本文嘗試探索良渚文化何以消失，本文首先界定良渚文化的性質：寧紹一帶海退 之後，當地居民必須經由有組織的合作，從事填汙排鹼等項工作。良渚文化之居民由此發 展複雜社會。良渚文化工具及高土臺禮儀建築，均反映這一類工作的特色。但在土地已闢之 後，複雜社會已不再能有上面的價值。反之，村落社會已可能從事簡單的水利及農耕工作。 於是複雜社會之不穩定體系解體，代之以地方性的小型體系。良渚文化層馬橋文化與湖熟文 化的土墩墓文化即是良渚文化社會解體後的產物。青銅文化在東南出現，更是後來之事，但 是江西地區有古代銅礦，當時東南青銅文化不必由中原輸入，即可在當地發展文化特色。

　　　　　This paper is an attempt to investigate into possible reasons for the d isappearance of the Liangchu Culture which flourished in Southeast China some four thousand years ago. It is suggested that a complex Liangchu society came into being as a result of organizational efforts to conduct large-scale land-reclamation after the sea had receded. Liangchu tools and architectural structures for ceremonial use, clearly reflect characteristics of such an activity. After a flourishing period of some eight hundred years, large-scale reclamation of land was finally accomplished. Liangchu were thus no longer in need of a complex social structure. Simple village communities were now able to sustain without much difficulty. Earthen mounds of the Ma-chiao and the Hushou cultures are only a pale shadow of the elaborately constructed Liangchu high mounds. The collapse of the Liangchu culture seems to have been the dissolution of a decomposable system of a complex social structure. The bronze culture emerging somewhat later in the Southeast descends directly from local indigenous cultures such as these, since copper mining sites have recently been excavated in throughout the area of the Liangchu culture.