Systematic, regional survey in SE Shandong Province, China

This paper presents results from two seasons of full coverage, systematic, regional survey in SE Shandong province, China. It describes how systematic, regional survey provides valuable information on change in settlement patterns during the late prehistoric and early historical periods in northern China. Full coverage survey enabled us to discover scores of new sites in the area. Our collaborative survey, the first of its kind in the Yellow River Valley, reveals that a multi-tier settlement hierarchy developed around the large Longshan period (ca. 2600–1900 B.C.) site of Liangchengzhen. The settlement pattern for the Longshan Period is highly nucleated in comparison to the patterns found for the succeeding Zhou and Han periods. © 1998, Maney Publishing.