Kingdom of Bhutan (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
376-400 (673 Records)
Since 2011, BHAP and JSPS Core to Core program have been conducted the joint archaeological investigation at Hamanaka 2 site on Rebun Island, Northern Japan. This site has been recognized as important sand dune site that provided well-preserved archaeological materials date back to middle Jomon period (ca. 5,500 - 4,500 cal BP). Interdisciplinary studies conducted by participating scholars produced significant outcomes in archaeology, physical anthropology, molecular biology, paleobotany and...
The Maritime Silk Route and Southeast China during the Han dynasty: A view from Panyu, Hepu, and Lingnan’s hinterland (2017)
Consisting of the present-day provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong, the Lingnan region was from early on impacted by political and cultural forces centered to its north. Following Lingnan’s brief occupation by the Qin (214 – 204 BCE), the Qin general Zhao Tuo established the independent kingdom of Nanyue, whose defeat at the hands of Han armies in 111 BCE resulted in the region’s formal incorporation into the Han Empire. Importantly, various lines of evidence dating to the Han dynasty point to...
Marxism in Chinese Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Marxism became a kind of official philosophical thinking embeded in all the humanities. Thus, in most Western archaeologists’ minds, Chinese archaeology is a kind of Marxist archaeology, as Bruce Trigger described. We admit to this kind of definition, but the status of contemporary archaeology is already...
Mass Procurement and Feasting at Houtaomuga site, Northeast of China (2017)
Houtaomuga is a late Neolithic site located in the northeast of China. A special feature G2 has produced a large sample of aurochs (Bos primigenius) skeletal remains. Examination of the assemblage in G2, including bone quantity, surface modification and mortality profile suggests a site of mass aurochs procurement that took place during late summer to fall. Feasting is suggested to be a likely reason that could lead to this mass deposition.
Material Assemblage and Social Changes in Central Tibet, the Second and the First Millennium B.C. (2018)
Compared to the relatively well-researched area of Eastern Tibet Plateau, the archaeology of Central Tibet has long been neglected. This paper offers a review of academic debates concerning the site of Qugong and analyzed the newly found materials in Bangga and Changguogou site. Based on the available materials and 14C dating data, I here propose a primary chronological framework in Central Tibet and revealed the cultural affiliations of Central Tibet with Central Asia, as well as the cultural...
Material Engagement and the Incarceration Experience at Amache (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Diverse and Enduring: Archaeology from Across the Asian Diaspora" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Biennially field school students, researchers, and community members assemble at the Granada Relocation Center (Amache) for a five week field season culminating in a two day community open house. This diverse group surveys, excavates, and discusses the historical events surrounding the incarceration of Japanese...
Material Properties, Sensory Experience, and Production Techniques in Early Chinese Bronze Casting (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Craft and Technology: Knowledge of the Ancient Chinese Artisans" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The extraordinary bronze ritual vessels of Shang- and Zhou-period China were produced by casting in multi-part ceramic molds. Laboratory analysis of casting-mold fragments has found that these molds were made from an unusual ceramic material—a paste that was quartz-rich, clay-poor, highly porous, and therefore quite unlike...
The Materiality of Domestic Space: Indor Khera, North India, 200 BCE- 500 CE (2017)
Most State and University-sponsored excavations in India have tended to focus on public and elite spaces, in keeping with nationalistic aims of projecting a grandiose view of the past. This has led to the inevitable marginalization of non-elite domestic spaces. One of the few cases of household archaeology in the Indian subcontinent has come from Indor Khera in the Upper Ganga Plains in northern India. Archaeological data recovered during the excavations has given valuable information on the...
Materializing Nationhood: the Many Roles of Built Landscape Management Policy in Post-Partition India and Pakistan (2017)
This paper discusses built landscape management policies put in place during the aftermath of the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan. It is argued that the management of out-migrant associated buildings (both monumental and residential) was influenced by three divergent goals of nationhood: (1) modernization, (2) secularism, and (3) cultural cohesion. These goals pointed towards conflicting actions. Providing shelter to millions of incoming refugees required the hasty allocation of dwelling...
Materials Processing in the Production of Ceramic Bronze-Casting Molds from the Zhouyuan area, China, c. 1100-771 BCE (2017)
The extraordinary bronze ritual vessels of Shang- and Zhou-period China were cast in multi-part ceramic molds, constructed from many individually formed mold sections. This piece-mold casting method was unique to ancient China, and an essential component of the technology appears to have been the use of a specialized type of ceramic paste to form the casting molds. This ceramic material was soft, porous, and rich in silica, making it quite unlike pottery clays in terms of composition,...
Measuring performance under sail (2009)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
Meat or Grains: Compound Specific Carbon Isotope Analysis along the Northern Edge of the Tibetan Plateau (2018)
Various foothills, oases and valleys along the north edge of the Tibetan Plateau played important roles in the process of food globalization in prehistory. These are the key corridors that brought southwest Asian animals along with the western grains into China and Chinese cereals to the West. Recent research demonstrates that broomcorn and foxtail millet (both C4 plants) were the key staple food in this region during the third and second millennium BC, but it remains unclear to what degree...
Merit Making at Ancient Bagan, Myanmar: A Consideration of Socio-Religious Entanglements and the Rise and Fall of a Classical Southeast Asian State (2017)
Much of the recent discourse surrounding the collapse of archaic states is centered on the impacts of ecoside or climate change. Driven by natural scientists and increasingly sophisticated data generation and analysis methods, such environmentally-based approaches to collapse have tended to gloss over the myriad cultural factors also involved in such severe transformations, thus inhibiting our ability to fully grasp the complexities of the collapse process in the various case studies currently...
Micro-CT Scanning with 3D Image Analysis of Pore Systems in Sherds as a Tool to Understand Performance Characteristics of Archaeological Ceramics (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Characterizing a ceramic pore system reveals information about use properties and functionality. Pores making up the system include some that are isolated and others with connections to other pores, some connected to the ceramic surface and others interior-only, and variation exists in pore size and shape and connection size and directness. The...
Micromorphology and isotopic geochemistry of the Yangguanzhai moat deposit (2017)
Geoarchaeological research conducted at the Yangguanzhai Site was tasked with identifying the composition and formation processes associated with one of the most striking features of the site, the Yangguanzhai "moat." Originally, it was hypothesized that this moat was filled with thick packages of ash related to the manufacturing of pottery at the site. Therefore, micromorphology and isotopic geochemistry were employed to further examine moat sediments. Samples collected from the moat have δ13C...
Micromorphology of Hearth Features and FTIR Analysis of Clays at Xianrendong and Yuchanyan Cave: Reconstructing Pyrotechnology and Human Behaviour Connected with the Earliest Pottery (2017)
The cave sites of Xianrendong and Yuchanyan are known for having produced the earliest pottery sherds yet discovered, respectively 20,000 cal BP and 18,600 cal BP. Both of these Chinese Upper Palaeolithic sites have been systematically sampled for radiocarbon dating and geoarchaeological analysis. Through micromorphology we identified clay lined fire features and ash lenses at both caves, revealing technological behaviour concerning pyrotechnology and the manipulation of clays in the Chinese...
Microregions and Materiality: Artifact Analysis at Panchmata, India (2017)
Regional, landscape, and spatial analyses in South Asia are often conducted at large scales in order to encompass all potential sites that share a common material culture, polity, or economic system. As these analyses often overlap with culture history designations and simultaneously span multiple geographic and environmental conditions, they can obscure material diversity and human-environment relations. This paper carefully considers scale of analysis and argues that microregions, small areas...
Microscopic Analysis of Sherds from Pit H85 (2017)
H85 is the largest pit discovered in the north-central area of Yangguanzhai. In 2014 the archaeological team took sherd samples from the 12 layers excavated up to that point. Where possible, the team took one sherd from each of the colors grey, red, and beige as well as both fine, levigated texture and coarse, tempered texture from each layer. Thin sections of these sherds were produced and examined under the microscope to determine the choice of temper and other steps in the preparation of the...
Microscopic Leftovers: Exploratory Starch Grain Analysis on Ceramic Vessels from the Shangshan Culture, China. (2017)
This paper will outline trends observed in pottery technology and dietary practices of the early Holocene Shangshan Culture (11,400 to 8400 cal. B.P.) in the lower Yangtze Valley, China. The Shangshan people produced some of the earliest known fine ware, and it is hypothesized that communities engaged in the low-level production of rice, which began the process of domesticating this crucial cereal. To date, the nature of pottery use and rice consumption at Shangshan sites remains partially...
Microstratigraphic Investigation of Nomadic Pastoral Campsites in Eastern Mongolia (2017)
Since the origins of domestication, pastoral societies have been an exceptional example of adaptation and resilience. In recent years, studies focusing on herbivore faecal remains have shown the importance of these remains and their implication for identifying socio-economic activities. Here we present a multi-proxy examination of these deposits for an accurate identification of herds penning. We use micromorphology of soil sediments and stable isotopes analysis combined with archaeology and...
Middle Pleistocene Lifeways in the Azraq Oasis, Jordan (2017)
This introductory paper to the session on research underway at the Shishan Marsh I site in the Azraq Oasis, Jordan presents an overview of the results of our paleoenvironmental, faunal, lithic and site formation analyses. A model of targeted and repeated use of the marsh is suggested. These results are situated within their historic and regional contexts and their implications for understanding the capabilities of Middle Pleistocene hominins are also considered.
A Middle Yangshao Cemetery of the Yangguanzhai Settlement (2017)
In order to better understand the moated settlement of Yangguanzhai (ca. 5300-4800 B.P.) in the Wei River Valley of China, the archaeological team surveyed east of the moated area in 2015. A large number of pit burials with side chambers were found. The cemetery is so far the first known adult cemetery of this period (Miaodigou Phase of Yangshao Culture). Based on C14 dating and funerary goods, the cemetery is contemporaneous with the Yangguanzhai settlement. This discovery provides important...
Migrant and Diaspora Communities in Ancient Kutch and Saurashtra (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Seeing Migrant and Diaspora Communities Archaeologically: Beyond the Cultural Fixity/Fluidity Binary" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Two categories of archaeological sites have been identified in the third and second millennia CE Saurashtra, viz. Indus and Local Chalcolithic, a distinction based on architecture, artifacts, nature, and the location of settlements. So far, the constructed narrative has been framed in...
Migration and Isolation in the Okhotsk Tradition of Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands (2017)
Northern people are known for epic migrations such as the Pleistocene colonization of Eurasian Arctic and Movement into North America as well as multiple migration episdoes across the North American Arctic in the late Holocene. In this paper we look at the subarctic Sea of Okhotsk region and patterns of mobility within the Okhotsk tradition from 500-1300 C.E. Using lead (Pb) and strontium (Sr) isotopes, we reveal unexpected differences in lifetime stationary residence vs. relocation of...
Millets and Rice on the Move: Adaptive Strategies in the Past and Future (2017)
A growing tradition of archaeobotanical research, one that was pioneered by Steven Weber, is allowing us to form a picture of how millets and rice spread into Southeast Asia. Although rice continues to play an important role in the diet in this area, the use of millet has been slowly forgotten. These two different crops have been alternatively seen as a "cultural package" that coincided with the spread of farmer populations from Southern China, or adaptations to different ecological or climatic...