East/Southeast Asia (Geographic Keyword)
151-175 (499 Records)
The emergence of walled town settlements of the late Neolithic middle Yangzi River region are widely associated with the development of a complex form of social organization. While significant attention has focused on the structure and organization of individual walled settlements, little is known about the nature of social and economic interactions between communities. To address this issue, I combined geochemical analysis of pottery with formal social network methods to investigate changes in...
Evaluating the Sustainability of an Angkor-Period Engineered Landscape at Koh Ker, Cambodia (2015)
Several studies have argued that the collapse of an unsustainable hydraulic network was a major factor in the abandonment of medieval Angkor (~9th to 15th centuries AD) as the capital of the Khmer civilisation. However, Angkor presents us with a great deal of uncertainty due to the spatial and temporal complexity of the archaeological remains. The Angkor-period city of Koh Ker, in contrast, provides the opportunity to study a medieval water management system whose structure and functioning can...
Evidence of Precolonial Cosmology from the Philippines (2015)
Cosmology prior to European contact has been the focus of recent research in the Philippines. The objective of this paper is to investigate cosmology practiced in the Philippines prior to the introduction of Christianity during the Spanish colonial occupation from the 16th century AD onwards. This research is significant because it will show that elements of the tripartite cosmology of past populations in the Philippines which can be traced from the Neolithic period persist until the present...
Evolution of Feasting among Jomon Societies based upon Wooden Artifacts (2017)
Cross-culturally, wooden items such as bowls, ladles and spoons play an important role as ritual offerings to deities and ancestors. Thus, they are keys to understanding feasting and ritual activities, and can provide archaeological signatures of these activities. This paper explores evolution of feasting among Jomon societies focused on the analysis of wooden artifacts. The analysis is based on three sources of information: 1) temporal and spatial distribution; 2) stylistic analysis; and 3)...
The Evolution of the Qijia Culture and its contacts with other cultures (2015)
The Qijia culture originated in Loess Plateau of East Gansu and rose to a dominant culture in the vast region of present Gansu and Qinghai with its territory stretching as far as Huanghe hetao area, Guanzhong Plain and NW Sichuan. Its consistence and continuity in material culture offers great scope for archaeological research into its varying material manifestations. This article takes a comparative approach to enhance our understanding of the evolution of the Qijia culture and its contacts...
An Examination of Anthropogenic Burning in Old Kiyyangan Village, Ifugao (2017)
The rapid expansion of the Old Kiyyangan Village (OKV) in Ifugao, Philippines was accompanied by population increase and a shift in crop production—from taro to wet-rice. Archaeological excavations at OKV have also uncovered larger-than-expected quantities of wood charcoal that likely represent burning episodes associated with this shift. Preliminary analysis of the distribution of wood charcoal indicates that specific locations within the OKV were for anthropogenic burning practices. Moreover,...
Exotic beads and jar burials: social elaboration in the Old Kiyyangan Village, Ifugao, Philippines (2017)
Trade and interaction are linked to the development of social ranking among premodern societies, indications for which are seen on mortuary practices, particularly on the existence of exotic burial goods. Our excavations at Old Kiyyangan Village (OKV) in the northern Philippine highlands feature in-utero and infant ceramic jar burials with associated grave goods, primarily beads. The investigations reported in this presentation looks at the relationship between both the quality and quantity of...
Exotic or Familiar? : Exploring the Multi-directionality of Cultural Influence of Asian Porcelain in the late 17th- early 19th-century Dutch sites in Banten, Indonesia (2016)
This paper explores the roles of Chinese and Japanese porcelain excavated at the Dutch East India Company forts built in the Sultanate of Banten, Java, Indonesia and raises the questions of how to interpret Asian porcelain in European-related sites in Asia. The paper pays particular attention to the multi-directionality of cross-cultural influence and the assumed exoticness of Asian porcelain to European consumers. In 1596, the first Dutch expedition in the East Indies went to the Sultanate of...
Expanding frontier and building the sphere in the western deserts (2017)
During the early and middle Holocene the deserts of Mongolia and northern China were characterized by arid grasslands and numerous lakes and wetlands. Specialized wetland exploitation defined land-use during this period, but more detailed data on subsistence is not clear. The prevalent use of microlithic technology and the lack of architectural structures underscores the presumption that these groups were highly mobile hunter-gatherers, but increasing evidence reveals that pastoralism spread...
Experimental Research Concerning the Production of Early Holocene Ostrich Shell Beads at the Shui Donggou Site, Ningxia, China. (2015)
The appearance of art is an important development in behavioral modernity. In this paper we address the production of early Holocene ostrich eggshell beads. Such beads have been found in many Chinese late Paleolithic sites and also the early Holocene site of Shui Donggou. The study of these ancient beads will help us to better understand early craft production and the role art played in the development of society. In this paper, we present the results of our experimental ostrich shell bead...
An Experimental Study of Lithic Use-wear Multi-stage Formation (2015)
Use-wear analysis has become an essential method for the functional study of lithic artifacts from archaeological assemblages. However, research concerning multi-stage use-wear formation is poorly developed. In this paper, we report the results of an experimental study focusing on flake scar patterns, rounding and polish formation in multiple stages. For comparative data and interpretation, nine cases of single working tasks were undertaken on scraping bone with Onondaga chert from Ontario Lake....
Exploring human-animal relations among the Okhotsk Culture in northern Japan (2017)
This paper investigates long-term human-animal interactions among Okhotsk cultures in Hokkaido, northern Japan. The Okhotsk Culture were maritime foragers and traders who expanded out from the Amur into Hokkaido and Sakhalin Island from about AD 600, with many of their distinctive traits and practices such as elaborate bear ceremonialism and other hunting rituals persisting into the historic Ainu cultures. Our ongoing research aims to understand the origins, spatiotemporal variability and...
Exploring the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic: New results from Seram Island, Indonesia (2016)
The Island Southeast Asian Neolithic remains a controversial archaeological construction. Traditional theories explain the appearance of pottery, domestic plants and animals in the region about 3500 years ago as the result of migrations from Taiwan and SE China. Archaeological and genetic data collected in the past decade do not fit well with those theories, and scholars have begun to investigate new explanations. One area of renewed focus is in the relationship between fishing and farming at...
Exploring the multiple pathways towards agriculture within China, the case for rice and millets. (2015)
Studies of evolutionary change within selected traits for rice indicate a period of interaction from the cultivation of morphologically wild plants (Oryza rufipogon) to the eventual farming of domesticated rice (Oryza sativa ssp. japonica) that lasted around 3000 years. The shift from the collecting of wild foods to dependence on cultivation was equally protracted. While rice was likely taken into cultivation in a number of areas across China it is only in the Lower Yangtze between 6000 to 3000...
Exploring the social structure of Kunming Yangfutou cemetery, Yunnan, Southwestern China (2015)
Dian is the most important polity from Warring States to Western Han period in the Dian Lake area of Yunnan, southwestern China. Except sparse records in Shiji, Hanshu and Huayangguozhi, our understanding of Dian all comes from archaeological discoveries, especially those large and complex cemeteries. Since 1950’, archaeologists excavated many important Dian cemeteries including Jinning Shizhaishan, Jiangchuan Lijiashan, Chenggong Tianzimiao, Qujing Batatai, Chengjiang Jinlianshan and Kunming...
Fallow Management and the Origins of Swidden Agriculture in the Tropics (2015)
This paper considers the idea that the origin of swidden agriculture in the tropics arose from long-term practices of fallow management. In various forms, these ideas have been expressed before (particularly in South America), though swidden systems are normally thought of as being introduced into mainland and island Southeast Asia along with rice and taro ‘agriculture’ from southern China. This paper suggests instead that certain ‘domesticates’ may have been integrated into a pre-existing...
Farming as a dominant subsistence strategy? : Organic geochemical analyses on potsherds from prehistoric Korean peninsula (2015)
This study attempts to understand prehistoric human subsistence in Korean peninsula using organic geochemical analyses on potsherds. Organic geochemical analyses strive to be precise about the types of food groups that were processed within a pot by attempting to isolate and identify the specific organic compounds trapped in the fabric of its wall or adhering to its surface in residues. Traditionally, the transition from foragers to farmers in the central part of the Korean peninsula has been...
Farming vs. Herding: Subsistence Practice during the Late Neolithic Evidenced by Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotopes in Shengedaliang, North Shaanxi, China (2017)
In order to explore subsistence patterns in northern Shaanxi Province around 4,000 BP, human and animal bones from the Shimao, Zhaimouliang, Shengedaliang, Huoshiliang, and Muzhuhzuliang sites were sampled for stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratio analysis. The results show that most people primarily subsisted on C4 resources, e.g. millet and millet-related animal products, despite the fact that there was some intake of C3 plants by some individuals. Stable nitrogen isotope values indicate...
Faunal management and human-landscape interactions at Ifugao, Luzon, Philippines (2017)
One major contribution of the Ifugao Archaeological Project in the northern Philippines (Luzon) is associating the origins of the Ifugao wet-rice terrace complex with local resistance against Spanish colonial expansion. With the establishment of wet-rice agriculture in the highlands by the early 17th century, it is anticipated that the acquisition and management of fauna would have been modified to adapt to new strategies of crop production. In this context, it is hypothesized that changes in...
Faunal remains from the Yangguanzhai site (2017)
Over several seasons of excavation, a large quantity of faunal remains have been unearthed from the Yangguanzhai site. These remains were all collected systematically by excavation unit and have been carefully measured and identified by taxon. The analysis of these remains indicates the presence of at least 11 species, including fresh water shellfish (Unio douglasiae), pheasant, crane, dog, domestic pig, roe deer, spotted deer, red deer, and cattle. The presence of some of these species suggests...
Feast as a Farming ‘Technique’ – Ethnohistorical Case Studies from Amami and Yaeyama Islands, Japan (2017)
Since the role of feast as a calendar marker for farming communities was proposed by Bender in 1970s, ‘practical’ roles of feasts in production systems have been debated. In this paper, I argue that feasts can also considered as a farming 'technique' because they can substantially enable regular and continuous farming production by motivating and obliging people for the production, particularly in settings unfavorable for cultivation. In Japan, the southern Amami and Yaeyama Islands were...
Feasting from the Early to Middle Jomon Period Deduced from Seed Impressions on Pottery (2017)
Seed impressions of cultigens have been recovered from pottery of the early to middle Jomon periods in the central highland of Honshu and the western Kanto district of Japan. These include such cultigens as Perilla fructescens introduced from China and Azuki bean (Vigna angularis) and Soy bean (Glycine max) domesticated in Japan. They often occur in large numbers and are also found even in clay figurines (Dogu). I found that the seeds exist not only on pottery surfaces, but also within pottery...
Feeding ecology of the Okhotsk hunter-gather-fishers estimated by stable isotope analysis (2017)
Hamanaka-2 site in the Rebun Island, Hokkaido, Japan provides a good faunal assemblage made by Epi-Jomon and Okhotsk hunter-gatherer-fishers. In this study, we reconstruct feeding ecology of the Okhotsk hunter-gatherer-fishers by applying the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to faunal and human remains from the Hamanaka-2 site. As a result of the analysis, Okhotsk humans were at the highest trophic level among the mammals, domesticated dogs indicated the similar but slightly lower...
A Field Processing Model that Accounts for the Cost of Home Labor (2016)
Hunter-gatherer and subsistence farmer populations frequently make decisions regarding field processing when collecting resources away from a central base. These decisions can have a profound influence on the relative abundance of items in archaeological assemblages if systematic biases exist in the propensity for particular goods to be field processed. An influential and productive framework for understanding field processing decisions is the model formulated by Metcalfe and Barlow. In this...
Finding Buddha: Hi-tech approach to the study of Buddhist transition at the Angkorian center of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, Cambodia (10th to 16th c. CE) (2017)
The Two Buddhist Towers Project seeks to identify material culture evidence of the important shift from Mahayana to Theravada Buddhism during the decline of the Angkorian Khmer Empire. At the regional center of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, also known as Bakan, the most representative iconography, found for example at the Tower of Preah Thkol and the temple of Prasat Stoeng, shows the religious foundations of Mahayana Buddhism, which was probably practiced at the site since its inception. On the...