of Specialization in China ’ s Three Gorges Rowan

How,when, andwhere did complex societies first emerge in China? This question has been at the heart of archaeological research since the discipline began to develop in China in the 1920s. Scholars in the West have shown particular interest in the process by which centralized states and expansive empires emerged in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age in the Yellow River valley (e.g., Chang 1983b, 1986; Creel 1970; Fried 1983; Liu 2004; Liu and Chen 2003; Underhill and Fang 2004; von Falkenhausen 2006b), which is traditionally considered the core of Chinese civilization, as well as in adjacent regions (e.g., Li 2006; Nelson 1996; Shelach 1999, 2009). The SichuanBasin and surrounding areas, where recent discoveries have established that complex polities emerged contemporaneously with the development of social complexity in the Central Plains (Bagley 2001), have only become a focus of interest more recently (Flad and Chen n.d.). To examine emergent complexity in China, as elsewhere, a key factor that must be explored is thedegree towhich social roles of communitymembers are interdependent and involve stratified relations of authority. The development of economic specialization plays an important role in the establishment of both interdependence and stratification. This study examines the emergence and organization of specialized salt production at the eastern Sichuan Basin site of Zhongba and explores the implications that this specialization has for emergent complexity in the region. Countless archaeological studies have considered the relationship between complex society and specialization (among the most important are Arnold 1987; Arnold and Munns 1994; Brumfiel 1980; Brumfiel and Earle 1987; Clark 1995, 2007; Clark andParry 1990; Costin 1991, 2001, 2004; Costin andHagstrum 1995; Flad and Hruby 2007; Inomata 2001; Kenoyer 1992; Lewis 1996; Rice 1981, 1991; Shimada 2007a; M. Stark 1995; Stein and Blackman 1993; Tosi 1984; Underhill 1996, 2002;Wright 1996). This study builds on this previous research by examining the process by which specialized production changes over the longue dureé and the interaction between specialized production and other