Asia: East Asia (Geographic Keyword)
151-175 (276 Records)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Food and Foodways: Emerging Trends and New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological and ethnographic data indicates that East and Southeast Asian cuisines have long been characterized by diverse boiling and steaming repertoires and techniques. These practices and resulting flavors and texture of foods are imbued with rich sociocultural meanings. This paper explores charred food...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Mongol Trappings: Analysis of Archaeological Leather from Northern Mongolia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this study, we examined leather excavated from the Mongol period (1206-1368) cemetery of Dood Tsakhir located in Khuvsgul province, Mongolia. This cemetery had been looted in the recent past, yet there was quite good preservation. Leather fragments from clothing, footwear, and tools were recovered and analyzed using ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass...
Multi-Proxy Analysis of Sea Lion Hunting in the Northwestern Pacific (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Around the Pacific Rim sea lions have served as a valuable food source for coastal communities throughout the Holocene and as a globally valued product in the expanding Eurasian and American colonial and imperial trade networks of the past few centuries. In this talk I discuss the hunting of both Japanese and Steller sea lions in the northwestern Pacific....
Neolithic Pigs and People along China's Fertile Arc: Regional Expression and Domestication (2018)
The foothills of mountain chains along river catchments, or "Hilly Flanks", have repeatedly been shown to be key to understanding the origins of agriculture throughout Eurasia. During the Neolithic, sites in the northern part of China’s Fertile Arc (see Ren et al. 2016)—showing the the earliest evidence of the cultivation of Chinese Millets—are situated along China's own "Hilly Flanks". In contrast, southern sites along the Arc cultivating rice, are located in a diverse array of landforms...
Neolithic Resource Use and Adaptation in the Eastern Gobi Desert: A Functional Analysis of Axes and Adzes (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Flaked and ground stone axes and adzes first appeared in the eastern Gobi Desert at 8.0 cal BP and were incorporated into the technological package. At the same time, changes in local ecological conditions reflect a transition from continuous grass/shrub-steppe across the Mongolian Plateau to the development of dispersed patches of dune-field...
A New Approach to the Anyang Hsi-Pei-Kang Late Shang Royal Cemetery: A Social Archaeological Perspective (2018)
This presentation argues that the decision of the locations of the so-called royal tombs of the Anyang Hsi-Pei-Kang cemetery involved various social-strategic concerns. Although badly robbed, the excavations of the tombs yielded rich grave good assemblages, allowing archaeologists to approach to various elements of the theocratic authority of the late Shang kings. The reconstruction of the formation process of the cemetery has been attempted in the hope that the tombs can be assigned to the...
New Approaches to Jomon Dogu: Case Studies from Eastern and Western Japan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Issues in Japanese Archaeology (2019 Archaeological Research in Asia Symposium)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents a study of the clays used in the manufacture of ceramic figurines, or dogu, from the Jomon period of Japanese archaeology. Analyses of clays in dogu from sites in Niigata (eastern Honshu) and Okayama (western Honshu) using a handheld XRF machine will be discussed in the context of...
New Discovery of a Special Site of Liao and Jin Dynasties (907-1234 A.D.) in Jilin Province at Northeast China (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Around 2010, an ancient site was confirmed in the west area of Jilin Province at northeast China, which named Chun-Na-Bo Site Group (春捺钵遗址群). Without any systematical archaeological research, it was considered to have something to do with the Spring Fishing and Hunting Trip of the Emperors of Liao and Jin Dynasties. From 2013-2018, we carried out a lot of...
A New Discovery of a Tang Dynasty Cemetery in the Eastern Suburb of Xi’an (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Pan-Eurasian Exchange of Crops and Objects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Between August 2017 and December 2018, more than one thousand Tang dynasty tombs had been found in the eastern suburb of Xi’an by Xi’an Institute of cultural relics protection and archaeology. Abundant important antiquities were uncovered, including Persian style silverwares, sliver...
New Discovery of Plant Remains in The West of Tibet (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Pan-Eurasian Exchange of Crops and Objects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2017, one grain and 24 spikelets of barley and other prestigious burial objects were found in the No. 2 tomb which is located at Gepa Serul cemetery, Zanda, Tibet, Chian (the region of the upper reaches of Indus River). Up to now, Gepa Serul cemetery is the earliest known in western...
A New Hypothetical Framework of Understanding the Evolution of Agriculture in the Lower Yangzi Region (2018)
Although a number of studies in recent years have contributed fresh knowledge to our understanding of the origins and development of agriculture in the Lower Yangzi, updated data have made this issue even more complicated. The empirical evidence shows very little information about any hunter-gatherers who might have lived in this area and indicates that, 10,000 years ago, humans first appeared here as successful resource managers or niche constructors. The human ecosystem characterized by...
New Insights into Bronze Age Ceramic Production in Northwestern China: Petrographic Analysis of Qijia and Shajing Materials from the Andersson Collections (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The late Neolithic to late Bronze Age periods (ca. 2300–400 BCE) in what is now northwestern China was a time of significant technological and social change. Based on limited excavation and survey, it has been suggested that major changes took place in subsistence technologies, including a potential shift from sedentary farming to mobile herding, as...
A New Perspective on the Ore Source Supply and Potential Provenience of Han Bronzes from the Broader Lingnan Region (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous lead isotopic studies have noted significant shifts in the choice of ore sources for Western Han bronzes, coinciding with the expansion of the imperial network. While existing literature has highlighted the prevalence of ore sources from the Eastern Qinling region during this era, the importance of ore sources from the broader southern frontiers,...
New Research Directions in the Archaeology and Linguistic History of the Hokkaido Ainu (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Issues in Japanese Archaeology (2019 Archaeological Research in Asia Symposium)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research in Hokkaido since the 1980s has amassed a body of data related to ancestral Ainu material culture, settlement, chronology, and subsistence. Palaeoethnobotanical data have been instrumental in conceptualizing the Satsumon and Ainu as populations with a complex history that included dry-field...
Niche Construction of Coastal Farming: Archaeobotanical Approach at the Gungokri Site (150 BCE–400 CE) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Social and Environmental Interactions on Coasts and Islands in Korea" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines niche construction and traditional ecological knowledge that was sustained over 550 years along the southern coast in Korea with an example from the Gungokri site. Traditional subsistence method along the coast and islands in Korea was based on a combination of farming and fishery, and we found this...
Nomadic Identity: The Origins of a Multiethnic Empire in Mongolia. (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Cooperative Bodies: Bioarchaeology and Non-ranked Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Little is known about the ethnic composition of early nomadic populations in Mongolia. Archaeological and historical research have concentrated on the Xiongnu (209 BC-93 AD) and Mongol (1206-1368) time periods. The period in between is known as the period of disunion, characterized by fragmented states and foreign dynasties....
The Northern Wei Temple Layout at the Yungang Grottoes in China and East-West Cultural Exchange (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Thoughts on Current Research in East Asian Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite its critical role as a source for restoration works on Buddhist temples and pagoda, the Buddhist sites located in the upper plot of the Yungang Cave(雲岡石窟) have not been sufficiently studied. In this paper, location of sites and full information acquired through field trip and excavation data are presented. In particular,...
On the Origins of Metalworking in China: Technology and Art (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The “independent invention versus diffusion” argument remains undecided regarding the inception—or rather inceptions—of copper-based metallurgy in China. The intriguing course leading to the substantial rise of a distinctive metallurgical tradition that can be confidently called “Chinese” was probably too perplexing to be explained by a single theoretical...