Republic of India (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
401-425 (706 Records)
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...
Metallurgical Traditions of a Mongolian Habitation Site (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Steppe by Steppe: Advances in the Archaeology of Eastern Eurasia" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Two models are employed to explain iron objects in assemblages from nomadic peoples of Mongolia. One argument posits that pastoralists imported Chinese iron objects, and when they practiced metallurgy, used methods learned from Chinese craftsmen. Another model, notably argued for by Jang-Sik Park, suggests that nomads...
Metallurgy in the Arc: Technological Choice and Resource Management Strategy during the Late Shang Period (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Resources and Society in Ancient China" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of the Arc, proposed in 1980s by Tong Enzheng and further developed by J. Rawson in the last 10 years, refers to the vast landscape stretching from northeast to southwest China. Its unique geography incorporates both pastoralism and agriculture, vital to the communication between the Eurasian Steppe to the Central Plains of China in...
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...
MicroCT Analysis Reveals Beginning of Rice Domestication in the Lower Yangtze Valley during the Tenth Millennium BP (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Lower Yangtze valley is widely recognized as the earliest center of rice agriculture. The process of rice domestication, based on the morphology of spikelet bases, has been traced to between 9000 and 5000 BP. However, the domestication status of rice before 9000 BP remains a subject of debate due to the near absence...
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...
The Mind of an Artisan in Early China: A Museum Collection Study (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. This study aims to investigate the different ways artisans in early China (up to the 3rd century) learned their crafts, in order to better understand how certain types of artifacts such as pottery and bronze were made, and how new styles and designs emerged. In early China, craftsmanship was usually inherited through...
Mineral Resources and Metallurgical Technologies along the Southern Silk Road (2018)
China's southwest region has vast terrain and diverse landscape with rich mineral resources. From the bronze age to the iron age, this area existed two very obvious metallurgical technology systems, "Central Plains" and "non-Central Plains". The coexistence of two systems is not only the result of "sinification" , but also the result of the circulation of metallurgical resource and transmission of technology as social response in the mountainous environment in southwest China.
Mineralogical make-up of casting moulds and its archaeological implications for bronze making techniques in ancient China (2017)
In order to understand how bronze vessels were produced and the knowledge involved we cannot limit our study to simply the bronze vessels themselves. Thus, the analysis on bronze mold production plays a key role to our understanding of bronze vessel production. The focus in this study will be on the 155 mold fragments currently housed at the Royal Ontario Museum, originally from Anyang dated to the Shang dynasty. Petrographic analysis was utilized for this research on raw materials and how the...
Mixing Times: Excavating Shared Pasts in Contemporary India (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As material forms become central to the ongoing formulation of history and national identity in contemporary India, archaeology is acquiring an increasingly prominent place in the popular imagination. Initially motivated by the current regime’s interest in ascertaining the provenance of and recovering buildings allegedly usurped by Muslims, numerous...
Mobility, Land Use, and Technological Organization at the Site of Yangshang, Gansu, China (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The excavation in Yangshang site generated a high-resolution record in the West Loess Plateau of China, and demonstrated that ancient human occupied this region at least since MIS7. In looking for evidence of possible changes in the mobility, land use, and organization of lithic technology that may have been concurrent with the paleoenvironment changes...
Modeling the Spread of Crops across Eurasia (2017)
Understanding the routes and the timing of the spread of western Eurasia domesticates to Asia and of Asian domesticates to Europe and the Near East has become an increasing focus of research. To date, however, we have had little understanding of the types of constraints that farmers may have faced as they moved these domesticates into the challenging environments of Central Asia. The spread of many of these domesticates also took place during a time of marked climatic change. Although it has...