About the middle of the first millennium BC, continental East Asia saw the rise of a market economy in which a metallic currency was beginning to play an important role. The following centuries were a time of unprecedented economic florescence. Technological innovations and intensification in the rural sector enabled significant demographic growth: the number of cities multiplied, and as their function morphed from elite ceremonial centres to densely populated hubs of mass-production and trade, a new urban culture came into being. Rather than depending on an individuals descent and kinship, social divisions were now mainly wealth-based, and the pervasive use of writing enabled new intellectual breakthroughs.

Complementing relevant textual studies, this book surveys the currently available archaeological evidence of this transformation, tracing its preliminary stages back to the beginning of the first millennium BC and following its development down to the onset of China’s imperial age.