Settlement Patterns in the Chifeng Region by Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project (review)

Reviewed by: Settlement Patterns in the Chifeng Regionby Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project Jack N. Fenner Settlement Patterns in the Chifeng Region. Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project. Center for Comparative Archaeology, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 2011. 153 pp, 154 figures, 12 tables. Paper, US$ 29.00. ISBN 978-1-877812-91-0. My interest in this volume was stimulated by an earlier publication by the Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project (2003) derived from a small-scale pilot project in the Chifeng area, about 300 km northeast of Beijing in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. That volume described an ambitious follow-on project to assess population level changes over several thousand years across a large area employing survey and analysis methods that are rarely used in Asia, so I was interested to see how it turned out. The results as described in the reviewed volume indicate that it was quite successful, assuming you accept the underlying premise of the work. Population level changes are commonly hypothesized as key drivers or outcomes of important archaeological models involving subsistence strategies, social hierarchy, environmental impact, and many other aspects of past lifeways. But determining population levels is something archaeology does poorly. In areas and time periods with substantial preserved housing remains, ethnographically based floor-space correlations with household size can provide insight, but they are usually very geographically restricted (due to the need to excavate house remains) and also suffer from uncertainty about the contemporaneity and function of identified structures. Site abundance and size measures do not account for differing intensities of occupation within sites, while surface artifact density variation may be more related to microscale differences in the processes that bring artifacts to the surface than to original occupation intensity. The Chifeng Project cleverly combines these approaches by obtaining artifact abundance data within a collection unit (nominally one hectare in size) and then producing a (very rough) population estimate for each collection unit by aligning collection unit artifact densities with the range of occupation densities of excavated sites from various time periods in the wider region as determined by house floor-space estimates. Their artifact abundance data was based on the number of ceramic sherds collected in a series of 3 m diameter circular areas randomly placed within a collection unit whenever more than two sherds are found within 100 m of each other during surface survey. Once population estimates are established for each collection unit, various rank-size and neighbor-distance calculations can be performed to combine collection units into settlement units (i.e., communities), each with estimated population sizes and known locations. These settlement units are then available for investigation of issues such as the development of centralization and hierarchy, and the population intensity in specific geographic situations. As each sherd was assigned to a specific time period, each analysis can be carried out for each time period and changes can be tracked through time. Much of Settlement Patternsis dedicated to explaining and justifying this approach. The volume is organized into fourteen sections plus two appendices and includes references to an extensive online, freely accessible collection of illustrations, data sets, and maps. Authorship is attributed for the first thirteen sections, which introduce the project and describe its methods, but, unusually, the authorship of the key fourteenth chapter describing the results is not ascribed. Like the volume itself, that chapter is simply attributed to the project as a whole. In that spirit and to conserve space, I will not attribute authorship within the volume during this review. Following a brief introductory chapter, the ceramic typology for the Chifeng region is described. Using pottery form, decoration [End Page 333]styles, and production method indicators, the ceramics are divided into eight types, all of which were previously established in the literature: Xinglongwa, Zhaobaogou, Hongshan, Xiaoheyan, Lower Xiajiadian, Upper Xiajiadian, Zhangou-Han, and Liao. Post-Liao ceramics were not included in the analyses. A subsequent section presents radiocarbon data from Chifeng Project excavations and elsewhere in the region for each type, and assigns precise time periods to each ceramic type. The treatment of chronology is unfortunately the most disappointing aspect of the report. The radiocarbon dates are only shown

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