How, when, and where did complex societies first emerge in China? This question has been at the heart of archaeological research since the discipline began to develop in China in the 1920s. Scholars in the West have shown particular interest in the process by which centralized states and expansive empires emerged in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age in the Yellow River valley (e.g., Chang 1983b, 1986; Creel 1970; Fried 1983; Liu 2004; Liu and Chen 2003; Underhill and Fang 2004; von Falkenhausen 2006b), which is traditionally considered the core of Chinese civilization, as well as in adjacent regions (e.g., Li 2006; Nelson 1996; Shelach 1999, 2009). The Sichuan Basin and surrounding areas, where recent discoveries have established that complex polities emerged contemporaneously with the development of social complexity in the Central Plains (Bagley), have only become a focus of interest more recently (Flad and Chen n.d.).

To examine emergent complexity in China, as elsewhere, a key factor that must be explored is the degree to which social roles of community members are interdependent and involve stratified relations of authority. The development of economic specialization plays an important role in the establishment of both interdependence and stratification. This study examines the emergence and organization of specialized salt production at the eastern Sichuan Basin site of Zhongba and explores the implications that this specialization has for emergent complexity in the region.