Asia: East Asia (Geographic Keyword)
201-225 (276 Records)
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 extraction and utilization of natural resources often come with an underlying question of sustainability. At present, there are constant debates on and readjustments to how sustainability is measured. One of the biggest challenges is to establish suitable baselines to evaluate the balance between resource economies, resource availability, and...
Regional Circulation and Production of Bronze Mirrors in Han Dynasty: Focusing on Guanzhong and Jingzhou Area (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The previous study of Han bronze mirrors was mainly concerned with the diachronic change, such as the overall development in typology and the main component formula. Although there is only one Han bronze mirrors workshop found in North China at present, the regional diversity still deserves further investigation. This paper first presents a comprehensive...
Regional Sociopolitical Transformations among Complex Hunter-Gatherers: A Macroregional Approach to the Late Jomon of Central Hokkaido (2018)
This paper presents a new perspective on the study of the emergence of shuteibo (a type of communal cemetery enclosed by a circular embankment constructed during the Late Jomon) by employing a macroregional approach combining several analytical dimensions: 1) settlement pattern, 2) site scale, 3) household, 4) burials, and 4) interaction. This approach is crucial to understanding the sociopolitical evolution of community organization and status variability involved in the emergence of the...
Regionalization of Chinese Buddhist Carving in the Fifth through Seventh Centuries: Localization of Practice in the Place and Face of the Buddha (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Populations of Early Medieval China: Developing Anthropological Approaches to Historical Archaeology in China" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the course of the last two decades there have been a number of hoards of Buddhist statues excavated in Northern China. Each of these hoards contains several hundred statues of varying forms and quality. This study examines both the form and the tool marks on the statues to...
The Renewal of Remembrance and Political Order: an Example from the Late Shang, China (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The role played by the remembrance of certain events and/or individuals in the reproduction of social order and power relations has been investigated from various social archaeological perspectives. One of the important issues emerging out of this developing research area is how a specific mode of such remembrance is related to a specific mode of social/power...
Research on Materials and Manufacturing Process Used for the Imperial Inlaid Jade Lacquered Wooden Coffin from the Royal Mausoleum No.2 of the Vassal King of Jiangdu State of the Western Han Dynasty in China (2018)
The paper focuses on the characterization of material from fragmented pieces of the imperial lacquered wooden coffin excavated in Xuyi County, Jiangsu Province，whose owner was the empress of Jiangdu State in Western Han Dynasty. The samples were analyzed by scientific techniques including optical and electron microscopy, XRD, FT-IR and GS-MS. The laquer film outside consists of a seven-layer structure, which includes (from the top): a red pigmented layer, two laquer finish layers, three ground...
Resilient Herders: Continuity and Change in Pastoral Household Life in Mongolia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Empirical Approaches to Mobile Pastoralist Households" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding how human societies interacted with environmental changes is a major goal of anthropological archaeology. In this paper, we assess human-environment interactions at the household level in three regions of Mongolia during the Bronze and Iron Ages. We review shifting environmental conditions and the continuities and...
Resource Networks of Sanxingdui (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. Located in southwest China, Sanxingdui is well-known for its outstanding and unique bronzes as well as gold, jade, and other high-value artifacts. However, the origin and circulation of these precious resources have not been disclosed. The author believes that the strategic location contributed greatly to the prosperity of Sanxingdui. It was...
Resource, Transportation and the Political Landscape of the Chinese Bronze Age (2018)
The political landscape of the Chinese Bronze Age was characterized by controlling the key resource situated in the distant regions from the Luoyang Basin. The study of key natural resources and their transportation networks should therefore be an important facet of research into state formation during the Chinese Bronze Age. The extraction and transportation of key resource, and its relationship with the cultural landscape addresses the basic political framework of the states in Early China....
Resources, Technological Traditions, and Social Networks: A Study of Late Neolithic Cooking Vessels in the Lake Taihu Region (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. During the Songze cultural period, there were two distinct technological pathways for the production of pottery cooking vessels, including Ding (tripod) and Yan (steamer), used in the vicinity of Lake Taihu. In areas like southern Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Jiaxing, plant debris was commonly mixed with clay to create fiber-tempered vessels. In...
Rethinking the Variability of Cobble-Tool Industry in South China and Southeast Asia during Late Pleistocene-Holocene Transition (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. The lithic industry of South China has been characterized as simple "cobble-tool" industry persisting from early Pleistocene to Holocene and the most representative industry of Southeast Asia was also marked by pebble-tool techno-complex termed Hoabinhian during late Pleistocene-early Holocene. The possible cultural link of the...
The Rock Art of Bangudae in Southern Korea: Focused on the Problems of Whale Hunting (2018)
Many aquatic animals, such as whales, sea lions and turtles, and terrestrial animals, such as tigers, wild cats, deer, boars, and weasels, were identified on the rock art of Bangudae, located in the southeastern part of Korean peninsula. Scenes of human figures, whale hunting, boats, and net and fence hunting are also present. Some western archaeologists are suspicious about whale hunting conducted by prehistoric Korean people. They argue that there are not clear depictions at Bangudae of the...
Roots and Tubers in Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene China: Experimental Paleoethnobotany and Preliminary Case Studies (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent advances in paleoethnobotanical research reveal that plants have been critical to the human diet for longer and in more diverse ways than previously assumed. This paper addresses the relative dearth of paleoethnobotanical information on the early uses of vegetatively propagated plants in China, despite their significant representation in modern...
Sacrificial Rituals and Dietary Complexity on the Eve of State Formation: New Insights from Dental Calculus Microbotanical Analysis at the Kangjia Site in China (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 Late Neolithic Longshan culture in China witnessed profound social and political transformations, characterized by the emergence of increasing social competition, long-distance trade, and inter-polity warfare. These developments eventually culminated in the formation of the first state-level societies in the Central...
Salutary Failures: Bronze Age Metallurgists in China and Their Faulty Seams (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Crafting Culture: Thingselves, Contexts, Meanings" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Creativity and imagination are subjects which do not often appear in the archaeology of craft. Though archaeologists study innovation in relation to a craft’s technological developments and discoveries, we approach such novelties as progress bound rather than creative pursuits. Craft workers are, after all, toiling for other people in...
Scientific Analysis of Metals from the Yinsuodao Site, Yunnan Province (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research on Early Chinese Borderland Cultures and Archaeological Materials" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Up to now, the Yinsuodao site is one of the earliest Bronze Age sites known in Yunnan Province. This work will present the results of metallographic and lead isotope analyses of a number of metals discovered at this site. The metallographic studies suggest that the metal technology at Yinsuodao represents...
Searching for Cities: Problems and Solution in Tracing Han Dynasty Settlements in Nanyang and Ankang, China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Populations of Early Medieval China: Developing Anthropological Approaches to Historical Archaeology in China" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the results of technology assisted ceramic surveys, interviews, and GIS analysis undertaken in the Nanyang Basin during the summer of 2022. The Nanyang Basin has been the site of continuous human occupation for at least 5,000 years. While prehistoric sites...
The Sense of Order: Contextual Analysis of the Habitus and Social Spaces in Baiyinchanghan Neolithic Site, 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. The Baiyinchanghan site is one of the most important sites of the Xinglongwa Culture (7,500-6,500 B.P.) in NE China. By employing Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus theory, this research explores social relations and cultural ideas by studying occupants’ habitus and social spaces. The habitus and social spaces in this site are demonstrated clearly through its...
Serving Alcoholic Beverages to the Ancestors in Neolithic China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Drinking Beer in a Blissful Mood: A Global Archaeology of Beer" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. China has a long history of alcoholic production and consumption, and the earliest evidence of fermented beverages has been recovered from pottery vessels about 9,000 years ago. Many drinking vessels have been found in mortuary contexts, suggesting that alcohol was closely related to ancestral worship ritual. In this talk I...
Settlement Construction and Craft Production: Recent Discoveries at the Panlongcheng Site (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 Panlongcheng site was the largest urban settlement in the middle Yangtze River during the Xia and early Shang period (1500–1300 BC). In recent years, the joint archaeological expedition has carried out archaeological excavation at the Yangjianwan North and Wangjiazui locus of the Panlongcheng site. The new discoveries in the two loci reveal the...
Settlement Relocation and the Emergence of Early Urban Centers in the Heartland of Chinese Civilization, 2500-1600 BCE (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. Settlement patterns and social structures shifted significantly around 2500 BCE in the late Longshan era, and again around 1600 BCE when an intraregional state identified with the historical Shang dynasty evolved in the Central Plain, heartland of Chinese civilization. Our research examines the political transformation from...
Shang Soundscapes (2018)
Shang (c. 1600 – 1046 BCE) elites were expert manipulators of soundscape. The intimacy of the relationship between music and authority during Bronze Age China has been well established, bronze bells having served as crucial markers of status and political prestige. Before the codification of the ritual orchestra, however, and beyond the performance of "music" per se, soundscapes were defined by factors such as climate and local ecological context, by animals, by the noise of human activity at...
The Shangshan Culture and Agricultural Origins (2018)
The Shangshan Culture is among the first in China to be associated with at least one domesticated organism: rice (Oryza sativa). A decade of research on Shangshan is providing critical insight on events leading to Neolithic developments in the Lower Yangtze Valley. So far, some expectations are not yet confirmed: e.g., the Shangshan ancestors developed from a local Palaeolithic population, and the first farming developed in the rich lowlands. Collaborative research is documenting potential...
Shedding New Light on Upper Paleolithic Cultural Landscapes of Northern Mongolia (2018)
Ongoing research on the Pleistocene of northern Mongolia has revealed intriguing patterns in the Upper Paleolithic cultural landscapes of the region. The distribution of sites suggest that maintaining social networks was potentially as significant as subsistence and shelter considerations for these early nomadic hunter-gatherers. In 2017, fifteen new Upper Paleolithic sites were documented in the Ikh Tolboriin Gol (Big Tolbor River, n=45) and Naryn Tolboriin Gol (Narrow Tolbor River, n=9)...
Shell Midden Formation and Occupants during The Tamna Period (Third to Tenth Century CE) on Jeju Island (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 study investigates relationships between shell middens and residential sites during the Tamna era (third–tenth century CE) on Jeju Island. The occupation evidence of the Tamna polity can be found along the northern areas from the Halla Mountain. Near the Gwakji shell midden in the northwest, we recovered several...