Chaîne Opératoire in Jade Study

Summary

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.

Since Wu Da-cheng’s Catalogue of Ancient Jades in the Qing Period, research of Chinese jades has largely focused on analyses of their social and ritual significances. In latter half of the 20th century, excavations in Liangzhu, Hongshan, and Xinglongwa culture sites discovered many prehistoric jades. These important discoveries gradually shifted ancient jade studies to an archaeological approach, focusing on the settlement and burial contexts of the jades.

The use of the Chaîne Opératoire (French for "operational sequence") method in lithic studies has provided us a new research perspective and direction in the study of jades. This method pays attention to the full life history of the jades, from production to consumption and abandonment, which is treated as a dynamic and continuous process. Furthermore, it allows us to analyze the social and cognitive dimensions of the jade users through comparisons of the jades’ production technologies and use wear.

This paper applies the chaîne opératoire method to study jades by analyzing related settlements and lapidary workshops, especially the latter.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Thoughts on Current Research in East Asian Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23592