Archaeological Evidence of Change in Social Organization at Kiwulan, an Iron Age site in Northeastern Taiwan, during European Colonization
Li-Ying Wang
A dissertation
submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
University of Washington
2021
Reading Committee:
Ben Marwick, Chair
Ben Fitzhugh
Peter Lape
Program Authorized to Offer Degree:
Department of Anthropology Cop igh 2021
Li-Ying Wang University of Washington
Abstract
Archaeological Evidence of Change in Social Organization at Kiwulan, an Iron Age site in Northeastern Taiwan, during European Colonization
Li-Ying Wang
Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Ben Marwick Department of Anthropology
Colonial encounters between Europeans and Indigenous people have long been an important topic in historical archaeology as scholars seek to explore their effects on Indigenous social, cultural, and material worlds. However, our current understanding heavily relies on studies of
European colonies with obvious evidence of direct colonial rule, which provides limited insights into the reactions of Indigenous societies at the periphery of European colonial centers. In those places, Indigenous societies may face a relatively weak or indirect colonial power. Despite the colonization of Taiwan by Europeans from 1624 to 1662, little is known from the archaeological record about the nature of interaction between Indigenous groups and Europeans, and the role of
European contact in social change in Indigenous social organization. Our current knowledge of
Indigenous settlements in northeastern Taiwan suggests a relatively complex social system in the
Iron Age around the 17th century, at the same time as the European presence. Northeastern
Taiwan is an especially interesting example of European and Indigenous interaction because the degree of European colonization appears to have been much less pronounced compared to other places in Northern Taiwan. This region serves as a great example to explore the reaction of
Indigenous people in the periphery of colonial centers. The aim of this dissertation is to explore whether there is a relationship between Indigenous social complexity in northeastern Taiwan and the European presence in the 17th century. I hypothesize that the kind of social complexity we observed throughout northeastern Taiwan may have resulted from the indirect impacts of European colonization and associated frequent trade activities. To test my hypothesis, I explore social changes at a major Iron Age site, Kiwulan
(1350-1850 AD), by examining multiple lines of archaeological evidence. I use a conceptual framework of corporate/network modes to model changes in social complexity. I studied archeological materials, including trade ornaments, locally made ceramics, and burials, as proxies to investigate changes before and after the European arrival. The core of this dissertation is three research papers that focus on a specific element of the archaeological record of Kiwulan to measure and compare the extent of social inequality. I used novel methods applied for the first time to archaeological materials in this region, such as geometric morphometrics for ceramic shapes and Bayesian network modeling for understanding social changes via burial data. To better understand Indigenous reactions to foreign presence on a long-term scale, I also incorporate a later Chinese phase to provide a diachronic perspective to explore social change at
Kiwulan from the 14th to 19th century.
The results indicate that there was a social change from a more corporate mode to a more network mode after the European arrival in the 17th century, and before the influx of Han
Chinese immigrants in the 19th century. This finding is supported by an uneven spatial distribution of prestige goods across the residential area, and a centralized pattern of burial networks that demonstrate an increased social inequality after the European presence. These changes suggest a form of indirect colonial impact – indirect stimulus of social reorganization – that is still not well understood in the archaeological literature. This dissertation demonstrates how an Indigenous society changes in a pericolonial context and shows the potential of this topic in East and Southeast Asia. In addition, an important technical contribution of this research is the use of novel reproducible quantitative methodologies. This dissertation takes an open science approach to enable maximum availability to research data, analytical processes, and final outputs through the practice of reproducible research to advocate research transparency and equal access to knowledge.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Introduction: Social Changes in a Pericolonial Context ...... 1
Social Inequality and Complexity in Archaeology ...... 2
Research Questions ...... 5
Iron Age Northeastern Taiwan in the Period of European Colonization ...... 6
Theoretical Framework for Investigating Social Changes in a Pericolonial Context ...... 10
Models and Predictions for Kiwulan ...... 15
Dissertation Structure and Chapter Summaries ...... 17
References cited...... 21
Chapter 2 – Trade Ornaments as Indicators of Social Changes Resulting from Indirect Effects of Colonialism in Northeastern Taiwan ...... 32
Abstract ...... 32
Introduction ...... 33
Ornaments in complex exchange network during the late Iron Age and early historical period ...... 35
Excavations at Kiwulan in northeastern Taiwan ...... 39
The personal ornaments ...... 48
Reproducibility and open source materials ...... 52
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Results ...... 53
Discussion ...... 62
Conclusion ...... 66
References cited ...... 68
Chapter 3 – Standardization of Ceramic Shape: A Case Study of Iron Age Pottery from Northeastern Taiwan ...... 80
Abstract ...... 80
Introduction ...... 81
Geometric Morphometrics ...... 83
Archaeological background and materials ...... 88
Methods ...... 93
Reproducibility and open source materials ...... 95
Results ...... 96
Discussion ...... 102
Conclusion ...... 110
References cited ...... 112
Chapter 4 – A Bayesian Networks Approach to Infer Social Changes in Burials in Northeastern Taiwan during the European Colonization Period ...... 126
Abstract ...... 126
Introduction ...... 127
Review of network analysis and archaeological applications ...... 129
ii
Exponential random graph models in a Bayesian framework ...... 132
Background ...... 134
Materials ...... 136
Methods ...... 139
Reproducibility and open source materials ...... 146
Results ...... 147
Discussion ...... 154
Conclusion ...... 157
References cited ...... 159
Chapter 5 – Conclusion ...... 170
Evaluating the Social Change Model and the Social Continuity Model ...... 171
Speculation on Resistance and Expression of Social Identity at Kiwulan ...... 174
Transparency and Reproducibility in Archaeological Science ...... 176
Broader Implications and Impacts of this Research ...... 179
Limitations of the Research ...... 183
Future Research ...... 185
Concluding Remarks on Social Changes in a Pericolonial Context ...... 186
References cited ...... 188
iii
Appendix A– Notes on constructing a chronology for artifacts recovered from archaeological excavations at Kiwulan, Taiwan ...... 194
Radiocarbon Age Modeling for Kiwulan Chronology ...... 198
Appendix B – Assessment of MCMC output and Goodness-of-fit diagnostics for our models ...... 208
iv
Acknowledgments
I have received considerable advice and support from many people throughout my PhD. I would like to thank my dissertation committee members for their support and help, including Dr. Ben
Marwick (Chair), Dr. Ben Fitzhugh, Dr. Peter Lape, Dr. Matthew W. Mosca (GSR), and Dr.
Kuei-chen Lin (external committee member from the Institute of History and Philology,
Academia Sinica). As my academic advisor, Dr. Ben Marwick has had a tremendous influence on my academic trajectory, and I am especially thankful for his guidance, patience, and encouragement when guiding me in the development of this thesis. His passion for archaeology inspires me substantially. I thank my reading committee members, Dr. Ben Fitzhugh and Dr.
Peter Lape, for their invaluable comments on my manuscripts and dissertation, and their support on my academic trajectory along the way. I especially thank my external committee member,
Kuei-chen Lin, for her support and generosity in offering opportunities and help while completing this dissertation. For assistance with my dissertation research, thanks to: Alberto
Caimo (Technological University Dublin), Wen-Shan Chen (National Taiwan University),
Steven Goodreau (UW Anthropology), Julian Sachs (UW Oceanography), Robert Z. Selden Jr
(Stephen F. Austin State University), Matthew Wolhowe (UW Oceanography). For access to collections of Kiwulan artifacts stored at the Yilan County Cultural Affairs Bureau in Taiwan, thanks to Shui-jin Chiu, Shu-hui Jian, Chun-cheng Jian, and Jiun-yao Lai.
v
During my graduate student life, I truly benefited by taking classes from Dr. Jim Feathers, Dr.
Sara Gonzalez, Dr. Donald Grayson, Dr. Marcos Llobera, and my committee members that helped me to develop my academic skills. Moreover, I was fortunate to have many fantastic and friendly colleagues at the University of Washington and I thank them for their support. Gayoung
Park, the kindest cohort colleague I have ever had, always offered help and shared information about archaeology with me. I also relied heavily on Jiun-Yu Liu s suggestions about any topics and his kindly support whenever I needed it. I would not have started my academic journey without him and appreciate that he always shared his experiences in archaeology, which motivated me a lot. Thanks to David Carlson, Mikhail Echavarri, Erin Gamble, Dave Hunt, Alec
Iacobucci, Hope Loiselle, Hollis Miller, Yoli Ngandali, Elizabeth Wessells, and Joss Whittaker for their friendship during my time as a student at UW. In addition, I also thank Catherine
Zeigler, John Cady, and Mike Caputi for helping me to get through all the administrative affairs of the University.
This work was supported in part by the Chester Fritz Graduate Fellowship and travel grants from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington, research funding from the UW
Quaternary Research Center, and the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the Chiang Ching- kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (Project #DF009-A-18).
Finally, I would like to thank my family, dad, mom, my brother, and my cousin for their support and encouragement while I was striving toward my goals at any stage of my PhD. I could not have completed this academic journey without them.
vi Chapter 1
Introduction: Social Changes in a Pericolonial Context
European expansion into many parts of the world in the 15th to 19th centuries often had substantial economic, cultural, and political impacts on local Indigenous societies.
Encounters between Europeans and Indigenous people varied from place to place, depending on different geological, historical, and cultural settings. Despite much prior work focusing on European colonies in Asia, little attention has been given to the colonial experiences of Indigenous societies at the periphery of European colonial centers. This presents a serious gap in the knowledge required for understanding the response of
Indigenous people to low-intensity interactions with colonial powers. Low-intensity interactions can be defined as frequent direct or indirect trade events involving colonists or goods and sources from them, where violence was absent or rare.
The aim of the research presented in this dissertation is to explore whether social change occurred in Late Iron Age northeastern Taiwan because of the European presence in the 17th century. I pursue this aim by analyzing a variety of archaeological materials using a conceptual framework of corporate/network modes to detect changes. This research suggests that indirect impacts of the European presence could have led to forms of social complexity that have not been previously identified in this region.
1 In this introductory chapter, I aim to provide some background and orientation for the three chapters that follow. I will first introduce the topic of social complexity and inequality in archaeology and briefly survey some different approaches to understanding small-scale societies that have some level of complexity. Then, I will present my research questions about social organizations in Iron Age northeastern Taiwan in the period of European presence. After that, I will give a brief historical and cultural background of European colonization in Taiwan relevant to my research area. I will outline my models to examine the relationship between increased social inequality and foreign contacts. To conclude this chapter, I will outline the dissertation structure and briefly preview the main chapters of the dissertation. At the time of writing, the first two of the three main body chapters of this dissertation have been published as peer-reviewed journal articles, and third has been submitted for peer review.
Social Inequality and Complexity in Archaeology
In this section, I will briefly introduce a selection of issues relevant to studies of social complexity and inequality in archaeology that motivated this research. Archaeologists have long studied social changes in a wide range of human societies to understand the characteristics of complex societies, processes that enact social complexity, and mechanisms for the emergence of social inequality. In this dissertation I define social inequality as the organizing principle of hierarchical structures in societies manifested in differential access to goods, information, and power (Price and Feinman, 2010, p. 2). I define social complexity as the extent of internal differentiation, the degree of social integration, and the intricacy of
2 relations among social units (Blanton, 1981, p. 17; Paynter, 1989, p. 369). Social inequality is often viewed as one criterion to assess the level of social complexity of a society.
The ways that archaeologists have conceptualized social complexity and inequality have changed greatly over time. An earlier view was that inequality is a characteristic of hierarchical societies where vertical status differences are evident, and the emergence of inequality normally is associated with modes of economy, degree of sedentism, or size of settlements (Service, 1971). However, more recent thinking has shown that inequality varies independently of those dimensions of vertical complexity, and exists in hunter-gatherer- fisher societies, for example in the Upper Paleolithic period, and societies in egalitarian contexts (Ames, 2010, pp. 16 19; Bowles et al., 2010; Fitzhugh, 2003; Hayden, 2001;
M a , 2020; Va a a E , 2005; W a G a , 2015; W ,
1982). Since human societies vary from culture to culture with their distinct historical processes, it is challenging for archaeologists to explain cross-cultural variations in the relationship between social complexity and inequality observed in past societies. This leads to more recent studies turning to explore the origin of social inequality instead of treating inequality as just a criterion for assessing social complexity (Moreau, 2020; Paynter, 1989;
Price and Feinman, 2010; Smith et al., 2018).
By focusing on emergence or changes in social inequality, archaeologists can understand diverse trajectories to hierarchy. Inequality could be present in many forms, such as economic or political, with varying degrees according to its strength, pervasiveness, and scale of permanence (Ames, 2007, p. 487). Unlike differences between people that represent distinct personality traits, inequality appears when a difference conveys cultural and social meanings given by a society, and people will be rewarded with privileges or prestige
3 because of that difference (Ames, 2007). There are several conditions under which social inequality has been hypothesized to emerge. Previous work has identified population growth, interaction inside settlements, increased storage behaviors, and subsistence intensification as some relevant internal factors (Abrutyn and Lawrence, 2010; Bentley and
Maschner, 2001; Zangrando, 2009). Other researchers have suggested environmental and climate change, warfare and conflicts, and involvement in exchange networks as external pressures (Carter, 2015; Hayden and Mathewes, 2009; Hoopes, 2005; Rhee and Choi, 1992;
Smith, 1999).
Although the study of social inequality has many historically- and culturally-specific contingencies that can limit the production of generalizations, the identification of underlying mechanisms can help to understand how inequality develops in each context and elaborate models for explaining social change. In Southeast and East Asia, many prehistoric societies show some level of socio-economic inequalities but lack strong evidence of stratification. Different concepts have been proposed to explain power-gaining strategies in those social organizations, such as heterarchy, referring to fluid and unranked social