Local Communities in the Northeastern Frontier of the Central Plain during the late second and early first millennium BC

Summary

This paper will discuss how local communities in the northeastern frontier of China used metal artifacts and mortuary practice to articulate identity and delineate their cultural and political affiliations among themselves in the region and with polities in the Central Plain during the late second and early first millennium BC, which was a period that witnessed the rise and expansion of state powers in the Central Plain, namely, the Shang and Zhou. Previous studies examined material culture from the perspective of state expansion and emphasized the dominance of Shang and Zhou culture in this frontier region. This paper instead views the "frontier" as a "center" in which people and communities interacted and negotiated their identities. It introduces the concept of local agency and emphasizes the indigenization of imported artifacts and ideas, as well as discusses the complex socio-political landscape to explain the varied choices made for material cultures by in the frontier communities.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Dynamism of Contact and Exchange in Early Central and East Asia

Keywords

Spatial Coverage