Early Globalization of the Han Empire in Its Southern Frontier and the Expansion of Iron Economic Network

Summary

Even though the framework of early globalization has been proved as effective in illuminating ancient interregional interaction in many regions, its value and contribution to the archaeological study of ancient China has been overlooked in the literature. Focusing on the Han Empire, we employed statistical methods to exam variations in assemblages and frequencies of iron objects, one type of critical state finance in the Han political economies, from burials in the southern frontier of the Empire, including present-day Hunan, Jianxi, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi. Although iron ware was commodities commonly found in the Han period, this study identified several cross-regional patterns of variation in the assemblages of iron ware from tombs, which were shaped by both local production, expansion of the imperial market network, and core-periphery relationship. By combing globalization framework and analysis of our big data, this presentation tries to shed new light on nature of integration and regional interaction of the Han Empire.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20230