Yangshao Burial Customs and Social Organization: A Comment on the Theory of Yangshao Matrilineal Society and Its Methodology

Addressing in part the arguments advanced by Morgan, and depending upon more recent anthropological studies from Madagascar, Sarawak, and elsewhere, it is argued in Part I that the evidence from Yangshao burials resembles that of many modern primitive peoples whose collective secondary burials were not defined by kin unit. The matrilineal view of Yangshao society is also challenged by the widespread existence of single-person burial, which appears to have both pre- and postdated, as well as co-existed with, the practice of collective burial. Similar comparative and contextual criticisms are brought to bear, in Part II, on the argument that Yangshao burial customs reveal the dominance of women. There was evidently no system in which children had to be buried with the mother, there is no evidence that the primary burial of women in multi-person collective burials was either common or prevalent, there is no evidence that single Yangshao female burials were generally more richly furnished with grave goods than those of single males. Finally, in Part III, it is shown that same-sex collective burials were rare; they reflect not social organization but the accident of several contemporary deaths. In short, none of the arguments for Yangshao matriliny are found to be adequate. At present, we lack an effective method for using burial customs to reconstruct social organization. The article ends by raising a series of methodological desiderata for future research.