International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2025

 

 

Gary M. Feinman

 

Over the last 75 years, settlement pattern studies have underpinned the collection of a tsunami of new and multiscalar information in archaeology. These findings serve as a foundation for new perspectives on the emergence of human collectivities or cooperative arrangements and how they varied and changed over time. At the same time, settlement studies helped usher in greater attention to time/space variability in archaeology, thereby introducing more populational as opposed to categorical conceptualizations that better represent how people behave and interact. Here, the primary focus is on China’s deep past and the new findings and perspectives that have emerged over the last three to four decades. The findings from these research efforts help provide a less linear, less categorical, less homogenized, and more diverse perspective on China’s rich past.