The dissertation aims to explore the social structure of Zhou’s heartland through settlement patterns and funerary practices and discuss how Zhou’s ethnic politics formed and whether the environments of different regions contribute to the varied ethnic structures and policies.
In the pre-Zhou period, the development of the Zhou people can be divided into the Bing-settlement and the Zhouyuan periods. Records regarding Zhou people’s activities during the Bing-settlement period are scanty in transmitted texts, so the research relies mainly on archaeological data. Although historical texts trace Zhou’s ancestors to the later phase of the Xia Dynasty, archaeologists can only track Zhou’s origin to the Upper Erligang period, or the early Shang, so far. The archaeological culture of Zhengjiapo, represented by the Zhengjiapo site and distributed in the Qishui River Basin and the middle reach of Jing River, is considered the material remains of the earliest Zhou people. The scarce presence of foreign cultural elements suggests that this archaeological culture was relatively isolated.
In the later phase of the Bing-settlement period, equivalent to the second phase of Yinxu, the archaeological culture of Zhengjiapo shrank from the Jing River basin. Starting from the Zhouyuan period, which equals the third phase of Yinxu, the center of the Zhengjiapo culture began to move to Zhouyuan. Notably, the original center of the culture, the Qishui River basin, remained in the cultural zone, despite of losing its cultural dominance. During the Zhouyuan period, at least two archaeological cultures coexisted in Zhouyuan: The Nianzipo culture dominated the heartland, while the Zhengjiapo culture resided in the eastern part of the area. Moreover, increasing foreign cultural elements appeared in sites of the Zhengjiapo culture, altering the culture’s character. Altogether, Zhou people’s settlements were multiethnic in the Zhouyuan period. That the Zhou people were used to a multiethnic environment and had specific ways to deal with ethnic issues was probably formed in the Zhouyuan period and became the foundation of Zhou’s later ethnic policies.
The multiethnic foundation allowed Zhou to embark on military expansion with the support of allies. King Wen expanded to the North and Northeast, followed by the campaign leaving Guanzhong and pointing at Jinzhong. After their military operation moved beyond Guanzhong, the Zhou people established the settlement of Feng, a new capital in the East, located at the eastern part of the Guanzhong Basin and the west bank of the Feng River, a tributary of the Wei River. Shortly afterward, King Wu, King Wen’s successor, defeated the Shang king and established the capital of Hao on the Feng settlement’s east and Feng River’s east bank. The location selection and construction of the two capitals were both done with the Zhou people’s own will, thereby reflecting their ideas about settlements.
Settlements in Zhouyuan and Feng-Hao show very different patterns. The former was a large settlement developed for a time far longer than Feng-Hao. Archaeological discoveries suggest that Zhouyuan consisted of several small settlements and cemeteries. Cemeteries like Yaojia, Hejiacun Xibei, Hejiacunbei, and Huangdui had clear boundaries, and each had a settlement located nearby (except Huangdui), indicating a correspondence between settlements and cemeteries in the Zhouyuan
In contrast, the settlement-cemetery correspondence was not common in the Feng-Hao area. The Feng-Hao site had only two sections in general: the northern section served as burial grounds, and the southern section was the living area. As part of the cemetery zone, the Zhangjiapo area alone has more than twenty-one hundred tombs excavated and probed so far. Although the site also had other cemeteries, their sizes were smaller than the major cemetery. The burial number in these small cemeteries ranged from single digits to dozens, and the largest one yielded only a hundred or more tombs. Furthermore, in the major cemetery area, tombs were organized according to ranks, and high-ranking tombs with various burial practices coexisted. Altogether, the design of Heng-Hao seems to reflect an intention of breaking ethnic boundaries and reshaping the society with a ranking system, which was also the keynote of Western Zhou political and social development.
In areas surrounding the capitals, both nearby and faraway neighbors reflected Zhou’s close relationship with people residing west of the Zhouyuan. For example, the Baoji area has more than one settlement of local ethnic groups. However, one can barely find a settlement dominated by the Shang people, who usually lived alongside the people of Zhou or from the west of Zhouyuan. Even in Zhouyuan, where ethnic groups enjoyed respective settlements and cemeteries, Shang decedents did not have their own burial ground except for artisans and priests. Such a phenomenon indicates the Zhou people’s confidence in their western neighbors and distrust of the Shang people. The relationship lasted until middle Western Zhou. Afterward, as western groups started to withdraw from Zhouyuan, the Zhou state’s northwest border conflicts increased, possibly resulting from the state’s new ethnic policies toward the western groups. Under this circumstance, the state was doomed to fall.