The archaeological study of an Inner Asian empire: using new perspectives and methods to study the medieval Liao polity

Summary

Archaeological and historical data, combined with GIS analysis gives us new perspectives on 11th c. medieval period envoy missions from the Song Dynasty (960-1279) to the Liao Empire (907-1125) Middle Capital in Chifeng Inner Mongolia, China. The envoys’ routes can be recreated on maps, and optimal route and viewshed analyses give us insight into the Liao’s concerns about these foreign missions crossing their territory and how they addressed them. Furthermore, population estimates can be made from envoy information that can be used to extrapolate population density estimates from archaeological data for other areas in Chifeng.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Guava Cat Archaeology: Papers in memory of Prof. Pochan Chen

Keywords

Spatial Coverage