East/Southeast Asia (Geographic Keyword)
401-425 (499 Records)
Archaeological plant residue analysis has developed considerably in China during the last ten years. In terms of the Paleolithic, state of the art technology has been broadly and successfully applied by archaeologists at various sites. Issues about stone tool function, plant use, the origin of agriculture and the like can now be deeply discussed with the direct evidence of residues from stone artifacts. This is the case for either chipped stone or ground stone tools. However, this technology...
Resistance through Ritual Feasts: The Role of Domesticated Pigs (Philippine Sus scrofa) in Ifugao’s Fight against Spanish Colonialism (2017)
Successful resistance against a colonizing power involves effective martial organization and a complex polity. Due to violence and diseases, established polities in the Americas and the Philippines were devastated following Spanish conquest. Nevertheless, several groups have been documented as actively resisting conquest by establishing settlements in remote mountainous settlements. In the Philippines, scholars have suggested that Spanish conquest of the Magat Valley urged the Ifugao to...
Resolving Patterns in Radiocarbon Data (2017)
Radiocarbon is one of the most widely used chronological tools in archaeology but resolving patterns in large datasets is still difficult to achieve. This is partly due to the calibration process which itself generates patterns reflecting the changes in the radiocarbon levels within the environment. In addition, in many cases, the difficulty in obtaining sufficient numbers of measurements to draw definitive conclusions can be an issue and there is always the danger of...
Resources, technology, and distribution: a discussion on models of early bronze production in China (2017)
This presentation tries to provide several models to capture major shifts of the bronze production system in the China's Bronze Age. The earliest evidence of bronze production was found in the Yellow River Valley dated to 2,500 BC. But during 2,500 – 1,900 BC, most products were small bronzes cast by two-part molds. Copper or arsenic bronze products made by hammering also existed but no evidence proves tin bronze technique was yet invented. Around 2,300 BC, political entities in the middle...
RETHINKING BURIAL PRACTICE IN QIJIA CULTURE (2015)
Mortuary data is one of the few now available tools we have to understand Chinese late neolithic culture of Qijia. With the exception of Lajia site, the most famous and best investigated sites are cemeteries, scattered throughout the regions of Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia in Northwest China. The data they revealed has been a long time source for Chinese archaeologists in the attempt of reconstructing the social organisation of the time, often putting too much emphasis on only certain type of...
Rethinking Local Differences in Burial Customs in the Final Jomon Period (2017)
Previous studies have discussed burial customs and society of the Kamegaoka culture in the final Jomon period (around 3200 to 2500 cal BP) as a single unit of similar local societies in the northern Tohoku district, extending around 220 km from north to south and around 180 km from east to west. In contrast, geographical clustering with delaunay triangulation, my new spatial analysis using GIS, reveals local scale differences in burial customs in terms of shapes of burial pits, grave goods and...
Reverse Engineering China's Terracotta Army through Morphometric and Spatial Analyses (2017)
Built in the 3rd century BC, the Mausoleum of China’s First Emperor is one of several very large known constructions commissioned by early states and empires. Understanding the craft processes and production organisation behind such constructions is informative to historians of technology but also as a potential indicator of wider institutional practices for the management of labour, materials and knowledge, which may facilitate comparisons between different states. The lack of associated...
Rice Terraces as Defensive Structures: Landscape Modeling in Hapao, Ifugao (2015)
This paper investigates the potential defensive functions of rice terrace construction in Ifugao, Philippines, through an exploration of how landscape analysis and 3D modeling might contribute to established archaeological and ethnographic understandings of the region. While still under debate, a growing body of archaeological evidence suggests that the settlement of the Ifugao highlands and the development of intensive rice terrace farming may have been a strategy for avoiding political...
Ritual and Mobility: δ18O and δ13C analyses of Bronze Age khirigsuur horses from Khanuuy Valley, Mongolia (2015)
Khirigsuurs are large stone burial and ritual monuments that served as stages for group activities and social negotiation during the Late Bronze Age (c.1300-700 BC) in Mongolia. Animal remains were routinely interred in satellite mounds associated with primary burial features, in particular the heads and extremities of horses, and often in great numbers. The question remains, however, whether horses selected for interment in khirigsuur satellites were from local or distant herds. Here, we...
Ritual animal use of "Qijia Cultural", evidence from Mogou Cemetery, Lintan County, Gansu province, China (2015)
Animal bones were frequently recovered from burials at the Mogou site. Researchers commonly assumed that they were related to specific ritual or sacrificial activities. With application of different zooarchaeological methods and approaches to the animal bones recovered from burials at mogou, this study attempt to understand human behaviour patterns behind this phenomenon, and how they change through times. Pig mandibles were recovered in large quantities from Mogou cemetery. With detailed...
Ritual Landscapes in Prehistoric China (2016)
In China, rock art is often found in areas considered peripheral to the so-called cradle of Chinese civilization. However, its patterns of landscape and space use are not remarkably different from those of established religions or political institutions whose artistic production in the landscape is generally not understood as “rock art”. Historic Taoist or Buddhist rock carvings and Confucian cliff inscriptions are also associated with travel routes (land, sea or river) or remarkable landscape...
The Ritual Systerm of the Zhongli King's Bronzes (2015)
Since the Zhongli King's tomb in Anhui (China) was excavated in 2013, various types of bronze artifact were found which can be sourced to different regions in the Late-Chunqiu period. Through examning these bronzes, this article is going to analyze where they were coming from, how they were arranged into the tomb and what kind of ritual systerm the Zhongli King was referring to, which accordingly would be helpful to get a better understanding of the exotic funeral structure of this tomb. It can...
The 'Ritualization' of Comma-Shaped Magatama Beads from the Jōmon to Yayoi Periods in Japan (2016)
Comma-shaped magatama beads in their 'archaic' forms and materials first appeared in the Early Jōmon period (ca. 5000 BC) in Japan, and in their 'standardized' form and material became a major component of grave goods for the elite burials that began to be constructed from the Yayoi period (ca. 400 BC) onward. The contexts in which magatama beads recently excavated at Early/Middle Jōmon sites have been found indicate that they were most likely ordinary body ornaments for everyday use. Their...
The Role of Iron Weaponry and Martial Ideology in the Political Consolidation of Early Japan (2015)
In addition to their functional role as military implements, weapons can also serve as material representations of martial ideology. Research on weapons burials must therefore take into consideration the multifaceted nature of weaponry within a society. During the majority of Japan's Kofun period (mid-3rd century to early-7th century), the archipelago relied on the importation of finished iron products and raw iron materials from the Korean Peninsula. This formed an intimate connection between...
Roman Glass beads found in Hulunbir，Inner Mongolia,China. (2017)
In this study, we present some sandwich glass beads found in Hulunbir，Inner Mongolia,China. According to the chemcial analysis, these beads are also soda-lime glass with very low Al, Mg and K contents. And the beads are transparent which is due to the Mn2+ decourling techinic was used. Compared with the data published, the beads were much likely from the area ruled by Roman Empire.
The Roots of the Modern Anthropocene: The Yellow River Valley, China, 5000-2000 BP (2015)
I use geoarchaeological data to argue that human activity in the late Holocene transformed the environments of the Yellow River, China, into an anthropogenic landscape and that these changes altered China’s history. Ancient China provides a critical case study for understanding how economic intensification, demographic change, technological innovation, and political centralization combine to create the roots of the modern Anthropocene. The Yellow River-- known as "China’s Sorrow"—is seen as a...
Salt and Salt Fermented Fish in Northeast Thailand, Prehistory to the Present (2015)
Using an ethnoarchaeological approach, this paper examines the production, processing, storage and consumption of salt and salt fermented fish products In the Mun River Valley of Northeast Thailand, and the greater Mekong Delta region. It highlights the regional specialization in these products from prehistory to the present, and explores how the study of foodways can help us to understand the nature of the early-political economy, as well as aspects of cultural and social identity, both in the...
Settlement Archaeology in Southeast China during the Han Dynasty: Limitations and Approaches (2015)
As with other regions of China with limited settlement evidence, our understanding of life and developments in Lingnan (present-day Guangdong and Guangxi) during the Han dynasty relies in large part on contemporary texts and burial evidence – over 3000 Han dynasty graves have been identified to date in Lingnan. Although a number of non-funerary sites are now known, they offer only limited information about internal organization and function, the exception being the impressive Nanyue palace in...
Settlement configuration and social structure：Applying spatial comparative analysis in Old-Kucapungane (2017)
This article aims to examine the differences of social structure revealed (1) by the interpretations of the archaeological record through spatial analysis and, (2) by the data obtained through ethnographic research, both for same ethnic group. Applications of spatial technologies in archaeology began in the early 1980s. Although these GIS-based technologies brought about new research perspectives, their ‘effectiveness’ and ‘correctness’ needs more in-depth investigations. Using Old-Kucapungane...
The Settlement Remains of Sanxingdui -- A Preliminary Study of Chronology and Site Development (2015)
From its initial discovery in 1929, much research has been conducted on the site of Sanxingdui, making it the most famous and most important Bronze Age site in all of Sichuan if not Southwest China. While the sacrificial pits with their singular bronze objects have already been discussed in great detail by many scholars, the settlement of Sanxingdui, its structure and development are still poorly understood. Based on a consideration of the stratigraphic sequence and comparative analysis of the...
Sex and Gender in Southeast Asian Rock Art: Case Studies from Borneo (2017)
Multiple indigenous and intrusive Borneo rock art (the additive or reductive human modification of naturally fixed-in-place stone) traditions depict figures and abstract designs that can be interpreted as sexed/gendered. Dating from the terminal Pleistocene through modern period, these images are an untapped source of archaeological information regarding the roles and interactions of the biological sexes and culturally constructed and ascribed genders. This paper uses rock art to identify and...
Shifting Mobility Strategies in Neolithic and Bronze Age Mongolia (2017)
Mobility is a central part of the contemporary, traditional, historical and prehistorical economic strategies employed by hunters and pastoralists in Mongolia. While mobility is often contrasted with sedentism, there is much variation within the practice of "mobility" and how it is employed. Residential and logistical mobility are often used heuristics to discuss variations in mobility. A critical application of these terms to the archaeological record of Northern Mongolia illustrates their...
Shimao: the Prehistoric Pioneer of Rising States in Northern China (2017)
In ancient China, a number of ethnic groups and polities rose and declined in northern China. The competition and wars between these frontier polities and Central-Plain dynasties occurred frequently in Chinese history. A series of new archaeological discoveries in recent years have revealed that Shimao was the first state-level society emerging in northern China. The Shimao social group was mainly distributed in the Ordos region, where the social complexity experienced a leaping development in...
Sichuan Life Styles – Traditions and Adaptations in Prehistoric Architecture and Settlement Structure (2015)
Neolithic Sichuan formed a crossroad for influences from the north associated with millet agriculture and from the east associated with the growing of rice. But how did the different traditions of habitation of the Upper Yellow River in the north and the Middle Yangzi River as well as the Three Gorges in the east affect the situation in Sichuan and what role did adaptation to the local environment play? This is a survey of prehistoric architecture and settlement structure in Sichuan and an...
Sites, survey, and ceramics: a GIS-based approach to modeling early prehistoric settlement patterns in the Upper Mun River Valley, Northeast Thailand (2015)
Recently, a series of intensive pedestrian surveys were conducted in the Upper Mun River Valley, northeast Thailand to examine prehistoric and historic settlement patterns at an intermediate scale. This paper will focus on the early prehistoric (1650 – 420 BC) finds, in particular evidence of Neolithic (1650 – 1050 BC) occupation. Our results indicate that during the early prehistoric period, site density was unexpectedly high, but settlement integration was weak; site sizes varied greatly and...