The 5.5 cal ka BP climate event, population growth, circumscription and the emergence of the earliest complex societies in China

doi:10.1007/s11430-017-9157-1

	The 5.5 cal ka BP climate event, population growth, circumscription and the emergence of the earliest complex societies in China
	Wu WenXiang 1; Zheng HongBo 2; Hou Mei 1,3; Ge QuanSheng 1
刊名	SCIENCE CHINA-EARTH SCIENCES
	2018-02-01
卷号	61 期号:2 页码:134-148
关键词	5.5 cal ka BP climate event Population growth Circumscription Complex society Driving mechanisms
ISSN号	1674-7313
DOI	10.1007/s11430-017-9157-1
通讯作者	Wu WenXiang(wuwx@igsnrr.ac.cn) ; Ge QuanSheng(geqs@igsnrr.ac.cn)
英文摘要	The emergence of complex society is a milestone in the history of human society evolution. China is one of the few regions in the world where the earliest complex society appeared; however, its driving mechanisms remain unresolved. On the base of available evidence from both archaeology and Holocene climate, in combination with agency theory, this study attempts to address the driving mechanisms for the simultaneous emergence of complex societies in multiple areas of China around 5.5 cal ka BP. It is hypothesized that three factors, including climate change, population growth, and circumscription, jointly act and cause regional population-resource imbalance and trigger inter-group conflicts and wars. Such competitions provide the opportunity for some power-pursuing agents to break the restriction of social leveling mechanism and to become the centralized decision-making leaders, which further lead to the emergence of incipient large-scale complex societies. Increase in extreme climate events during 6.0-5.0 cal ka BP cooling period causes frequent occurrence of resource stress and increase in the frequency of inter-group competitions, which creates conditions for the legitimation, institutionalization, and persistence of centralized leadership, and finally leads to the formation of persistent institutionalized inequity. Our research result can explain not only the process and mechanism of complex society formation, but also two phenomena which cannot be reasonably explained by previous theories, that are, why the earliest complex societies in China emerge around 5.5 cal ka BP, and why they appear simultaneously in multiple regions.
资助项目	National Natural Science Foundation of China[41672176] ; State Key Basic Research and Development Program[2015CB953802]
WOS关键词	ASIAN SUMMER MONSOON ; NORTH-ATLANTIC CLIMATE ; INTERTROPICAL CONVERGENCE ZONE ; ICE CORE RECORDS ; TIBETAN PLATEAU ; HIGH-RESOLUTION ; LAST DEGLACIATION ; SOCIAL EVOLUTION ; HOLOCENE EPOCH ; VARIABILITY
WOS研究方向	Geology
语种	英语
出版者	SCIENCE PRESS
WOS记录号	WOS:000424032300002
资助机构	National Natural Science Foundation of China ; State Key Basic Research and Development Program
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://ir.igsnrr.ac.cn/handle/311030/56968]
专题	中国科学院地理科学与资源研究所
通讯作者	Wu WenXiang; Ge QuanSheng
作者单位	1.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Geog Sci & Nat Resources Res, Key Lab Land Surface Pattern & Simulat, Beijing 100101, Peoples R China 2.Yunnan Univ, Res Ctr Earth Syst Sci, Kunming 650091, Yunnan, Peoples R China 3.Univ Chinese Acad Sci, Beijing 100049, Peoples R China
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Wu WenXiang,Zheng HongBo,Hou Mei,et al. The 5.5 cal ka BP climate event, population growth, circumscription and the emergence of the earliest complex societies in China[J]. SCIENCE CHINA-EARTH SCIENCES,2018,61(2):134-148.
APA	Wu WenXiang,Zheng HongBo,Hou Mei,&Ge QuanSheng.(2018).The 5.5 cal ka BP climate event, population growth, circumscription and the emergence of the earliest complex societies in China.SCIENCE CHINA-EARTH SCIENCES,61(2),134-148.
MLA	Wu WenXiang,et al."The 5.5 cal ka BP climate event, population growth, circumscription and the emergence of the earliest complex societies in China".SCIENCE CHINA-EARTH SCIENCES 61.2(2018):134-148.