JHI Alumni Research Lecture Series—Liye Xie

Our new season of Alumni Research Lecture Series launches this month on our YouTube channel with Liye Xie (UTM Anthropology). This video presents some of Xie’s research as a 6-month JHI Faculty Research Fellow in 2023-24. In this talk, she explores how early urban construction shaped societies in Neolithic and Bronze Age China. Through four key archaeological sites, Liye Xie examines the interplay between public works and governance. Whether cooperative or coercive, these projects—building city walls, neighborhood walls, or elite enclosures—revealed how ancient communities balanced power and labour, transforming both physical spaces and social structures to lay the foundation for early dynastic governance.