On the Problem of Dian Settlements

Abstract

This article presents data on the search and study of settlement complexes of the Dian Kingdom in the areas around Lake Dianchi in the Yunnan Province. Several relatively large settlements were identified, with small satellite villages adjacent to them. Their inhabitants were used as a labour resource for growing grain, collecting freshwater shellfish, processing metals and other economic activities to serve the elite, which indicate the existence of a social hierarchy in the Dian Kingdom. However, the problem of finding political and cultural centres (capitals) remains, since powerful defensive structures, monumental religious and palace buildings, market areas, and craft districts have not yet been discovered in any of the studied settlements. The Hebosuo site, located only 750 m from the richest necropolis of Shizhaishan with the graves of the wang-rulers, is supposed to be the most likely capital centre, since seals’ clay impressions of major officials of the Dian state were found on its territory. Among the unique discoveries is a cemetery of ossuaries with infant burials, which seems to be a special section of the Shizhaishan necropolis. Another candidate for capital status is the Shangxihe site, also located just 1.5 km from the Shizhaishan necropolis. There, during preliminary excavations, 42 house foundations, several hundred utility pits, among other things, as well as a defensive ditch were discovered. Undoubtedly, this is quite a large urban-type settlement, but it also lacks the characteristics of a political and economic centre listed above. There is also no exact information about its planography and chronology. Therefore, the final question of the capital status of this or that settlement can only be resolved in the course of further large-scale excavations