Ref ID:	25810
Ref Type:	Book Section in a Series
Authors:	Flad, Rowan K.
Title:	Rethinking the context of production through an archaeological study of ancient salt production in the Sichuan Basin, China
Date:	2007
Source:	Rethinking craft specialization in complex societies: archaeological analyses of the social meaning of production
Place of Publication:	Berkeley, CA
Publisher:	University of California Press
Abstract:	Excavation at a salt production site named Zhongba in the Three Gorges region of China document a complex system of intersecting activities that changed gradually over a long period of time. As the salt production became much larger in scale during the Bronze Age, the context of this production shifted from one from which there is no archaeological evidence for attachment between producers and those who control the products to a situation in which the exchange of salt to other regions seems to have been controlled, or at least directed, by an emergent elite whose authority was based in part on divinatory ability and the control of ritual knowledge. This study examines the concept of context in relation to the organization of salt production at this site and argues that multiple lines of evidence must be considered if we are to avoid simplified assumptions concerning the nature of products and the production processes through which they are made.
Date Created:	10/22/2007
Editors:	Hruby, Zachary X. Flad, Rowan K.
Number:	17
Page Start:	108
Page End:	128
Series Editor:	Rocek, Thomas R.
Series Title:	Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association