From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Pan-Eurasian Exchange of Crops and Objects

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Pan-Eurasian Exchange of Crops and Objects," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Scholarly interest has been growing regarding trans-Eurasian exchange of agricultural systems and tangible material goods in late prehistory. The trans-regional movement of certain artefact types, cereal crops and animals occurred within a series of transformative processes that brought together previously isolated communities across Eurasia to constitute a new kind of network. This process was at its height during the second/first millennium BC and discussions have centered on the timing and routes of those movements. In this symposium, we focus on the context. In particular, what were the intangible ideas that might be associated with the movement of tangible things in archaeological evidence. Why would one type of technology or idea be welcomed in one part of the world but rejected from another? Why ‘globalism’ is doomed to meet social conservatism?

Other Keywords
Bronze Age • Material Culture and Technology • Geoarchaeology • Zooarchaeology • Paleoethnobotany • Historic • Neolithic • Iron Age • Bioarchaeology/Skeletal Analysis • Subsistence and Foodways

Geographic Keywords
Kyrgyz Republic (Country) • Asia (Continent) • Japan (Country) • Mongolia (Country) • Republic of India (Country) • People's Republic of Bangladesh (Country) • Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Country) • Union of Myanmar (Country) • People's Republic of China (Country) • Republic of Korea (Country)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)
Documents
  • Casting Experiment for a Small-Sized Bronze Statue of Buddha Dating to the Tang Dynasty (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Chun Yu. Ya Wei Dong.

    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. The four-footed base is a specific structural feature of bronze statues of Buddha in China during the fourth to ninth century BC. This feature appears to have been made using the lost wax method, but experimental methods indicate that the four-footed base was made with the sand mold...

  • Crops, Gender, and Food Choices: Investigating the Formation of Chinese Staple Cuisines via Stable Isotope Analysis (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Reid. Xinyi Liu.

    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. The modern Chinese food system was formed over thousands of years from a diverse set of regional agricultures and cuisines. Isotopic analysis of archaeological skeletons can be used to investigate the importance of different food resources to past diets. This approach has been extensively...

  • Diversity and Unity: Different Crop Consumption in East Tianshan Mountains, Northwest China (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Duo Tian. Jian Ma. Tongyuan Xi. Meng Ren. Xinyi Liu.

    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. The region of east Tianshan Mountains, located in east edge of Central Asia, has a diverse natural environment that is suitable for a variety of subsistence. The first millennium BC was a period with fluctuating climate and rapid cultural interactions in this region. This study conducted...

  • From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Trans-Regional Movements of Artifacts, Cereal Crops and Animals (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Xinyi Liu.

    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. Scholarly interest has been growing in an episode of trans-Eurasian exchange of agricultural systems and tangible material goods in late prehistory. The trans-regional movement of a number of artifacts, cereal crops and animals occurred within a series of transformative process that...

  • Hunting vs. Herding: The Eastern and Central Tibetan Plateau’s Earliest Inhabitants (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Zhengwei Zhang.

    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. Our understanding of when and how humans settled high altitude (>3000 m.a.s.l.) regions of the Tibetan Plateau has been greatly extended in the past decade. In this paper, we shift the focus from plants to animal resources, and explore the diversity of animal-based subsistence strategies...

  • Identification of Turquoises from Different Mining Areas using Lead and Strontium Isotope Composition (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Yiheng Xian.

    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. The Hekou Turquoise Mining Site in Shaanxi Province can provide significant clues to the provenance of turquoise in early China. In this study, we analyzed turquoise ore samples from other turquoise mines near Hekou Mining Site in eastern Qinling Mountains and established an origin...

  • The Interaction of Aesthetics and Technology between East and West, from the Perspective of Glass Beads from Xinjiang, China (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rui Wen.

    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. Xinjiang is located in the crossroads of the Silk Road and connected the Central Asia, South Asia and central China. During the 2nd to 1st millennia BC, glass beads were transferred from the West Asia and South Asia to central China through the Tianshan corridor and southern edge oasis...

  • A New Discovery of a Tang Dynasty Cemetery in the Eastern Suburb of Xi’an (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Bo Gao. Xiangyu Zhang. Chenggang Duan.

    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)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Liya Tang. Xiage Wangdui. Yu Chun. Zhaxi Ciren.

    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...

  • Pig Management in Neolithic North China: Foddering and Social Change in the Western Liao River Valley (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ximena Lemoine.

    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. Recent models for pig domestication in China have suggested that initial domestication was contingent upon millet cultivation, which allowed for foddering through agricultural surplus. For this study, a combination of bulk collagen carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis and compound...

  • Pluvial and Fluvial: Investigating the Environmental Resistance and Driving Force of Wheat Cropping in the Central Plain of China (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Zhen Qin.

    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. Recent archaeological evidence suggests that wheat, one of the most important grain crops originating in the Near East, was introduced into the Central Plain of China as early as approximately 4,000 BP. However, it is not until around 2,000 BP or even later that wheat was widely...

  • Strontium Isotopes in Human Teeth as Indicators of Migration in the Warring States Period Sites of Zhaitouhe and Shijiahe (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Xue Ling. Zhouyong Sun. Liang Chen.

    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. The sites of ZhaiTouHe and ShiJiaHe are two neatly arranged cemeteries with complicated features. The cemeteries were both discovered in Huangling county, Shaanxi Province, are the first complete Rong people’s tombs found in northern Shaanxi, and are closely related to the Wei’s culture....