Kim, Bumcheol
(2005)
Rice Agricultural Intensification and Sociopolitical Development in the Bronze Age, Central Western Korean Peninsula.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This research understands the characteristics of the regional and local political economy utilizing an intensive form of rice agricultural technology during the Middle Bronze Age (800-400 BCE), in the central western Korean Peninsula, focusing on how social components (e.g. regional polities, local communities, and individual households), in the context of emergent complexity, were related to each other in shaping a specific sociopolitical organization that utilized improved technology for primary agricultural production.Relevant information has been generated by reconstructing MBA regional settlement patterns through the use of surface survey and excavation data, analyzing the spatial correlation between regional settlement hierarchy and differences in abundance of rice soils, the necessity of cooperative water management, easy accessibility to important junctions of ancient transportation routes, and investigating household wealth/status variability.All of this information is used to place MBA society somewhere in the sociopolitical continuum, two ends of which correspond to the extreme top-down and bottom up systems, respectably. The top-down models assume that suprahousehold-level organization and management of labor-pooling necessary to utilize intensive agricultural technology, while bottom-up ones emphasize the individual households¡¯ and/or small kin-based groups¡¯ role in initiation and maintenance of the system.I conclude that there was a mixture of the two strategies mentioned above, in MBA rice-agricultural intensification, rather than the consistent compatibility to either strategy. Communities within individual polities were organized differently indicating compatibility with either system, sometimes in substantially different manners. Even when comparing polities located in quite similar environmental settings, there were quite noticeable differences in production and distribution of wet rice.In this light, beyond simple positioning in the continuum on the basis of reconstructing the differing levels of social organization, this study attempts to make such a reconstruction more dynamic by emphasizing the possible strategies pursued by different social actors, especially elites who are likely to get more benefits from the intensive agricultural systems. A possible strategic activity subjected by elites is feasting. The rigorous participation of commoner households in the intensive production of wet rice is observed at certain center and it may have been encouraged and compensated by feasting activities.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
5 October 2005 |
| Date Type: |
Completion |
| Defense Date: |
6 July 2005 |
| Approval Date: |
5 October 2005 |
| Submission Date: |
28 July 2005 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Anthropology |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Bronze Age; emergent complexity; Korea; political economy; regional settlement patterns; rice; Songgukri-type; community; household; agricultural intensification |
| Other ID: |
http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-07282005-202540/, etd-07282005-202540 |
| Date Deposited: |
10 Nov 2011 19:54 |
| Last Modified: |
15 Nov 2016 13:47 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/8678 |
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