East/Southeast Asia (Geographic Keyword)
376-400 (499 Records)
Qijiaping in Guanghe County, Gansu Province is the type site for the Bronze Age Qijia Culture (ca. 2200-1600 BC). In July of 2016, the Tao River Archaeological Project began small-scale excavations at Qijiaping. We present a preliminary analysis of the faunal remains uncovered during these excavations. Pigs and sheep were the most commonly identified specimens. Additional identified taxa include large bovines (probably domestic cattle), dog, deer, small rodents, and an unidentified wild bovid....
Preliminary investigations of Human Remains from the Neolithic Gouwan Site in Henan China: Examples of trauma and stress (2017)
Traumatic injuries and other osseous evidence of stress are important factors that reflect the health status of past populations. Human skeletal remains excavated from the Gouwan (99 human skeletal remains in total), a Yangshao culture site (ca. 5000-3000 B.C.) in Xichuan, Henan Province were examined macroscopically for the evidence of skeletal trauma and stress using a biocultural approach. Trauma was investigated to reveal possible types, causes and rigor of activities in this sedentary...
Preliminary Research on the Bone, Antler, and Tooth Artifacts from Haminmangha Site, Inner Mongolia (2017)
The Haminmangha Neolithic site is located at Horqin Left Wulat Middle Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and dates back to 5500-5000 BP according to radiocarbon dating results. More than 100 bone, antler and tooth artifacts were unearthed from Haminmangha. These artifacts include stone knives with bone handles, bone darts, arrowheads, needle cylinders, needles, daggers, awls, and hairpins, horn, antler awls and borers, tooth ornaments and other bone and antler materials. According to the...
Preliminary Results from a Multi-Methodological Approach on a Refuse Pit from the Middle Shang Period at Huanbei (2017)
In the study of refuse pits from Bronze Age China, much effort has been invested in defining chronologies illustrated by ceramic typology, while overlooking the practices surrounding the usage of the pits. Our research is intended to capture and interpret depositional behaviors related to domestic ritual and social organization and transformation during the middle Shang period. We are presenting our preliminary results of a refuse pit (2016NEK0541H128) excavated at Huanbei (late 14th century –...
Preliminary Results from the Bioarchaeological Investigation of Human Sacrificial Victims from China's Late Shang Dynasty (2015)
Ongoing archaeological investigations at the Late Shang capital of Yinxu (ca. 1200 – 1050 BCE) in China have resulted in the location and partial excavation of thousands of sacrificial pits with an estimated 10,000 individuals interred within. Evidence of human sacrifice during this period includes contemporaneous oracle bone inscriptions, mortuary contexts, weaponry, and the skeletal remains of these individuals. We are presenting our preliminary interpretation of the osteological analysis of...
Preliminary Results from the New Excavation at the Upper Paleolithic Site of Shuidonggou Locality 2, Ningxia (China) (2017)
Shuidonggou, a site complex containing multiple Upper Paleolithic localities in Ningxia Province, China, is one of a few archaeological examples in North China that contain artifacts of a blade technology similar to those of the Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) in Mongolia and Siberia 30–40 ka. At Locality 2, the occurrence of two blade cores in the lower layers dated to ~34–41 ka; and has led the lithic industry of the locality to be separated into those of the so-called IUP and others of the...
Preliminary spatial analysis of the Middle Mumun culture's land-use pattern in southcentral region of Korea (2017)
This study investigates the land-use pattern of the Middle Mumun culture (c. 29/2800–2400 cal. BP) in south-central region of Korea from a spatial analytic perspective. By employing inter-settlement visibility analysis and geographical variable comparisons, this study explores social and environmental contexts affecting cultural decisions of the Middle Mumun people for their settlement locations. Through our analysis, we find that relationships across the Middle Mumun settlements may have...
The projectile points at the Wansan site, Neolithic Taiwan (2016)
Wansan site is one of the late Neolithic sites in Northeastern Taiwan. In 1998, due to construction a large rescue excavation was conducted at the site and huge amounts of lithic and ceramic artifacts were uncovered. Among the lithic artifacts, most are finely ground tools, including projectile points, adzes, axes, knives, etc. This poster aims to analyze one specific tool: the projectile point. Three parts of analysis are demonstrated in this poster. First, I will introduce the projectile...
Protein Modification in Fermented and Cooked Horse Milk: Taphonomic Implications for Archaeological Chemistry (2017)
Archaeological chemistry continues to expand by adopting taphonomic experimentation as a means to identify the effects of particular processes and conditions on the preservation of biomolecular remains. Analysis of ancient proteins through mass-spectrometry based proteomics requires that archaeological chemists observe and record protein modifications that occur related to processing and use behaviors. We conducted cooking and fermentation experiments using horse milk; we then assessed protein...
Proteomics for Silks: Identify and Distinguish B. mori and Other Species (2017)
Silk fibre generally known is made from a species called Bombyx mori, which was domesticated about 2,000 years ago in China. This is reared by human and the process is called sericulture. However there are other wild silk species that are not domesticated but still used in textile making. In an archaeological context, the proof of sericulture could be an index of the cultural and technological development of a location: it implies that there was a developed economy to import or produce silk—and...
Pursuing the mineral sources of Yinxu bronze objects (BC13th-BC11th): study on the lead ingots from Anyang, China (2017)
The bronze objects played a more significant role in the formation of Chinese ancient civilization than any other early civilizations, especially in late Shang and Western Zhou dynasty (BC13th-9th). So far more than 2000 bronze vessels and thousands of other type bronze objects were excavated from Yinxu, the capital of late Shang dynasty (BC13th-11th), located in Anyang, Henan province. The discussion of the mineral sources of Yinxu bronze objects last a long time because of rare ingots found in...
Putting a "human face" on prehistoric mining/metallurgical communities in the Khao Wong Prachan Valley of central Thailand (2017)
In the context of prehistoric archaeology in Thailand, metallurgy has been accorded significant attention in the literature, ranging from the origins debate to smelting technology as well as the socioeconomic contexts of copper production. An important complementary component of these discussions is seeking an improved understanding of associated human occupations. In the Khao Wong Prachan Valley (KWPV) of central Thailand, a major regional copper production center, the Thailand...
pXRF examination of Shang-Dynasty Bronzes from the Daxinzhuang site, Shandong (2017)
In this paper I present the preliminary results of pXRF analysis of Shang-Dynasty bronzes from the Daxinzhuang site (1400-1046 BC), Jinan, Shandong province. The Daxinzhuang site has been receiving considerable research interests since the 1930s, especially when the high elite burials were excavated in 2003 and 2010. Much research has been focused on these burials and the elaborate bronzes, but there has not been any research on the chemical composition and casting techniques of the bronzes from...
Radiocarbon dating of Qijiaping site in Gansu Province, China (2015)
Qijiaping site is one of the most important sites of Qijia culture. It was found by Swedish scholar J. G. Anderson in 1924 and excavated by Gan Su Museum in 1975. There are few absolute dating results been published since then. We collected more than 30 human bone and animal bone samples from the material of the 1975’s excavation. 25 radiocarbon dates were produced after the processes of sample pretreatment, preparation and AMS measurement. The result is that most of the dates give the ages not...
Raw material sources of Bronze vessel production during the Shang and Zhou dynasties (2016)
Bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties were extensively studied artefacts but how were they related to the ancient geographical landscape? By understanding how extensive the industry was and how far it had impacted the landscape we could further our knowledge on the ancient Shang and Zhou bronze casters as well as society. Bronze vessels required a variety of raw materials for its production. By looking at the ancient mines to produce bronze and the clay resources for the bronze moulds,...
Reconstructing Korean War Battlefields from Body Recovery Information (2017)
During the Chinese Spring Offensive of April and May 1951, Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces pushed United Nations troops back from their defensive lines in the Republic of Korea, with extensive casualties on both sides. Because UN forces were driven back, many of the dead were not recovered and identified until the battlefields were retaken. In some cases this occurred days after the battle, but for many it was weeks, months, or even years later. Individual Deceased Personnel Files (IDPFs) for...
Reconstructing the peopling of the deep interior of the equatorial rainforest of Kalimantan (2016)
Previous archaeological discoveries by Soejono (1977) and Chazine (2010) at Nanga Balang and Diang Kaung in the deep interior of Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) have documented human occupation there at c. 3000 BP. But sites closer to the coastline of Borneo, especially the Niah Caves in Sarawak, have yielded chronologies indicating a much greater span of late Pleistocene (50 Kya onwards) to Holocene occupation. So, did hunter-gatherer populations also exist in the deep interior of Borneo...
"Reconstructing" an archaeological landscape of NW Cambodia beyond the borders of the Greater Angkor using satellite imaging. (2015)
Prehistoric and historic societies have established the material dimension of space through either the physical alteration of the landscape or the formalised recognition of space. Although the latter aspect is rather difficult to trace archaeologically through the use of aerial images, physical modifications of the landscape are often still visible. The northern part of Tonle Sap basin were subjected to intensive survey using satellite imaging in order to identify anthropogenic adjustments on...
A reexamination of Bronze Age trans-Eurasian interactions (2017)
Bronze artifacts from different parts of the Eurasian steppe zone have been used to argue for prehistoric interactions among the societies that lived in this region during the late second and early first millennia BCE. Indeed, similarities among such artifacts as knifes and daggers with animal heads are telling. But what was the nature and intensity of such interactions and their affects on the local communities? In this paper I will address those questions by looking at specific well dated...
A Reexamination of the Terrestrial Animals Depicted on the Rock Art of Bangudae in Southern Korea: Focused on the Problems of Animal Domestication and Chronology (2015)
Many aquatic and terrestrial animals such as whales, sea lions and turtles, tigers, wild cats, deer, boars, and weasels were identified on the rock art of Bangudae, located in the southeastern part of Korean peninsula. The scenes of human figures, whale hunting, boats, and net and fence huntings are also presented. Some Korean scholars have suggested that domesticated animals such as cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, and dog appear in the rock art. This paper argues that domesticated animals do not...
Regional practice in poly-chrome painting technology in Late Neolithic China (2017)
The Yangshao phase of the Chinese Neolithic is defined by the sudden occurrence of high quality poly-chrome painted pottery in the lower Yellow River basin. In this region there is no precedence for such high quality painted pottery, suggesting it had been imported from further afield. Production origins were previously investigated through examinations of chemical composition by NAA. While this study does not demonstrate the potential origins of this pottery technology, it provided new insight...
Regional settlement responses of the Khmer Empire to environmental stress and Angkor abandonment (2015)
The Khmer Empire dominated Southeast Asia between the ninth and fifteenth century, but had all but collapsed by the time Portuguese explorers began documenting their discoveries of the jungle-strewn temple ruins over a century later. Historical sources, in conjunction with new palaeoclimatic evidence, suggests that the royal court abandoned the central and administrative city of Angkor sometime in the mid-fifteenth century and migrated south to the Phnom Penh region after (among other things) a...
Research on faunal remains at Geduijing site, Muping, Shandong Province (2017)
Animal remains excavated from Geduiding can be divided into two stages: (1) the earlier (5925-5880BP) and (2) later (5880-5530BP) periods of the Early Dawenkou Culture. In both stages, identified animals include: mollusk, fish, amphibian, bird, deer, dog, pig, raccoon dog, rabbit and rodent. Crab and sand badger are also found in the later period. The identified fauna indicate that the environment around the site did not change much in the few hundred years between the early and later periods....
Research on Faunal Remains from the 2012-2013 Season Excavation at the Shimao Site in Shenmu, Shaanxi (2017)
In 2012-2013, a large number of faunal remains were unearthed from the Shimao site in Shenmu county, northern Shaanxi Province, China. All of these faunal remains were collected scientifically according to archaeological units and were carefully classified, measured and identified. The results of sorting and analysis indicates that there are at least 15 species including the Yangtze alligator, pheasant, rat, Myospalax fontanieri, Myospalax cansus, rabbit, dog, horse, domestic pig, goat, sheep...
Research on Neolithic Settlements in the Guanglu Island and the Liaodong Peninsula, China (2017)
The Liaodong Peninsula was a hub that documented interactions across distinctive Neolithic cultures in northerneastern China and the northern Korean Peninsula. The Neolithic sites in Liaodong were neighbors with the Liao River (Liaohe) culture to its north; located across the Yellow Sea from the Huanghe culture; and were adjacent to the Chulmun Neolithic culture in Korea across the Yalu River. Thus Liaodong is a key region to understanding cultural interactions throughout the Neolithic period in...