With the finding,exploring and organizing of the pre-Qin urban site,a lot of research results have emerged on this subject.Relics of early Chinese cities are usually deemed as being closely related to the original cities.Generally speaking,two main defects are seen in recent studies of pre-Qin cities:one is the lack of theoretical guide;the other is that,we shed more light on archaeological data rather than on synthesing other disciplines such as literature and ancient writing.The“lengthy period”theory of Braudel is introduced into the study of this dissertation,in order to deal with the two mentioned defects.Under the guidance of the theory,the author did a further study through integrating the literature,ancient writing and archaeological data about the pre-Qin city.
The study of pre-Qin city may proceed from many perspectives.Under the guidance of“lengthy period”theory,the author chose four concerned perspectives:the origin,the distribution,the form and the function of pre-Qin cities.This article was composed by four chapters.The author devoted Chapter one in discussing the originating motivity of pre-Qin city,and arrived at the conclusion that the origin of early Chinese cities is highly related to the formation of an economic exchanging center.The author studied in chapter two the stable relationship between city development and geographical environment,and discussed the originating cause of the phenomenon.In chapter three,four main aspects about the urban configuration of Shang and Zhou period,namely,defense facilities,political construction,handicraft workshop and market,are highlighted,to reveal their development of structure in lengthy period.Chapter 4 talked about the function features of the pre-Qin city from a new point of view,on concentrating on two of the features,the function of agglomeration and integration,and that of institutional development.
To sum up,there is a main logic in the whole article.Economic exchange influenced persistently and strongly,from a lengthy period perspective,the origin and development of pre-Qin cities.The early Chinese cities are not merely political tools,but an aggregation of politics,economy and military.