A city on a rice plain
Between about 3300 and 2300 BCE, Liangzhu communities developed around the lower Yangtze. The city near present-day Hangzhou combined walls, platforms, residential areas and cemeteries in a rice-growing landscape. Differences in buildings and graves reveal pronounced social distinctions. Repeated imagery on jade objects connected ritual practices across settlements. The urban centre depended on surrounding fields and communities as well as the area inside its walls.
Dams outside the walls
High dams, low dams and causeways formed a hydraulic system outside Liangzhu. Builders used valleys and plains to regulate water in a landscape also used for transport and agriculture. Earthworks required material collection, organized labour and continuing maintenance. Construction extended cooperation beyond individual villages. Dam structures and dated organic remains allow researchers to connect the city’s monumental spaces with the work undertaken across its surrounding environment.
Jade and social rank
Cong tubes, bi discs and other finely worked jades were concentrated in particular high-status graves. Their production demanded specialized skill and sustained labour. Burial distinctions corresponded with differences in urban space, making ritual authority and resource distribution visible. Liangzhu’s eventual decline also involved its changing water environment. Its remains reveal a lower Yangtze route toward complex society, rooted in rice cultivation, hydraulic works and jade traditions.