중서부지역 靑銅器時代 水稻 生産의 政治經濟 - 錦江 중하류역 松菊里型 聚落體系의 위계성과 稻作集約化 - = The Political Economy of Wet-rice Production in the Bronze Age, Central-western Korea

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper analyzes locational preferences of Bronze Age Songgukri-type settlements in central-western Korea. Comparing hierarchical aspects of Songgukri-type settlement system and intercommunity variability of wet-rice production potential, this paper attempts to understand the processes by which regional-scale political economies were formed during the Bronze Age.
It has been suggested that rice-agricultural intensification caused the emergence of complex sociopolitical organization. Some research consequently proposes the establishment of managerial leadership in this process. However, this hypothesis needs to be tested against certain archaeological implications: whether large communities higher up in the regional settlement system are located on more arable land than common villages, and whether the necessity of cooperative water-management would have been more intensive at the higher communities.
However, contrary to the hypothesis mentioned above, the analysis of distributional patterns of wet-rice soils and flood plains, and the development of small streams suitable for wet-rice cultivation during the Bronze Age, reveal that the hierarchical pattern of Songgukri-type settlements at the regional-level is not compatible with intercommunity variability of wet-rice production.
Furthermore, two regional polities which represent similar environmental settings and organizational integrity show quite different patterns. Thus, I maintain that the emergence of a regional elite and rice-agricultural intensification in the Bronze Age cannot be explained by any oversimplified unilineal models. Discussions on the role and leadership strategies of Bronze Age chiefs, and the processes by which regional political economies were formed, need to be open-ended and require plausible modeling and testing using systematically collected information.