is hinted at by the occasional discoveries of “discard burials” of human skeletons in refuse pits within contemporaneous settlements. We have no idea about the size of this segment of the population, but it was almost certainly “poor”. In this sense, the mortuary data from Shangma may be inadequate to probe the full extent of poverty at the associated settlement. All we can do is assess relative degrees of impoverishment among those of its inhabitants – ranked as well as unranked – who had sufficient standing to be buried in the cemetery. 4 5 6 for detailed analysis, further explanations of the methodology here applied, and pertinent illustrations and tables, see Falkenhausen 2001; 2006, 127-61. Falkenhausen 2006, 151-5. for further discussion, see Falkenhausen 2006, 151-4. Poverty in Late Bronze Age China: Its Archaeological Dimensions Qiaocun 75 The Qiaocun cemetery7 is located some 10 km from Shangma in the valley of the same tributary of the Fen river. Its inception, as we know thanks to the wellestablished ceramic chronology for this part of China, coincided with the abandonment of the Shangma cemetery (and, presumably, of its associated settlement) in the mid-Fifth century BC. Burials took place here all the way through late medieval times, but only the first three phases (down to ca. 210 BC, comprising the lion’s share of the reported tombs) are relevant to this study. Like Shangma, Qiaocun represents a relatively low-ranking group, which must have resided in what today is known as the Fengcheng Ancient City8, some 2.5 km to the east. Inscriptions impressed on locally made ceramics (cf. fig. 3c) give the name of that city at the time as Jiang, continuing the name of successive earlier capitals in the vicinity, whose leftover population was probably resettled here after ca. 450 BC. With a preserved extent of some 7.5 sq km (slightly more than half the original size, the rest having been eroded by the meandering Kuai river), Fengcheng represents a new type of regional administrative and commercial centers that arose all over China during the Warring States period (ca. 450-221 BC).9 Based on the general social trends during the period, it is safe to assume that, from the early Fourth century onward, eligibility for burial at the Qiaocun cemetery was probably no longer primarily determined by lineage affiliation, but by residence in a particular part of Fengcheng. One hopes that future DNA analysis of skeletal material from Qiaocun will make it possible to test this assertion. Qiaocun yielded one of the most complete funerary datasets now available from the centuries straddling the Qin unification. As pointed out by the excavators in the final archaeological report,10 the importance of this dataset lies in documenting in real time how the traditional lineage organization dissolved, how social differences among the leftover Jin (later Wei) population became levelled, and how that population was eventually merged into the virtually undifferentiated mass of Qin imperial subjects. By comparison to Shangma, the Qiaocun data are somewhat less robust, necessitating some adjustments and corrections before they can be tabulated and used for calculating statistics. The excavated area of 1,600 × 800 m probably does not encompass the cemetery in its entirety, and even within that area, the 1,038 tombs (or, if one counts – as seems warranted for consistency’s sake – each of the 65 tombs within the 40 moated funerary precincts as a separate tomb, 1,063 tombs) reported on do not constitute the totality of tombs. Even so, the sample seems sufficiently large, and the coverage sufficiently random, for the Qiaocun data to be considered representative for statistical purposes. As at Shangma, the impact of looting has been minimal. The number of tombs datable to the period under study is 917, adjustable to 942 (tab. 1). They fall into three phases: Phase I (ca. 450-ca. 400 BC): 33 tombs (all of them vertical-pit tombs oriented North) (fig. 1a). Phase II (ca. 400-275 BC): 626 (recte 644) tombs (a majority of vertical-pit tombs (fig. 1b, with 29.2% catacomb tombs (fig. 1c); 71% oriented North, 21% East). Paired tombs – -many of them in moated precincts (fig. 2) – occur during this period; also new are various types of modest and irregular burials. Phase III (ca. 275-210 BC): 258 (recte 265) tombs (a majority of vertical-pit tombs, with 38.5% catacomb tombs; 71% oriented East, 11% North, 10% West, and 8% South). The vertical-pit tombs from this period are more crudely executed than before. Flexed burial, a minority practice in Period II, now predominates over stretched burial (75% vs. 25%). Drawing a parallel to Late Bronze Age mortuary customs in Northwest China, the excavators interpret the shifts from North-South toward East-West orientation and from stretched to flexed burial, as well as the rising incidence of catacomb tombs, as indicators of an increasing Qin presence. But the arrival of these cultural elements seems to have predated the area’s first (temporary) conquest by Qin in 322 BC, perhaps by half a century or more. Only during Phase III – after the definitive Qin conquest – does the ceramic assemblage, as well, begin to manifest some Qin affinities. The incidence of “Qin” cultural features during Phase 7 8 9 Xu Hong 2017; Emura 2000. 10 Shanxi 2004. Shanxi 1960; 1996, 330-64; 2004. Shanxi 1996, 121-44. 76 Lothar von Falkenhausen & Andrew MacIver Tab. 1 Basic information on the tombs at the Qiaocun cemetery II, rather than attesting in-migration, may manifest the spread of religious ideas of westerly origin (not necessarily from Qin per se, but, e.g. in the case of catacomb tombs and flexed burial, from Central Asia).11 During Phase III, the Qin conquest presumably brought some pressure to adjust to Qin customs; still, the preponderance of vertical-pit tombs and the continuing use of stretched burial during that phase attest that a fairly sizable portion of the Qiaocun burying community stuck to earlier local funerary traditions. One unusual feature of the Qiaocun cemetery is the presence of 40 moated funerary precincts (30 from Phase II, 10 from Phase III), in which tombs are surrounded (sometimes not on all four sides) by shallow ditches (fig. 2). Each precinct usually contains either one or two separate tombs (in one case three, and in two possibly problematic cases, four), with 65 tombs in total (48 from Phase II, 17 from Phase III). Thirtytwo additional precincts of this kind are shown on cemetery maps but were left unexcavated. In part of the cemetery, their moats form a grid pattern; elsewhere the precincts are isolated from each other. In fourteen of the 40 precincts excavated (11 from Phase II, 3 from Phase III), the moats contained skeletons of human victims (from 1 to 18 per precinct, totaling 66 individuals), some of them shackled, buried in a severely flexed position. Shocking in revealing past cruelty, these finds lent themselves to Maoist propaganda, during the 1960s and 70s as an example of how badly the laboring masses had been treated under the “Old Society”.12 But as far as we know, such practices were by no means widespread at the time: 11 cf. Falkenhausen 2004. 12 Jin Houwen 1972; Ma Wenbao 1972; Shanxi 1972; Wenhua Dageming 1972, 138. Poverty in Late Bronze Age China: Its Archaeological Dimensions 77 Fig. 1 Tombs at Qiaocun: (a-b) Vertical-pit tombs: M4132, M4264; (c) Catacomb tomb: M449; (d) Urn burial: M4184 (after Shanxi 2004, v. 2: 527, fig. 351A; 606, fig. 403; 554, fig. 367A; v. 1: 91, fig. 77.1) 78 Lothar von Falkenhausen & Andrew MacIver Fig. 2 Moated tomb precinct M430 at Qiaocun with human victims in moat (after Shanxi 2004, v. 1: 128, fig. 88A) similar moated precincts with human victims have been found at only one other contemporaneous cemetery nearby.13 Their function and possible religious significance are unknown. Alleging a Qin cultural affiliation, the excavators point to parallels of moated rulers’ tombs in Qin and elsewhere;14 but in none of them were human victims found in the moats. Con- trary to a common misunderstanding, moreover, human sacrifice in Late Bronze Age China was by no means limited to Qin,15 and its incidence at Qiaocun actually declined after the Qin conquest, with 5 individuals (0.5 per precinct) sacrificed during Phase III as against 58 (1.9 per precinct) during Phase II. 13 Sanmenxia 1993. 14 Shanxi 2004, v. 2, 985. 15 Huang Zhanyue 2004; Falkenhausen 1990. Poverty in Late Bronze Age China: Its Archaeological Dimensions 79 Tab. 2 Age distribution among “Masters” vs. “Victims” buried in moated precincts at Qiaocun “Victims” vs. “Masters” The sacrificial victims comprise both males (N=26) and females (N=20), with 17 cases unclear, of all ages. As to their “masters” – the occupants of tombs within the funerary precincts – 27 of them were men and 26 women, 12 unidentified. The skeletal data suggest interesting differences in age structure among the two “burying populations” (tab. 2). In the “below 30” age set, victims number 6/26 (23.1%) males vs. 6/20 (30.0%) females, and masters 5/27 (18.5%) males vs. 5/26 (19.2%) females. Possibly, the higher proportion of females is due to death in childbirth rather than to a preference for female victims; but clearly, victims of either sex were significantly more likely than masters to die before 30. The suspicion that, on average, masters enjoyed greater longevity seems to be borne out by the figures for age-at-death above 40 (combining both sexes), where 10/46 (21.7%) victims are clearly outnumbered by 19/53 (35.8%) masters. Yet in the “above 50” age bracket (all male), the figures – 7/46 (15.2%) among victims, 6/53 (11.3%) among masters – seem slightly to favor the victims. Given the small sample size and the large number of unclear cases, these findings should not be overinterpreted. The victims were obviously extremely disenfranchised. Were they war captives, convicted criminals, debt servants, tax offenders, or slaves? The last possibility is favored by the excavators. Slavery certainly existed in China at the time.16 If they were considered as disposable property and, in Orlando Patterson’s haunting formulation, “socially dead”17, it might be doubted whether they were even capable of being “poor” – they might have been, rather, accounted as part of their masters’ material wealth. Here we shall nevertheless consider them to be the lowest-ranking socioeconomic group in the Qiaocun “burying population”. For while most victims were placed directly into the moats, two had their own coffins, and nineteen (28.8%) were buried with modest funerary goods that may have been their personal possessions: bronze or iron belthooks, ceramic jarlets, an iron pen knife, pieces of stone, animal bones (presumably meat provided as funerary offerings), and spade-shaped coins. Possibly they “owned” such items merely by dint of their masters’ acquiescence; but the fact that these objects had not been removed before interment suggests that victims were thought to be endowed with some socioeconomic agency – even, perhaps, a modicum of personhood or human dignity. The amounts 16 Yates 2001. 17 Patterson 1982. 80 Lothar von Falkenhausen & Andrew MacIver and nature of objects seen in association with the victims (except for fetters, found with only six of them [9.1%]) are similar to those seen with other tomb occupants at Qiaocun, including the masters. Neither of the dual rank criteria identified in connection with Shangma works very well when applied to the Qiaocun data. As tomb furniture is concerned, numerous tombs have a burial chamber – about one in four during Phase I, one in 8 ½ during Phase II, and as many as two in five during Phase III. There are even three instances (one in Phase II, two in Phase III) of nested double coffins. But from Phase II onward, such features by themselves no longer appear to have indicated ranked-élite status, as tomb-furniture arrangements no longer correlate with either the size or the contents of the tombs. The excavators note the decreasing quality of burial chambers and coffins, which probably indicates that from Phase II onward wood was in scarce supply; hence, in some vertical-pit tombs, some wooden planks were placed either directly over the tomb pit or over a tomb chamber built of unfired bricks. Wood scarcity – perhaps a consequence of the rise of a large-scale iron industry – may also have been one of several possible factors that motivated the increasing prevalence of catacomb tombs, in which the bodies of the deceased were deposited in a lateral cavity separated from the tomb pit by a single board or by a screen of adobe bricks, obviating the need for a coffin. As to funerary goods, pottery imitations of ritual vessels, derived from the mainstream Zhou tradition manifest at Shangma, may still be observed at Qiaocun during Phase I (fig. 3a). But their low quality suggests that their provision had become a meaningless formality, and they soon disappeared altogether. By Phase II, similarities to Shangma had fallen by the wayside and Qiaocun had likely ceased to be a lineage cemetery. Status was now determined not based on family ties, but on personal achievement and wealth; tomb construction and the selection of furnishings became increasingly a matter of individual preference. During Phases II and III, the constellations of funerary goods exhibit little regularity, and the amounts are invariably small. The earlier ritual-pottery types are replaced by a reduced variety of exclusively utilitarian vessels (fig. 3b-c); other finds include belthooks, stone tablets, and other small items. In order to differentiate the “haves” from the “have-nots”, and to identify those who are “poor”, one must focus on the minute but significant distinctions between the amounts of funerary wealth provided. We shall do that in the following section. The excavators, in their (very cursory) attempt to define a rank order among the Warring States-toQin tombs at Qiaocun,18 seize on tomb dimensions as a proxy for labor investment. At the top of their scala are tombs in moated precincts; although they are only very slightly bigger than non-moated tombs, there was undoubtedly the added labor input of constructing the moats. That moated precincts indicated higher status seems likely also because it correlates, in 20 (50.0%) of the 40 precincts excavated, with the pairing of tombs (presumably of a husband and his principal wife), which in earlier times had been a privilege reserved for focal ancestors in a lineage.19 But pairing was not restricted to moated precincts – Qiaocun also yielded 22 unmoated instances. Generally, the tombs in moated precincts seem to be representative for the cemetery as a whole. Both vertical-pit tombs and catacomb tombs are seen, with catacomb tombs numbering 8 (12.3%; 3 from Phase II, 5 from Phase III). The orientation of the precincts varies, with fifteen oriented East-West (affecting 26 tombs, 21 with the occupants’ heads pointing East, 2 West, 3 unclear), the remaining 25 North-South (40 tombs, all with the occupants’ heads pointing North). The burial posture is predominantly stretched-supine (44 cases), but there are 10 cases of flexed position (9 prone with flexed extremities, 1 in a lateral- flexed position), 1 supine with crossed legs, and 11 unclear cases. Tombs within moated precincts are not noticeably richer in funerary goods than other tombs at the cemetery. Nevertheless, the excavators believe that their occupants – some 7.5% in Period II, 6.3% in Period III – had élite status. Possibly, their prestige derived from descent from major figures in the defunct lineage society. Below the moated precincts, the excavators define a group of “mid-sized tombs” measuring from 2.5 18 Shanxi 2004, v. 1, 523-4. 19 cf. Falkenhausen 2006. Relative Poverty at Qiaocun Poverty in Late Bronze Age China: Its Archaeological Dimensions 81 Fig. 3 Ceramics from Qiaocun: (a) Ritual assemblages from M420; (b-c) utilitarian assemblages from M550 and M4229 (the latter piece is stamped “Jiang”) (after Shanxi 2004, v. 2: 526, fig. 350B; 551, fig. 365D; 603, fig. 400B) to 4 m in length, 2 to 3 m in width, and 3 to 4.5 m in depth. Comprising both pit-tombs and catacomb tombs, this group comprises more than 90% of those excavated. The excavators identify their occupants as “commoners”. Some of these tombs were larger than others, almost attaining the size of some of the tombs in the moated precincts. But overall, within this stratum, further diversification eludes us. It seems that the Qiaocun “burying community” was economically egalitarian. Moreover, the smallness of the differences in funerary wealth between this stratum and the “elite” in the moated precincts (except for the sacrifice of human victims in the moats) leads one to suspect that in life, the economic differences between these two strata were relatively minor. Next the excavators define a third status group, which they claim comprises fewer than 5% of the tombs at Qiaocun. They are of irregular shape and contain few funerary goods; some of them resemble discard burials. Unfortunately, none of these tombs are documented in the report, except for the cemetery’s 13 urn burials (fig. 1d) (one dating to Phase II, the remainder to Phase III), which the excavators include under this status group. Their occupants, inasmuch as identifi- able, were children, hinting at a correlation of poverty with age and possibly confirming that socioeconomic status was acquired rather than ascribed. The excavators identify the members of this third status group as “freemen”. Vis-à-vis members of the two other status groups, it seems justifiable to identify them as “poor”. Funerary Goods at Qiaocun The overall dearth of funerary goods sets Qiaocun apart from other contemporaneous cemeteries. Among the 65 “elite” tombs placed in moated precincts, 52 (80%) contained funerary goods. Of these, 44 yielded metal objects, 11 had pottery vessels. Eleven (16.7%) of these “elite” tombs produced no funerary goods (2 cases are unclear). As at Shangma, these may be cases of “impoverished aristocrats”. Overall, the number of tombs without any funerary goods whatsoever increases from 2 (6.1%) during Phase I to to 195 (30.3%) in Phase II and then decreases again to 50 (18.9%) Phase III, respectively. The just-mentioned figure of 16.7% for tombs in moated precincts lies significantly below the average of 26.2% across all three 82 Lothar von Falkenhausen & Andrew MacIver phases, but it is still considerable. Obviously, taking the absence of funerary goods as one’s sole criterion for “poverty” is problematic. Given the inconsistency of funerary assemblages, this absence may not signalize lack of resources; other factors – personal preference, individual modesty, survivors’ attitudes, ad-hoc situations, or pure chance – may have come into play. Herein we focus on ownership of metal objects as one possible indicator of economic status in the Qiaocun community. Earlier in the Chinese Bronze Age, metal – almost exclusively bronze – had been reserved to members of the ranked aristocracy, its use governed by sumptuary rules. Only after ca. 500 BC are bronze objects pervasively encountered in association with individuals of all ranks; simultaneously, a large-scale cast-iron industry came to supply the peasantry with tools and the military with weapons. At Qiaocun, both bronze and iron objects commonly occur in low-ranking and “poor” social contexts and even – as we have seen – with human victims in moats. Altogether, the tombs from Phases I through III yielded 688 metal objects, in an approximately equal proportions of bronze (334) and iron (354) (tab. 3). An impressive 65.9% of these (57.2% of the bronze, 73.3 of the iron items found) were belthooks (fig. 4a-g, 4p-q), associated with a new fashion requiring the wearing of leather or textile belts. The next most frequent are bronze mirrors (24 specimens) (fig. 4h). As items of personal adornment, belthooks and mirrors are far removed from the traditional ritual uses of bronze in China. Other bronze objects found include arrowheads, ring-disks, clapper-bells, and the like (fig. 4i-o). Iron, aside from belthooks, seems to have been mostly used for tools (fig. 4r-t), and for the fetters of human victimbs (fig. 4u); but due to corrosion, the function of many iron objects from Qiaocun can no longer be determined. Metal objects occur in 54.3% of all tombs from the periods under consideration. The proportion of metalyielding tombs decreased from 75.8% during Phase I to 60.4% during Phase II and 36.6% during Phase III. During both Phases II and III, 53% of these are vertical-pit tombs featuring burial chambers – a far higher percentage than the proportion of burial-chamber tombs in the overall sample. On the other hand, the proportion of metal-yielding tombs that are catacomb tombs rises from 18.7% to 29.9%. The reminder of metal-yielding tombs are vertical-pit tombs with single coffins or lacking burial furniture. Interestingly, throughout the period under discussion, more tombs contain bronze than iron objects. The occupants of the majority of metal-yielding tombs are male (ranging between 44.0% and 57.4% depending on the kind of material and period); metal-yielding tombs with female occupants range between 37.1% and 44.0%. Only the incidence of iron objects in Phase II tombs are gender-equal (44% each). While these figures by no means document an even distribution, they do show that both males and females had access to metal. The age distribution for owners of belthooks (tab. 4) is somewhat different from that for the occupants of tombs without any funerary goods: for the latter group, the proportions of people who died young are larger, and those of people who lived into old age are smaller. These figures may hint at the possibility that the (relatively) poor members of the Qiaocun “burying community” faced challenges affecting their longevity that the (slightly) more well-off members of the community were able to avoid. 20 Peterson, Drennan, and Bartel 2016. 21 Falkenhausen 2006, 74-7. 22 Peterson, Drennan, and Bartel 2016. A Statistical Perspective To supplement the preceding analysis, we have calculated the Gini coefficients for the Shangma and Qiaocun data: scores that represent the differential distribution of wealth and thereby provide insights into prestige and inequality.20 Gini scores range from 0 to 1, with higher scores indicative of greater inequality or unequal wealth distribution. In principle, on account of the cultural complexities of mortuary practices, caution is in order when treating Gini coefficients as a measure of inequality in funerary assemblages. But we are confident that they can be adduced, because the use of funerary goods as status displays in Late Bronze Age China is well-established.21 To calculate the Gini scores for Shangma and Qiaocun, we followed the methodology of Peterson et al.,22 which Poverty in Late Bronze Age China: Its Archaeological Dimensions 83 Fig. 4 Selected metal objects from Qiaocun: Bronze: (a-g) belthooks from M525, M7148, M559, M431, M492, M627, M727; (h) mirror from M4167; (i) ring from M5126; (j) arrowhead from M435; (k) knife from M624; (l) clapper-bell from M4167; (m-n) coins from M518 and M54; (o) seal from M440. Iron: (p-q) belthooks from M437, M728; (r) knife from M4191; (s) adz from M529; (t) spade from M38; (u) fetters from the moat of M430 (after Shanxi 2004, v. 1: 301, fig. 195.2; 312, fig. 208.5; 324, fig. 219.2; 330, fig. 224.6; 336, fig. 230.1; 347, fig. 240.4; 349, fig. 241.2; 381, fig. 275; 378, fig. 271.1; 294, fig. 190.6; 293, fig. 188.3; 289 fig. 184.3; 351, fig. 243.1-3; 376, fig. 269.1; 394, fig. 290.1; 398, fig. 293; 421, fig. 310.2; 417, fig. 306.4; 419, fig. 308.1; 425, fig. 313.1) 84 Lothar von Falkenhausen & Andrew MacIver Tab. 3 Metal objects at Qiaocun Poverty in Late Bronze Age China: Its Archaeological Dimensions 85 Tab. 4 Age distributions among “poor” and “rich” tombs at Qiaocun necessitates estimating the energy investment in funerary goods. Each artifact type identified by the excavators – 164 for Shangma and 106 for Qiaocun – was given a value ranging from 0 to 4,000, based on our knowledge of labor input, production processes, and material properties (tab. 5). These are relative values, meant to be used within a single dataset and not for direct inter-cemetery comparison. The Gini score for Shangma is 0.767, about what one would expect to see a ritually determined mortuary environment with marked status distinctions. But surprisingly, the Gini score for Qiaocun turns out even higher: 0.791, indicating an even more pronounced degree of (presumably highly nuanced) inequality within the very reduced parameters of the Qiaocun burial assemblage. The two figures undoubtedly reflect different underlying systems of material expression of inequality – and, with respect to the topic of this study, different socioeconomic reference points for determining of who was “poor”. What is nature of these different kinds of inequality? By comparison to Qiaocun, the higher quality and greater variety of interred objects found at Shangma indicate that that cemetery served a group that enjoyed somewhat higher (though not very high) sociopolitical rank, and whose members had greater access to higher- quality products in spite of their relatively low overall economic status. By contrast, the kind of inequality at Qiaocun is conditioned by specific socioeconomic forces, lacking the overarching ritual structure seen at Shangma. Instead, the composition of funerary goods in the Qiaocun tombs seems to have been determined through intense negotiation and contestation at the level of each burial. The stakeholders involved seem to have been practicing a diverse range of ritual forms. As these activities had to navigate individual socioeconomic circumstances, the resulting degree of inequality is relatively high. Aside from the Gini coefficients, the varied spatial burial layouts at Qiaocun also reflect this reality. It is interesting that two very different contexts produced ritualized pathways that lead to similar degrees of inequality. While the “élite” burials at Qiaocun were almost certainly not on a comparable sociopolitical level to those at Shangma, the data show that attempts at differentiation of statuses in ritual contexts produced similar degrees, albeit not the same kinds, of inequality. At Qiaocun, differences or changes in ritual form were determined by the daily social and economic processes that influenced the behavior of the inhabitants. Conversely, at Shangma, ritual form seems to be more consistent through time and space, suggesting that the underlying lineage order was largely stable.23 23 Falkenhausen 2001. 86 Lothar von Falkenhausen & Andrew MacIver Tab. 5 Range of values used to calculate Gini coefficients Conclusions With respect to pinpointing poverty, the preceding discussion suggests the following preliminary conclusions. (1) Poverty, always relative, may be archaeologically observed not only at the level of a society at large, but also within its (élite and non-élite) subgroups. (2) The lowest archaeologically identifiable levels of a tomb hierarchy, though relatively poorer than those above them, do not represent the most impoverished stratum of the corresponding community. That stratum is but exceptionally visible in the archaeological record; its relative size remains unknown. (3) The impoverishment of funerary assemblages over time does not necessarily indicate exacerbated poverty in the corresponding community; resulting from social and religious changes, it may, to the contrary, be correlated with increasing material prosperity. (4) With the mass-production of items of common use, even socioeconomically disadvantaged groups could gain access to high-quality objects made of hitherto restricted materials. 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