9406579 Linduff Under the direction of Dr. Katheryn Linduff, Mr. Gideon Shelach will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will conduct archaeological fieldwork in the "Northern Corridor" region of China, an area which lies to the North of the Yellow and Wei River Basin. He will employ a variety of data to examine culture change in the period between ca 2300 - 1600 BC. During this same interval, large complex societies arose in the river basins immediately to the South. While the prehistory of the latter region is relatively well known, the Northern Corridor has been the subject of less intensive archaeological investigation. Mr. Shelach has reviewed the published literature. He will now conduct systematic regional surface survey to locate sites and will also study unpublished site reports and curated collections. On this basis he hopes to trace culture change. The goal of the research is to gain insight into the processes which lead to the development of complex societies in different environmental settings. While it is clear that such societies emerged in the Yellow and Wei River Basins and that they were agriculturally based, the sequence to the North is less well understood. Archaeologists know that Northern Corridor people were primarily pastoralists. They have assumed that innovation spread from South to North and that development could be explained within a Southern "core", Northern "periphery" model. However the data to support this is minimal and Mr. Shelach has proposed a model in which interaction between the two areas leads to simultaneous change in each. The data he collects will permit him to evaluate these two alternatives. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide insight into the emergence of complex societies. The results will, likely, be applicable in many regions of the world. The work will also assist in the training of a promising young scientist. ***
