Extensively excavated village sites from the Chinese Bronze Age are rare. Information emerging from the analysis of the small Anyang-period village site of Guandimiao, however, challenges widely held assumptions concerning the Shang polity at Anyang and its hierarchical lineages based on war and sacrifice. Evidence for specialised pottery production and the presence of artefacts imported from Anyang suggest an unexpected degree of regional economic integration. Guandimiao is emerging as a site of revolutionary importance for understanding Anyang-period Shang political and economic networks, and in its significance to both Chinese archaeology and the study of early complex societies more generally.

The Shang Dynasty has attracted much archaeological research, particularly the renowned ‘royal tombs’ of the Xibeigang cemetery at Anyang Yinxu, the last Shang capital. Understanding of the social strategies informing Shang mortuary practices is, however, very limited. A new reconstruction of the detailed chronology of the cemetery is presented here, allowing social theory to be applied, and reveals the strategic social decisions behind the placement of the tombs in relation to each other. The results of this analysis are important not only for the reconstruction of the social structure and organisation of the late Shang dynasty, but also for understanding the relationship between mortuary practices and the functioning of early states in other regions.

Excavations at the Shang capital of Anyang have uncovered a massive bone-working industry. The animal bones, mainly those of cattle, pig and deer were provided as a spin-off from regular large-scale sacrifice, and made mainly into pins, awls and arrowheads. Although some of the pins were destined for the tombs of prominent women, a penetrating analysis shows that production greatly overran local consumption and the authors are able to raise the likelihood of a wide market for traded objects in addition to the more expected control of production by the elite.