EAANnouncements 19
Summer 1996
Contents
EAAN actives:
President: Prof. Gina L. Barnes, East Asian Studies, Univ of Durham, Durham DH1 3TH, UK.
Tel. 191-374-3231, Fax 191-374-3242; email: [...]
Secretary: Dr. Yangjin PAK, Dept of Anthropology, Harvard Univ, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Tel. 617-496-3796, Fax 617-496-8041; email: [...] [until mid-Aug 1996]
Treasurer: Prof. Sarah Nelson, Dept. of Anthropology, Univ. of Denver, 2130 S. Race, Denver,
CO 80208, USA. Tel. 303-871-2682/2406, Fax 303-871-2201; email: [...]
Korea Treasurer: Dr. Insook LEE, #204-33 Kaenari Apt., Yeoksamdong, Kangnam-ku, Seoul
135-082 Korea. Tel/Fax 2-553-8027.
Japan Treasurer: Prof. Hideo KONDO, Dept History, Faculty of Letters, Tokai Univ, Kitakaname
1117 Hiratsuka, Kanagawa, Japan. Tel. 463-58-1211x303, Fax 463-83-8198.
China Treasurer: Ms. Jianjun YANG, c/o Liaoning Provincial Archaeological Research Institute,
Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
Korea Representative: Dr. Insook LEE
Japan Representative: Prof. Hideo KONDO
China Representative: Dr. WANG Tao, Art & Archaeology Dept., SOAS, Univ. London, Thornhaugh
St., London WC1H 0XG, UK. Tel. 171-637-6192, Fax 171-436-3844.
European Representative: Dr. Mark Hudson, Dept of Archaeology, Faculty of Letters, Okayama
University, 3-1-1 Tsushima, Okayama 700 Japan. Fax 86-255-9903.
North American Representative: Dr. James Grayson, Centre for Korean Studies, Sheffield
University, Sheffield S10 2UJ, UK. Tel. 114-282-4390, Fax 114-272-9479.
EAANnouncements Editor: Prof. Gina L. Barnes (see above)
Journal Editor: Prof. Lothar von Falkenhausen, Art History Dept, Dixon Hall, UCLA, Los
Angeles, CA 90024-1417, USA. Tel./Fax 310-359-1689; (work) Tel. 310-825-6046, Fax 206-1903, email:
[...]
China Round-up Editor: Dr. Francis Allard, For summer 1996: c/o Prof. Charles Higham, Dept of
Archaeology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Email: [...]
Japan Round-up Editor: Dr. Mark Hudson (see above)
Book Reviews Editor: Mr. Simon Kaner, 20D Guest Road, Cambridge, UK. Tel. 1223-563314, Fax
1223-333503
advertisement: Asian Rare Books Inc.
EAAN activities:
HAWAII CONFERENCE REPORT:
Between April 8th and 11th this spring, EAANetwork completed a very successful conference in
Honolulu, Hawaii. The events included a Council Meeting, a Business Meeting, and several sessions of
papers spread over three days. Over 40 people registered for the conference, with session attendance
varying between 25 and 36.
The venue was part of a ballroom of the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel, and catering provided a
continental breakfast for EAANmembers on the first day, and coffee and tea continuously throughout
the session days. An EAANmembers' lunch was held on the terrace outside the ballroom, with a chilly
wind interspersed with sunshine spicing the conversation of 28 participants. These events allowed
EAANmembers to get to know one another beyond the confines of the conference room.
The major business item of both the Council and Business Meetings was the drafting of the
Constitution for the new academic association being formed from EAANetwork. The draft appears below
in its second revised version (having incorporated all suggestions made in Hawaii). The Council
meeting was initially held at the Wailana Coffee House from 4 to 9 pm on April 8th, with dinner and
as much iced tea we could drink. Each item of the proposed Constitution was discussed thoroughly
among the seven Council members present: G. Barnes (Pres.), S. Nelson (Treas.), YJ Pak (Sec'y), WANG
Tao (China Rep), IS Lee (Korea Rep), F. Allard (N.Am Rep substitute), and L. von Falkenhausen
(Journal Editor). Five hours, however, was not enough to satisfy our appetite for discussion, so we
met the next evening for dinner and carried on the discussions for another hour. The draft resulting
from these discussions was then presented to the Business meeting. The Business Meeting occupied an
entire morning, aided by coffee and fruitcake. Each article of the constitution was presented for
discussion, and suggestions were entertained. The version of the Constitution thus represents the
work and opinions of at least 20 EAANmembers.
The conference schedule was established and the call for papers conducted by our Secretary, Yangjin
PAK. Session organisers set their own policies; thus, abstracts were provided for only some papers
(see the CONFERENCE section below p PAPERS READ). In addition to the paper sessions, a Roundtable
discussion was led by Prof. Peter Oblas on "Archaeology and the Media".
EAANetwork/Society for East Asian Archaeology
Inaugural Business Meeting Minutes
10 April 1996, Honolulu, Hawaii
1. Venue: Hilton Hawaii Village Hotel, Honolulu Suite #1
2. Chaired by Gina Barnes (President)
3. Attendance: 20 members including 7 Council Members: G. Barnes (Pres.), S. Nelson (Treas.), PAK Yangjin (Sec'y), WANG Tao (China Rep), LEE Insook (Korea Rep), F. Allard (N.Am Rep substitute), and L. von Falkenhausen (Journal Editor).
4. Welcome and President's Report:
The President gave a brief introduction to:
a) the purpose of the convening of the First World Conference (to formalise EAANetwork into a
full-fledged academic association)
b) the objectives of the Business Meeting (to oversee the changes required in formalising and
expanding the activities of the association), and
c) the history of EAANetwork during its six years of existence through the publication of eighteen
newsletters.
5. New Honorary Member:
The Council honoured Prof. Wilhelm G. Solheim III, acknowledging his efforts in establishing Asian
archaeology, by designating him the second Honorary EAANetwork member. The first to be so honoured
was Prof. K.C. Chang at the amEAAN meeting in Boston, 1994.
6. Treasury reports: Sarah Nelson reported the balance of the University of Denver account at $2882.04, and Gina Barnes reported the balance of the Barclay's account as £2196.63 on 20 March 1995 and £2215.61 on 20 March 1996. (See Attachments A and B below.)
7. Secretary's report: PAK Yangjin gave a short post-mortem on points for improving the organization of the conference program.
8. Draft Constitution: the President took the everyone present through all the articles of the proposed constitution, entertaining discussion and suggestions for improvement.
9. Next Meeting: the next Business Meeting of SEAA will take place during the SEAA 2000 Conference, venue and date TBA.
Attachment A: EAAN Treasurer's Report (USA account), Jan. 1995 to April 1996
This report. prepared by Sarah Nelson, covers only funds deposited to EAAN/University of Denver by
membership fees and 'nouncements in US $, and registration for the First World Conference.
CONFERENCE - Honolulu, April 8-10, 1996
Total collected in Conference fees* by April 24, 1996:
| 17 members, $50 each | $850 |
| 4 non-members, $45 each | 180 |
| Collections at Conference | 955* |
|
Total |
$1985 |
* Also includes membership fees
Other fees deposited by April 5, 1996:
| Jan. 4, 1995 | $84.00 |
| March 29, 1995 | 38.00 |
| April 10, 1995 | 118.00 |
| April 24,1995 | 180.00 |
| May 25, 1995 | 354.00 |
| August 11, 1995 | 124.00 |
| Sept. 25, 1995 | 10.00 |
| Jan. 8, 1996 | 117.00 |
| April 2, 1996 | 169.00 |
|
Total |
$1194.00 |
Total collections $3179
Expenditures by April 24, 1996:
| 'nouncements (D'Andrea) | |
| Oct. 12, 1995 | $121.12 |
| Feb. 12, 1996 | 137.94 |
| Nametags for meeting: | |
| April 3,1996 | 37.90 |
|
Total |
$296.96 |
| Fund balance, April 24, 1996 | $2882.04 |
Attachment B: EAAN Treasurer's Report (UK account), March 1994 to March 1996
These accounts cover only funds passing through EAAN's Barclay's Bank account; they were prepared by
M. Isabel Douglas of Cambridge, UK. All figures are in UK pounds sterling.
• OPENING BALANCE SHEET AS AT 21 MARCH 1994
| Bank account | £2,016.83 |
| Creditors (subscriptions in advance) | (505.15) |
| Accumulated fund | 1,511.68 |
• BALANCE SHEET AS AT 20 MARCH 1995
| Bank account | £2,193.63 | subtotal 2,193.63 |
| Creditors (subscriptions in advance) | 237.94 | |
| 74.56 | (312.50) | |
| 1,884.13 | ||
| Accumulated fund brought forward | 1,511.68 | |
| Excess income over expenditure | £ 372.45 | |
| Accumulated fund carried forward | 1,884.13 |
• INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 20 MARCH 1995
Income
| EAAN registration | 147.40 | |
| EAANnounc (rec'd current year) | 367.99 | |
| EAANnounc (rec'd prior year) | 430.59 | |
| BIBREV etc | 82.05 | |
| Donation | 26.91 | |
| Publications | 14.00 | subtotal 1,068.94 |
| Bank interest received | 6.46 |
Expenditure
| Supplies | 10.80 | |
| Printing | 349.40 | |
| Postage | 199.25 | |
| Accommodation | 9.00 | |
| Filing etc | 35.80 | |
| Other | 57.90 | |
| Oxbow (Miwa report) | 40.80 | subtotal (702.95) |
| Excess income over expenditure | £ 372.45 |
• BALANCE SHEET AS AT 20 MARCH 1996
| Bank account | 2,215.61 | subtotal 2,215.61 |
| Creditors (subscriptions in advance) | 250.94 | |
| 331.70 | (582.64) | |
| 1,632.97 | ||
| Accumulated fund brought forward | 1,884.13 | |
| Excess expenditure over income | £ (251.16) | |
| Accumulated fund carried forward | 1,632.97 |
• INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 20 MARCH 1996
Income
| EAAN registration | 86.70 | |
| EAANnounc (rec'd current year) | 328.63 | |
| EAANnounc (rec'd prior years) | 61.56 | |
| Back issues | 82.05 | |
| Donations | 22.00 | |
| Publications etc | 298.45 | |
| Miwa report | 50.00 | subtotal 929.39 |
| Bank interest received | 14.00 |
Expenditure
| Supplies | 24.68 | |
| Printing | 419.57 | |
| Postage | 183.99 | |
| Phone & fax | 19.06 | |
| Filing etc | 207.25 | |
| Bibliographic work | 250.00 | |
| Miwa report | 90.00 | subtotal (1,194.55) |
| Excess expenditure over income | £ (251.16) |
DRAFTING OF THE CONSTITUTION
The draft below is a product of consultations at the EAANetwork meetings in April
and is now presented to all registered EAANetwork members as a discussion document.
If you have comments on this draft, please send your views by August 1st to the EAANetwork
Secretary: Dr Yangjin Pak, Dept of Anthropology, Harvard Univ, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Tel.
617-496-3796, Fax 617-496-8041; email: [...]
Dr. Pak will collate all comments received and present them to the Council for discussion and
incorporation into the final draft of the Constitution. This final draft will be put up for
ratification in EAANnouncements 20.
SECOND REVISED DRAFT CONSTITUTION FOR COMMENTS
1. NAME OF THE ASSOCIATION
The name of the Association shall be THE SOCIETY FOR EAST ASIAN ARCHAEOLOGY (SEAA).
2. OBJECTIVES
This Association is concerned with promoting interest and research in the field of East Asian
archaeology through the sharing of information on ongoing projects, encouraging premier quality
research and interdisciplinary communications, providing publishing opportunities through a
newsletter and journal, providing educational outreach to the general community, enhancing scholarly
communications among archaeologists specializing in different East Asian areas, and encouraging
interdisciplinary perspectives involving several regions.
3. GENERAL MEMBERSHIP
Membership of this Association shall be composed of professionals and non-professionals worldwide
who are interested in East Asian archaeology. There shall be three classes of Membership: Honorary,
Regular, and Reduced Fee (student, unemployed, retired). Membership shall be contingent upon payment
of appropriate dues for each category and sub-category as determined by the Council. All Council
Members shall be dues-paying Members.
4. EXECUTIVE BOARD
The Executive Board shall consist of four elected Executive Officers (President, Vice-President,
Secretary, and Treasurer). It shall act as the primary decision-making unit of the Society in the
interim between Council Meetings; decisions shall require a three-quarters majority. In the case of
equally divided opinions on the Executive Board, the Editor shall be consulted as a tie-breaker.
• The Executive Board shall be responsible for collating suggestions for constitutional amendments
and drafting a new document for ratification by the General Membership.
• It may also issue an invitation to individual Non-Council Appointed Officers or any other person
to attend a Council Meeting as an observer.
• The Executive Board shall serve to approve initial, non-routine or large expenditures by the
Treasurer.
5. ADVISORY BOARD
Immediate Past Executive Officers shall form an Advisory Board to which Council Members have
recourse for advice and guidance.
6. COUNCIL
The Council shall consist of the Executive Board, a variable number of elected Regional
Representatives, and Appointed Council Members of variable number and function. The number of
Council Members in total must not exceed a maximum of twenty, and their affiliations should ensure a
broadly equal representation of all three East Asian countries (China, Korea, and Japan) in terms of
nationality, scholarly interests, and/or residence.
The Council shall act as the policy making and administrative body of the Association. The quorum
for decision-making at Council Meetings shall require the presence of a majority of current Council
Members and must include at least two Executive Officers and one Regional Representative each from
Asia and the West.
Each member of Council shall be accountable to the Council for carrying out their Duties. Officer
reports shall be due annually to the President in writing by March 1st. The Council will thereafter
confer once a year by telephone conference in mid-spring.
7. EXECUTIVE OFFICERS
The Executive Officers shall be elected by general Postal Ballot to the Council and shall serve
therein as the Executive Board. The Executive Officers shall also sit on the Nominating &
Appointments Committee (see Article 12).
President, who will represent the Association to the outside, who will produce an
agenda for and chair the periodic Business Meeting, who will act to oversee the activities of the
Association in any arising situation, and fulfil other related duties.
Vice President, who will schedule, publicise and oversee the running of the World
Conference by the Conference Program Officer and/or Local Organiser. The Vice-President will act on
site as the conference trouble-shooter and write a Conference Report for publicity purposes, among
other duties. Ordinarily, the Vice-President should succeed to the Presidency upon confirmation by a
postal ballot.
Treasurer, who will be in charge of the Central Treasury (see Article 15) and to whom
Regional Treasurers will report. The Treasurer will keep the database of members; generate mailing
labels; accept Membership Dues, Conference Fees, and Subscriptions as necessary; issue dues notices
(to be put in the newsletter); pay out reimbursements; and create an annual Treasury Report, among
many duties. The Treasurer will also conduct periodic Membership drives with the help of the
Regional Representatives and/or Regional Treasurers.
Secretary, who will serve the President and Treasurer in a secretarial capacity to
communicate with the Council (e.g. circulate meeting agenda), administer the postal ballots
(including constitutional amendments), take the minutes at the Business Meetings, chair the
Nominating & Appointments Committee, and conduct other secretarial activities.
8. REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES
Regional Representatives shall be elected by general Postal Ballot to sit on the Council and form
part of the Nominating & Appointments Committee. They shall be responsible for Membership and
Subscription Drives in their area and will bring to the attention of the Council areal concerns in
Association activities. Regional Representatives may also serve as Regional Treasurers, upon
confirmation by Council, in order to collect Membership Dues from regional Members for forwarding to
the Central Treasury. Regional Representatives shall consist of at least three Western
representatives (Europe, North America, Australasia) and at least three Eastern representatives
(China, Korea, Japan). Regional Representatives are encouraged to establish local branch societies
(see Article 18) and to host local meetings in order to encourage communication on a residential
basis among Association members.
9. OFFICERS APPOINTED TO COUNCIL
Appointments to these positions should be made by the Nominating & Appointments Committee with a
three-quarters majority vote.
Public Relations Officer, who will fundraise for the Association and develop and
distribute publicity materials for use on the internet, with the press, with publishing companies,
book distributors, etc.
Computer Officer, who will encourage use of the internet for Association
communication, including arranging for uploading of documents (the newsletter), maintaining a Home
Page, etc.
Conference Program Officer, who will be in charge of the academic content and
scheduling of Conference activities, including the call for papers, etc.
Local Organiser, who will be in charge of conference logistics: booking facilities and
equipment, local transportation and events, and arranging payment, etc.
Journal Editor, who will be in charge of collecting, selecting, and editing papers for
Journal issues, or who will appoint a Guest Editor for specific issues who will undertake these
activities, etc. The Journal Editor will have recourse to an Editorial Board, the members of which
shall be approved by the Executive Board. Newsletter Editor, who will collect, select
and edit material, and produce and distribute a periodic newsletter, etc. The Newsletter Editor
shall be able to appoint subsidiary editors for specific tasks in creating the Newsletter contents.
10. NON-COUNCIL APPOINTED OFFICERS
These positions may be filled by existing Council Members, or they may be filled by other persons;
in either case, it shall be the Nominating & Appointments Committee that appoints to these
positions. Appointed Officers not already sitting on Council may be invited by the Executive Board
to attend Council Meetings as observers, but they shall not be eligible to vote in Council affairs
except by Postal Ballot as conducted among the General Membership.
Organizational liaisons:
SAA Liaison, who will coordinate activities at the annual SAA (Society for American
Archaeology) meetings for East Asian archaeology and ensure that a presence is maintained and
information flows, and who will write a report of activities for the newsletter.
AAS Liaison, who will coordinate activities at the annual AAS (Association for Asian
Studies) meetings for East Asian archaeology and ensure that a presence is maintained and
information flows, and who will write a report of activities for the newsletter.
IPPA Liaison, who will coordinate activities at the annual IPPA (Indo-Pacific
Prehistory Association) meetings for East Asian archaeology and ensure that a presence is maintained
and information flows, and who will write a report of activities for the newsletter.
Regional Treasurers:
If a Regional Representative does not also serve as Regional Treasurer, the Nominating &
Appointments Committee may appoint another person to handle the local EAAN account.
11. ELECTIONS
Elections shall be held every four years by postal ballot; a simple majority of the valid returned
ballots shall win. In cases where there is no simple majority, a plurality among the valid returned
ballots shall win. The term served by all elected Officers shall be four years with unrestricted
opportunity for re-election; early resignations may be replaced through the choice of the Executive
Board, except for the succession of Vice-President to President, which shall be automatic in the
case of the President's resignation. All elected Officers shall be confirmed through a postal ballot
in the subsequent election year. Each Member is entitled to one vote.
12. NOMINATING & APPOINTMENTS COMMITTEE
The Nominating & Appointments Committee shall be formed by the Elected Officers (Executive Board and
Regional Representatives) and chaired by the Secretary. It shall receives seconded nominations and
nomination petitions from the General Membership. A nomination shall exist as a form signed by the
nominator, seconder and/or petitioners and nominee agreeing to serve if elected. Only fully paid
Members are eligible to nominate, second, petition, and serve.
13. NOMINATIONS
All elected positions can be challenged through the nomination and seconding of an alternative by
any two Members for a vote during the next Postal Ballot. The Nominating & Appointments Committee
shall put valid nominations to the General Membership for a vote in the next scheduled Postal
Ballot.
The Nominating & Appointments Committee shall entertain nominations from the General Membership for
appointments to new or elapsed terms, and current Appointments may be challenged by petition of at
least ten members for re-consideration. Nomination forms shall be circulated to the General
Membership through the Newsletter by the Secretary.
14. APPOINTMENTS
Valid nominations for appointed positions shall be decided upon by the Nominating & Appointments
Committee by a three-quarters majority vote. The term of Appointment shall be four years.
15. DISENFRANCHISEMENT
If any elected or appointed officer fails to pay their Membership Dues or is agreed by three
quarters of the Council to have failed to perform their duties to the Association, that Officer may
be temporarily replaced by an appointment of the Executive Board until the next scheduled Postal
Ballot.
Any Member may resign their Membership in the Association at any time, but they will not be eligible
for a refund of any portion of their Membership Dues.
The Nominating & Appointments Committee may be petitioned by at least ten Members for the
replacement of an Appointed Officer.
16. TREASURIES
The Association shall have a Central Treasury and Regional Treasuries as deemed convenient for
collection of annual dues within different currency areas. The Regional Treasuries will annually pay
their collected dues to the Central Treasury, accompanied by documentation of the sources of all
incoming monies (members' names, changes in address, purpose of monies, etc.) and any outgoing
monies used to maintain Association activities (postal costs, stationery supplies, bank charges,
etc.). Expenditures will be distributed on an invoice or reimbursement basis, requiring prior
approval of the Treasurer for the expenditure and the production of valid receipts.
17. FUNDING
The basic income of the Association shall consist of Membership Dues, Conference Fees, and
Institutional Subscription Fees. Bequests, endowments and special project funding from corporations
or funding agencies shall be solicited to further the objectives of the Association. Initial,
non-routine, or large payments shall first be approved by the Executive Board.
Membership Dues for the calendar year shall be paid on or by January 1 of each year. Membership fees
not paid by this date will be considered lapsed. Late renewals or new Memberships can be accepted at
any time of the year and will be valid for the rest of the year but not on a prorated basis.
However, such Memberships will not be entitled to receive materials (publications) which were
generated in that calendar year by the Association prior to the payment of new or renewed Membership
Dues.
No financial obligation in excess of funds available in the Treasuries shall be assumed collectively
by the Council or individually by any Member on behalf of the Association, especially in the case of
libel suits brought against any Association publication. Every Member or Employee of the Association
shall be indemnified by the Association against all expenses and liabilities, including legal fees,
reasonably incurred or imposed upon them in connection with any proceeding to which they may be made
a party or in which the may become involved, by reason of being or having been a Member or Employee
of the Association, except in such cases wherein that Member or Employee is adjudged guilty of
wilful misfeasance or malfeasance in the performance of Duties. The liability for such indemnities
shall not exceed the funds available in the Treasuries, and no Member of the Association shall be
personally liable for debts incurred by the Association.
No part of the Funds of this Association shall be distributed to Members of the Association except
under conditions of employment or reimbursement. On dissolution of the Association, any funds
remaining shall be distributed to one or more regularly organized and qualified charitable,
educational, scientific, or philanthropic organizations to be selected by the Council.
18. LOCAL BRANCHES
Branches of the Association may be established by Regional Representatives in their country or area
in order to host local meetings and encourage communication on a residential basis among Association
members. However, local branch societies may not charge a separate Membership fee in competition
with the Association's Membership dues; funding for local activities must be generated through other
means, and such activities may be subsidized by the Central Treasury at the discretion of the
Executive Board.
19. MEETING CYCLE
World Conferences will be held every four years, in alternation with IPPA meetings, and the locus
shall shift among major world locations.
Business Meetings will be held at the World Conferences every four years. They will be prefaced by a
Council Meeting at which the agenda, previously circulated to Council Members by the President
through the Secretary, will be discussed and proposals agreed for presentation to the general
Membership at the Business Meeting.
20. CONSTITUTION
The Constitution shall be reviewed for changes and amendments every four years at the World
Conference Business Meeting, when amendments are proposed by the Council on its own initiative or
upon petition by ten per cent of the Membership. A new draft Constitution incorporating the
suggested changes shall be circulated to the Membership subsequent to the Business Meeting and voted
upon in a postal ballot; approval of the changes shall require a three-quarters majority positive
vote among those returning valid ballots.
MEMBER NEWS (in alpha-order):
Francis ALLARD (Univ Pittsburgh PhD) has been awarded post-doc money from the Canadian government to spend 16 months at University of Otago with Charles Higham. They will be working on the Bronze Age of south China (Lingnan) and Vietnam. There will be many months in the field collecting info from local archaeologists. The objective is a publication. He will be in New Zealand from June 3rd until September, after which he'll be in China or Vietnam until December. Then it's back to NZ. Contact address:
c/o Prof. Charles Higham
Department of Archaeology
University of Otago
Dunedin, New Zealand
email: [...]
ALLEN, DR. JANE
Ogden Environmental and Energy Services
3656 Hilo Place
Honolulu, HI 96816 USAGina BARNES (Univ Durham) has a Korea Foundation fellowship for three months' research in Korea this summer on the topic of "Silla and Kaya archaeology and the Samguk Sagi". She can be reached there, ca. 27 June to 10 Sept,
c/o Prof. Shin Kyong-ch'ol
University Museum
Kyongsong University
Pusan, Korea 608-736
Work Tel. 51-622-4472
Fax 51-623-7803Peter BLEED (Univ Nebraska) has an article on event tree analysis of Japanese micro-core technology which appeared in Lithic Technology this spring. This summer he has a fellowship to use the paradigm of behavioral archeology to study the operation of the American antiques market.
Sandra BOWDLER (Univ Western Australia) is researching "Early Asian colonists of Australia: towards resolving the cultural evidence", supported by an Australian Research Council grant. In 1995, she published three articles and gave one conference paper:
1. "The excavation of two small rockshelters at Monkey Mia, Shark Bay, WA." Australian Archaeology 40: 1-30.
2. "Needs and priorities for the conservatin of Aboriginal places of cultural significance." In S. Sullivan (ed) Cultural Conservation: towards a national approach. Special Australian Heritage Publication Series Number 9: 349-56. Canberra: Australian Heritage Commission, Australian Government Publishing Service.
3. "Offshore islands and maritime explorations in Australian prehistory." Antiquity 69: 945-58.
4. "Cultural paradigms for change in Australian prehistory." Australian Archaeological Association Annual Conference, Dec. 95, Gatton, Queensland.Mark BYINGTON (Harvard) informs us of his email address: [...]
CHABANOL, ELISABETH (Korean early historic & medieval archaeology)
Dept of French
Hannam University
133 Ojong-dong
300-791 Taejon, Korea
Home Tel. 42-673-3979 Work Tel. 42-629-7345 Fax 42-673-39-79
Elisabeth is a doctoral candidate in archaeology at the Sorbonne, Paris IV, but has been teaching in Korea for several years now. She obtained her MA in Korean Art & Archaeology in 1988 on "One example of the Chinese influence in Paekche: King Munyong's tomb". In 1990 she passed the first step for her doctoral degree by taking a Thorough Studies Degree in History of the Religions and Religious Anthropology with a thesis on "The architecture of tombs in Korea during the Three Kingdoms periods: Ch'onmach'ong." The topic for her PhD dissertation is "Death in Korea during the Three Kingdoms period, for example: Silla tombs."CHANG Kwang-chih (Harvard) was honoured at the recent Association for Asian Studies meetings in Hawaii, being given the "AAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies". His students gathered from afar to support him and pay tribute to his teaching, and he received his award to a standing ovation. The text of his award citation follows:
"For the past forty years, Professor K.C. Chang has worked tirelessly for the promotion and development of Chinese archaeology. In the process he has demonstrated extraordinary qualities of leadership and dedication that few scholars can ever hope to attain. Professor Chang is almost single-handedly responsible for training three generations of archaeology graduate students who currently hold teaching positions at leading universities in North America, Europe, Australia, and East Asia.
"Professor Chang began his academic journey at National Taiwan University in 1950, where he studied with that generation's leading archaeologist, LI Chi. In September 1954, he arrived in Cambridge, Masachusetts, to start the Harvard PhD program in anthropology; he had fifty dollars in his pocket and a single suitcase filled mostly with books. By 1960, he had become a faculty member in the Harvard department; one year later he moved to Yale, where he taught until 1977. From 1977 to the present, he had held the John Hudson Professorship in Archaeology at Harvard University, where he has also served as Chair of the Anthropology Department (1981-1984), and the Director of Harvard's Council on East Asian Studies (1986-1989). In addition, Professor Chang has served as Vice President of Academia Sinica (Taiwan) from 1993 to 1996, and was appointed to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1979.
"He is probably best known to the international scholarly community for his influential book entitled The Archaeology of Ancient China, now in its fourth edition, with an expanded, completely revised version currently in process. This book, more than any other, has been responsible for introducing Chinese evidence to a world community of archaeologists and historians. It is, without doubt, one of the central texts of modern East Asian studies.
"The Association for Asian Studies hereby confers upon Professor K.C. Chang its highest scholastic honor: The Award for Distinguished Constributions to Asian Studies.
"The President and Officers of this Association join with everyone present at today's ceremony in publicly recognizing Professor Chang as one of our most eminent and accomplished members."
Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, President
John Campbell, Secretary-Treasurer
Honolulu, Hawai'i, April 12, 1996
(from the Asian Studies Newsletter, April/May 1996: 6)Becky CHILDS-JOHNSON (Hamilton Univ) hopes to be in Beijing briefly and then at the Three Gorges to look at archaeological sites this late June, possibly early July. Otherwise, she is preoccupied with writing her book on Shang Ritual Art. Her new fax number is:
Fax to Mailboxes, NYC, USA, 212-996-9003CHOI SUNG-RAK (Korean protohistoric archaeology)
Dept of Archaeology & Anthropology
Mokp'o National University
Muan-gun, Chonnam
534-729 Korea
Home Tel. 2-595-9797 Work Tel. 636-450-2151 Fax 636-453-4840
After two years' study at the University of Oregon, he returned to Mokp'o University in March 1996 where he is currently teaching.Laurence DENES (Univ Paris) is just completing a three-month fellowship with the Korea Foundation (April to June, 1996) on the project topic "Detailed study of ceramics decorative patterns around 3rd and 4th centuries in the Yŏngsan-gang valley."
Enno GIELE (Academia Sinica,Taipei) has finished his first year of study under Prof. HSING I-tien, who is compiling a bibliography of literature on Han wooden strips. Enno is doing the Western-language part of that bibliography. He is still interested in collecting any references to wooden strips in Western writings, so please contact him at [...]
GUO DASHUN (East Asian archaeology & history)
Honorary Director
Liaoning Provincial Archaeological Research Institute
Liaoning Provincian Museum
No. 26 Ten Wei Road
Heping District
Shenyang, Liaoning China
Work Tel. 282-2057/-5857 Fax 24-282-5842
Prof. Guo is not only associatied with LPARI but also serves as an honorary professor of Jilin University. His main research interests are the Niuheliang site and Hongshan culture of northeast China.Wayne FARRIS (Univ Tennessee) His manuscript on Japanese historical archaeology is about ready for submission to press. In June he will attend a conference in Washington held by the Center for Hellenic Studies on comparative militaries. He is also working on an article on trade in the Nara era.
Rowan FLAD will be attending UCLA in the autumn, where he will be studying under Lothar von Falkenhausen.
FREY, ROBERT L. (East Asian archaeology & history, and early trade)
194 Sutherland Avenue
London W9 1RX, UK
Home Tel. 171-289-1218 Work Tel. 171-266-2527
Mr. Frey is retired but an extremely active researcher. He describes having a:
1. Primary interest in the scientific study of jade both with regards to conecting sources of raw material and artifacts made therefrom and for dating the latter. He is the co-founder of the Friends of Jade and Editor of the first seven volumes of the Bulletin of the Friends of Jade as well as text editor of JADE (ISBN 1-85238-183-3), a volume mostly composed of articles by members of that organization. He has co-published (with Kamil Ettinger in 1976) on the Nitrogen Profiling technique for dating jades and other hardstones, as well as sintered gold. Very slowly compiling critical bibliography on jade on a compressed 3 1/2" disk using EndNote plus.
2. Secondary interest in early trade between East Asian countries as well as long-distance trade both West and East from all of them, especially as manifested by raw materials and artifacts like jade, lapis lazuli and glass.
3. His current project is a sister volume to JADE to be titled LAPIS LAZULI and probably just as long and big (300,000 words and 2.6 kg) and hopefully as definitive as JADE. Long overdue as there has never been a comprehensive volume in English on the subject of lapis as compared to at least one hundred on jade.Yuri FUKASAWA (PhD Univ Cambridge) has been working this past year on the Ainu Collections of the Museum of Mankind in London, including the Saru Ainu material from the Japan-British Exhibition 1910. She gave two conference papers in 1995:
1. "How the image of the Ainu was created" in the Ainu Symposium, 20 Feb. 95 at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge
2. "The analogical abuse of the hunter-gatherer" at the conference From the Jomon to Star Carr, 8 Sept 95 at New Hall, Cambridge.
She also published an article in Japanese in 1995: "Etonohisutorii toshite no Ainu kōkogaku [Ainu archaeology as ethnohistory]. Hokkaidō Kōkogaku 31: 271-290.
Yuri is back in Japan for the summer and can be reached at:
1-35-1 Seijo
Setagaya-ku
Tokyo 157 Japan
Home Tel. 3417-6237 Fax 3-3967-6722GILES, RALPH B. is a PhD student in historical archaeology studying Victorian period Chinese immigration to the western USA.
PO Box 13647
Reno, NV 89509 USAMarybeth GRAYBILL (Swarthmore College) organised a panel at the recent AAS meetings in Hawaii on "Gender and power in the Japanese visual field".
James GRAYSON (Univ Sheffield) spent six months (Sept '95 to Mar '96) at Yŏnsei University in Korea researching "Myths and legends from Korea: an annotated compendium of ancient and modern materials" under the auspices of the Korea Foundation.
Susanne JUHL (Univ of Århus) gave a paper last year on "Burials of Hexi" at the Fifth Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies (ESCAS), Copenhagen, 21-6 Aug 95. She also published a paper entitled "Cultural exchange in Northern Liang." In Cultural encounters, ed. S. Clausen et al., Aarhus University Press, 1995.
Sarah NELSON (Univ Denver) is now the John Evans Professor of Anthropology. Congratulations!
NISHIMURA Yasushi (Nabunken) writes that he has been involved in a great many things during the last year:
1) July 1995, Cambodia: This visit was part of a joint research program between the Agency of Cultural Affairs and Cambodia. The target area was Angkor monument, the objective was to locate archaeological features buried underground by means of geophysical prospecting. This is in addition to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expedition which has a large budget for monument conservation and includes reconstruction of some stone structures.
2) Aug.-Sept 1995, England:
a) To attend the first international conference of "Archaeological Prospection" held in Bradford, UK.
b) To make a joint field survey with the Field Unit of the University of Birmingham, UK, at the Roman town of Wroxeter near Shrewsbury. Accompanied by Dr. Dean Goodman, they engaged in a field survey of 300x400 m2 and reported part of the results at the conference. He says that other teams doing resistivity and magnetometer survey from England and France made it "look like an international Olympic of prospecting!"
3) Nov 1995, Korea: Two years ago, he was invited by the National Research Institute of Cultural Property (Seoul) to give a small talk on prospecting, and since then the Institute has bought expensive equipment of their own. Last year he was brought over to test the new machines in a field survey and make suggestions about field survey procedure and data analysis methodology.
4) Dec 1995, China: He participated in a project of Prof. FUJIWARA Hiroshi and the Nanjing Museum to locate early areas of rice cultivation through phytolith analysis at the Caoxieshan site near Kunshan City, 200 km west of Shanghai. Nishimura's job was to find a large ditch running through the area of old rice fields using resistivity.
5) Mar 1996, Cambodia: He returned for surveys using ground radar and magnetometer.
6) May 1996, The Netherlands: He attended the European Geophysical Society conference (EGS) in the Hague, and he stopped through Bradford to discuss the international conference of "Archaeological Prospection '97".
7) Fiscal 1996 is the last of his four-year "Priority Area" grant from the Ministry of Education (US one million dollars per year) to develop new instruments and prospecting methods for archaeology, for example, the Chirp compression radar, FM-CW (continuous wave) radar of 3-D magnetometer. In concluding this project, he hopes to hold an international conference on archaeological propsection and establish a new society of archaeological prospection.
In addition to these projects, Nishimura-san has hosted visiting scholars to Nabunken: Dr. Armin Schmidt, in October 1995, from the Dept of Archaeological Sciences, Univ of Bradford, UK; and Dr. Gregory N. Tsokas, Jan - Feb 1996, from the Dept of Exploration of Geophysics, Univ of Thessaloniki, Greece.HE Nu is a Visiting Scholar at San Francisco State University and CSCC Exchange Scholar.
22 Plymouth Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94112 USAJuha JANHUNEN (Univ Helsinki) is currently working on several research themes: 1) ethnolinguistic fieldwork in Manchuria, 2) linguistic history of Jurchen & Manchu, 3) linguistic prehistory of Japanic, 4) Khitan ethnic and linguistic identity, 5) decipherment of Khitan Small Script. In 1995, he published "What language did the Kyitan people speak?" in Minpaku Tsūshin 68: 82-5 [in Japanese], and gave two conference papers: "Ethnic implications of the Sino-Russian border" (International Symposium, Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, July), and "Prolegomena to a comparative analysis of Mongolic and Tungusic" (38th Annual Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference, Kawasaki, August).
Charles KEALLY (Sophia Univ) has a new email address and a new home address:
549-15 Kumagawa
Fussa-shi, Tokyo
JAPAN 197 [...]Mary KENNEDY (IBM, Berlin) writes that her new email address is [...] and that her work phone and fax numbers published in previous EAANnouncements are no longer valid. She is currently doing a distance-learning MBA (Heriot-Watt).
LEE CHUNG-KYU (Korean protohistoric archaeology)
214-1 Kyŏngsan-shi
Kyŏngsang-bukdo
Korea 712-749
Home Tel. 53-792-8630 Work Tel. 53-810-2241 Fax 53-815-5489
email: [...]
Until Sept 1995, Mr. Lee was teaching at Cheju National University, but he has now moved to Yŏngnam University. His research interest is the Late Bronze Age Culture of Yŏngnam. A recent publication of his is the "Archaeological Study of Cheju Island" (1995, in Korean).LIN Yun (Chinese & Japanese early historic archaeology)
Professor, Dept of Archaeology
Jilin University
Changchun, Jilin, China
Home Tel. 431-8922331-3729
Work Tel. 431-5958322-3134
Prof. Lin's particular research area is the historical archaeology of northeast China.MASON, SARAH L.R. (East Asian prehistoric archaeology, history & ethnobotany)
Institute of Archaeology, UCL
31-34 Gordon Square
London WC1H 0PY, UK
Home Tel. 181-889-7080 Work Tel. 171-380-7484 Fax 171-383-2572
email: [...]
Sarah is researching the role of plant foods in the diet of European Palaeolithic and Mesolithic peoples. She is interested in comparative data from other temperate regions, including East Asia and North America, especially concerning the use of acorns as food for people, past and present. She defines her area of expertise as ethnobotany and archaeobotany of wild plant use in temperate regions.MEEKER, VIRGIL (East Asian pre- & proto-historic archaeology)
1808 Punahou St. #502
Honolulu, HI 96822 USA
Home Tel. 808-941-0885
Virgil took his MA in Far Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan in 1952 and is currently retired but still interested!PANG, TINA (Chinese art history & ethnology)
59a Birnam Road
Islington
London N4 3LJ, UK
Home Tel. 171-272-2600 Work Tel. 1865-510550
email: [...]
Tina is a graduate student at the University of Oxford doing an MPhil in Ethnology & Museum Ethnography. Her thesis topic is "A stone disc in the Pitt Rivers Museum". She would like to go on to doctoral research in Chinese connoisseurship and the collecting of antiquities.Richard PEARSON (Univ of British Columbia) is continuing work on Okinawan prehistory and state formation, and also on archaeology of the Song-Ming Dynasties in the Quanzhou region, Fujian. Some of his recent publications are (see also RUNNING BIBLIOGRAPHY):
1994 "Kairui no bunseki hōhō" (Some approaches to the analysis of shellfish remains), Nantō Kōko (25th Anniversary Volume, Okinawan Archaeological Association) 14:45-56.
1995 "A brief report on test excavations at the Hawaiian Mission, Honolulu." Hawaiian Archaeology 4 (1995):27-33.
1994 "Higashi Ajia ni okeru Ryūkyū no chii" (The archaeolgical position of the Ryukyus in East Asia) in Okinawa no bunka no genryū o sagasu (Searching for the Origins of Okinawan Culture), edited by the 20th Anniversary of the Reversion Publication Committee, Naha, pp. 164-7.
1994 "Okinawa to Chūgoku: haseiteki seiritsu ōkoku no bōeki no jōken" (Okinawa and China: the context of trade in secondary state formation) in Hiroshi Kanaseki & Hiroe Takamiya (ed.) Okinawa no rekishi to bunka, Tokyo, Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, pp. 89-93.RUSSELL-SMITH, LILLA (East Asian medieval archaeology, history & art history)
5 Exeter House
Putney Heath
London SW15 3SU, UK
Home Tel. 181-785-9362
email: [...]
Lilla has just started her third year of doctoral research at the Department of Art & Archaeology, SOAS, on Dunhuang paintings. Her topic is an iconographical survey of the sun, moon and related motifs in Dunhuang. She writes, "Where possible, I compare the images to the written sutras. I have recently finished a chapter on the planet gods. In this case, the correspondence to such sutras is very close, and there is an interesting link to arabesque and Western art. I hope to do more fieldwork, although my main material is the Stein and Pelliot collections (London, Paris). I have been to Dunhuang twice but not to New Delhi where the other half of the Stein collection is kept. I hope to go there later this year as well as to St Petersburg."Barbara SEYOCK (Heinrich-Heine-Universität) is back in Germany after many months stay in Kyushu University on a Monbusho scholarship. Her new address is:
Lehrstuhl Modernes Japan
Gebaude: Brinckmannstraße 8-10
Universitätsstraße 1
40225 Düsseldorf, GermanyMiriam STARK (Univ Hawaii) writes that her fax number is
Fax 808-956-9541Sarah TAYLOR (Canadian Foreign Service) and Patrick Kavanagh have been back in Ottawa from Beijing since last September. Apologies for the delay in their address change:
75 Vaughan Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1M 1X3 Canada Home tel. 613-746-3607
Sarah Work Tel. 613-996-0407 Sarah Fax 613-995-8069
Patrick's email: aipkavan@web.apc.org or cs574@freenet.carleton.caYANG JIANJUN
Liaoning Provincial Archaeological Research Institute
Liaoning Provincial Museum
Shenyang, Liaoning 110003 P.R. China
Jianjun works on the accessioning of objects into the Museum collections. Her main interests are porcelain and coins.ZHU Yonggang (Chinese and Korean protohistoric archaeology)
Associate Professor
Department of Archaeology
Jilin University
Changchun, Jilin, China
Home Tel. 431-8922331-4546
Work Tel. 431-598322-3134
Prof. Zhu's particular research topic is the Bronze Age of northeast China.
ASIAN SCHOLARS ABROAD:
CHAO Huashan (Beijing Univ) was awarded a CSCC Fellowship for research at Indiana
University with Larry V. Clark on the topic "The Manichaean cave temples of Turfan: new discoveries
in the history of Manichaeism in Central Asia"
FIELD & RESEARCH REPORTS:
For articles to appear in this section, they should be limited to 500-1000 words and submitted
to the Editor by the issue deadlines stated on the front cover of EAANnouncements: mid-January for
the Spring issue, mid-May for the Summer issue, and mid-September for the Autumn issue. The editor
reserves the right to edit or decline to print. Please report research here!!
The Panxian Dadong Collaborative Project
by Lynne A. Schepartz
Panxian Dadong (trans: Panxian Grand Cavern) is a Paleolithic cavesite located on the Guizhou
Plateau in Guizhou Province near the Yunnan border. The Plateau, part of the impressive karstic
topography of the southwestern region of eastern Asia, has a general elevation of 1,400-2,000 m
m.s.l.. Panxian Dadong is the middle cavern of three stacked caves located within a 230 meter-high
hill. The entrance, visible from a distance of several kilometers, is 55 meters wide and 50 meters
high, faces east, and lies at an elevation of 32.4 meters above the valley floor. As its name
implies, Panxian Dadong is a massive cavern, with the main hall measuring 220 meters from the back
wall to the entrance and encompassing an estimated 8,000 square meters.
Panxian Dadong's potential as a Paleolithic site was recognized in 1990, when a team from the
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (Beijing) and the Cultural Relics
Management Committee of Liupanshui City (Guizhou Province) began a program of exploration. A total
of 92 m2 was excavated. These preliminary investigations document the presence of artifact-bearing
deposits which span the Middle and Upper Pleistocene and which contain the remains of over 40
mammalian species (representative of the Ailuropoda-Stegodon faunal suite of southern East Asia, and
including a human tooth fragment); over 2,000 stone artifacts, some exhibiting the prepared core
technique; bone artifacts; burnt and cut-marked bone; charcoal and ash. The depth of these deposits
may be as great as 19.5 meters, suggesting an extensive record of human habitation. A preliminary
radiometric (Uranium-Series) date from a stalacto-stalagmite overlying the upper portions of the
stratigraphic series provides a minimum age of 300,000 BP for the Paleolithic cultural sequence.
The Panxian Dadong Collaborative Project team consists of a multidisciplinary group of scholars and
constitutes the first international paleo-anthropological research effort in Guizhou. The Principal
Investigators of the project include Sari Miller-Antonio (California State University, Stanislaus),
Lynne A. Schepartz (University of Cincinnati), and HUANG Weiwen (Institute of Vertebrate
Paleontology and Palaeoanthropology, Academia Sinica, Beijing). The Cultural Relics Management
Committee of Liupanshui City (Guizhou Province) is also participating in the project.
The major goal of the project is to clarify the role that complex behaviors involving cognition and
symbolic thought played in the evolution of East Asian Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, and to
document how the course of these developments is distinctive in southern China. More specifically,
the research objectives may be listed as follows: 1) to document the occupational sequence of early
humans at Panxian Dadong, establishing a chronology of cave habitation in the region; 2) to evaluate
the evidence for behavioral complexity as indicated by stone tool and bone raw material utilization
and the spatial distribution of hearths, faunal elements and archaeological features; 3) to recover
human remains in order to evaluate the course of biological evolution and to address the issue of
burial treatment in Asia; and 4) to establish a precise chronology of the Panxian Dadong deposits.
This last objective is essential to facilitate the interpretation of the site within the greater
context of East Asian prehistory.
Full excavations at Panxian Dadong, scheduled to begin in July 1996, will serve to document the
occupational sequence of early humans at the site, establish a precise chronology of cave habitation
in the region, and provide data which addresses the issue of regional variation and technological
adaptations to the southern Chinese paleo-environment. The vast dimensions of the cave permit
horizontal excavations that are designed to contribute information on the spatial distribution of
bones, stone tools and archaeological features. Analysis of these spatial patterns will help to
clarify the role that human behavior and carnivore activity played in the formation of the deposits.
In addition, the recovery of additional human remains with a documented archaeological provenience
will augment present knowledge about the course of biological evolution in East Asia.
The information presented above has been mainly abstracted from Huang et al. (1995): "Excavations at
Panxian Dadong, Guizhou Province, Southern China", Current Anthropology 36 (5):844-6. For further
information on the Panxian Dadong Collaborative Project or to request reprints, please contact S.
Miller-Antonio (sarima@koko.csustan.edu) or L.A. Schepartz (schepala@ucunix.san.uc.edu)..
Possible thirteenth-century pelletising kilns in Ha Law Wan, Hong Kong
by Donald B. Wagner
I discuss here some kilns identified during salvage excavations carried out by the Hong Kong
Archaeological Society in 1990 at Ha Law Wan on the island of Chek Lap Kok. I had the opportunity to
discuss these with Bill Meacham, who is the Chairman of the Society. The thirteen kilns identified
are dome-shaped, typically 75 cm high and 2 meters in diameter, and have several small-diameter
flues and an opening for charging at one side located at a height of 40 cm. Each kiln was
constructed by digging a cavity into the side of a ravine and plastering the inside with clay. The
clay is now baked hard, and small amounts of charcoal have been found in the vicinity. Two
radiocarbon dates obtained from the charcoal calibrate to AD 1255-1340 and 1265-1405.
What the kilns were used for is a mystery. There is none of the kind of debris typically associated
with glass or pottery production. The only clue is some 'gray stuff', gravel- to pebble-sized
aggregates, sintered or melted at a considerable temperature (perhaps 1000° Celsius). This was
called slag in the excavation report but, as Bill told me, this was never a very probable
identification. Not enough of this material has been found (only a few buckets-full), and its
chemical composition does not resemble any industrial slag that either of us had heard of. Bill has
proposed that the gray stuff was the intended product of the kiln rather than a by-product, with the
chemical composition of the material suggesting an iron ore and the kilns possibly used for
processing iron ore in some way preparatory to smelting. I think this is likely to be correct, and I
have further suggested that the kilns were specifically used for pelletising ironsand.
Grains of iron oxide (mostly magnetite) are found in small quantities in most sand produced by the
erosion of granite. Since magnetite is much heavier than quartz (the principal component of the
sand), the action of flowing water tends to concentrate the magnetic grains in certain places as
'ironsand' with 10% or more of iron oxide. Various sluicing or panning methods can easily increase
this concentration to as much as 95%. (These methods are discussed in my book Dabieshan: Traditional
Chinese iron-production techniques practised in southern Henan in the twentieth century
(Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies monograph series, no. 52), London & Malmo: Curzon Press,
1985.) Where ironsand is available, it can be an excellent raw material for iron smelting; but its
fine grain size means that certain technical problems must be overcome: it may clog the furnace
burden or it may blow out of the furnace mouth.
A modern blast furnace operator who wishes to smelt ironsand would pelletise it: that is, sinter the
grains together into larger chunks by heating to a high temperature (800-1000° Celsius?). I think
something like this may have been done in the kilns at Ha Law Wan. A spring-fed stream ran out of
the mountains here, and local people told the archaeologists that this was one of the few dependable
streams on the island, flowing at all times of the year, every year without fail. It is easy to
imagine a major industry here whose activities included sluicing ironsand, cutting firewood in the
mountains, making charcoal, and pelletising the ironsand in these kilns. The 'gray stuff',
pelletised ironsand, would then have been transported somewhere else, to be smelted in a blast
furnace. A reason why smelting did not take place on the spot might be the additional pressure which
this would have put on the fuel supply.
It is not possible to test this hypothesis on the ground because most of the island of Chek Lap Kok
has been flattened for the construction of the new Hong Kong airport: the granite mountains have
simply been blasted away, except for a small hill left 'for landscaping purposes'. The kilns survive
at this place, but almost their entire context is gone. The kilns, which have been carefully
preserved, are backfilled, so I was unable to see them. I did make a visit to a beach on Lamma
Island and noticed that the sand does contain a few black grains which are probably magnetite. It
will be necessary to concentrate these by sluicing and then to do an analysis which can be compared
with that of the gray stuff. If such an analysis turns out to be consistent with the hypothesis, the
great remaining problem will be to determine how these furnaces might have been used to pelletise
ironsand.
My visit was part of a trip to China funded by the Leverhulme Foundation. I am also very grateful to
the Hong Kong Archaeological Society and the Hong Kong Airport Authority for arranging a most
interesting visit to the site. The excavation report, Archaeological investigations on Chek Lap Kok
Island, by William Meacham et al. (H.K.A.S. Journal Monograph no. 4, 1994) can be obtained for US$20
including postage from the Hong Kong Archaeological Society (Hong Kong Museum of History, Block 58,
Kowloon Park, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong). A more popular brochure, Archaeological discovery at Chek
Lap Kok (H.K.A.S. 1994) is also available at US$5.
Needham Research Institute, 8 Sylvester Road, Cambridge, England
DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS
PhD Degrees
Tephrochronological study on the Early Paleolithic culture of Japan, Takamori site, Miyagi
Prefecture
by SODA Tsutomu, PhD, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1996 (in English)
Takamori site, Miyagi Prefecture, Northeast Japan, is the oldest known archeological site in
Japan. As many stone tools were excavated from deep-seated tephric soil layers, tephrochronology
provides the most useful and fundamental data for establishing chronostratigraphy of the Early
Paleolithic culture. This study aims to apply tephrochronology to chronostratigraphy of stone
tool-bearing layers and to reconstruct paleoenvironment by phytolith analysis.
Correlation and identification of tephra are carried out mainly by lithologic and stratigraphic
observations in the field with the aid of petrographic characterization for tephra-forming minerals
by laboratory works. Phytolith analysis is also applied for every volcanic ash soil layer to get
useful information for climatic history.
1) The oldest known stone tools had been found from 10 stratigraphic horizons in the Kuranosawa and
Takamori tephra groups. These groups stratigraphically lie in the lowest of all tephra layers
occurring in Sanuma hills.
2) Revision and refinement of the middle Pleistocene tephra stratigraphy based on the
characterization and identification of such major tephra layers as Iwadeyama pumice, Shimoyamazato
tephra, Takashimizu pumice, Furuyashiki-7 tephra and Shukunosawa pyroclastic flow deposit. As a
result, it is clarified that the middle Pleistocene tephras are composed of more than 48 individual
marker-tephras, which are conventionally divided into four tephra groups in this study: Kuranosawa,
Takamori, Furuyashiki and Kagenosawa, in ascending order.
3) One of the largest eruptions in this area is represented by the Onikobe-Ikezuki tephra, whose
chronostratigraphic position had not yet been determined. A result of detailed correlation and
identification of this tephra shows that the Onikobe-Ikezuki tephra is younger than previously
thought. It lies stratigraphically in the upper part of middle Pleistocene sequence, Kagenosawa
tephra group.
4) "Nezasa ratio", here defined as the ratio of phytolith yield of ostus sect. nezasa to that of
Pleioblastus sect. nezasa and Sasa occurring in soil, is considered as a useful index to estimate
paleoclimate. High Nezasa ratio of the lower stone tool-bearing layers of Takamori site indicates
that the inhabitants had lived under a warm climate. Comparing the fluctuation of Nezasa ratio with
the 18O curve, four stages of the lowest Nezasa ratio exist between the bottom and the top in this
area can indicate that the lowest stone tool stage is possibly assigned to the marine isotope stage
13 or 15.
These results seem to be accordant with some of the radiometric dates previously determined for the
Takamori stone tool-bearing strata and other layers and with the paleomagnetic studies. There was a
large contradiction, however, for the other radiometric age determinations. Older ages were given
for the O-Ik tephra by the K-Ar and FT dating methods than by stratigraphic data. This tephra lies
stratigraphically in the younger tephra group as mentioned above. This may be the result of
contamination effects.
The stratigraphy of tephra established in this study provides a fundamental basis for the chronology
of the Early Paleolithic and other Quaternary problems in this area. The results of this study
support an archeological inference that the inhabitants of Takamori site would have been Homo
erectus. Of course, as no fossil bones have been discovered in Japan, it is impossible to discuss
about the inhabitants. This chronological study, however, will be significant for comparison with
stone tools in China, Indonesia and adjacent areas.
Maebashi Research Institute, Palaeoenvironment Research Institute Co., Ltd., 1540
Soja, Soja-machi, Maebashi-shi, Gunma-ken, JAPAN, email: MWE42673@pcvan.or.jp
The significance of the older Palaeolithic occurrences in the Nihewan Basin, northern China,
in the context of important Early and Middle Pleistocene northern Chinese localities
by Susan G. Keates, PhD, Oxford University, 1995
This thesis presents studies of the stone artefact assemblages from two late Early Pleistocene
sites in the Nihewan Basin, northern China. It also examines the depositionary, chronological, and
environmental framework of these sites. The archaeological evidences, including the cultural,
depositionary, chronological, and environmental data recovered from important Early and Middle
Pleistocene northern Chinese localities are examined based mainly on published data, and discussed
in the context of the results of the Nihewan hominid behavioural evidences. Alternative explanations
to the Chinese tradition model are presented which may advance a more substantive understanding of
lithic variability and of the informal character of these northern Chinese lithic assemblages. A
survey of the historical development of Palaeolithic studies in China, the theoretical and
methodological orientations of Chinese archaeology and associated disciplines, the practical
problems involved in research, and of the current interpretations of the palaeoenvironmental data
are also included for a deeper understanding of the background of the present knowledge of hominid
behaviour in the region. The thesis also includes biographical sources for Chinese Palaeolithic
prehistory.
Interregional Interaction and the emergence of complex societies in Lingnan during
the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age
by Francis Allard, PhD, University of Pittsburgh, 1995
This study focuses on the emergence of complex societies in Lingnan (which includes
the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi in southeast China) during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age
(3000-200 BC) and the role which interaction with northern areas may have played in this process.
Five instances of sociopolitically complex societies are recognized in Lingnan: northern Guangdong
(Shixia Culture) and western Guangdong during Period I (3000-1400 B.C.); southern Guangxi and
eastern Guangdong (Fubin Culture) during Period II (1400-600 B.C.); and much of Lingnan during
Period III (600-220 B.C.). The aims of the study are threefold: 1) to characterize more precisely
than before the nature of interaction with northern regions; 2) to determine how the 'elements' of
interaction may have played a role locally in the process of hierarchisation; and 3) to detect how
different types of interaction may be associated with differences in types of trajectories, paying
special attention to the stability of social systems.
Spatial, chronological and artifactual data are used to show that interaction with northern areas
did play a role in most instances of complex developments in Lingnan at this time, although existing
local populations 'recruited' these elements of interaction rather than reacted passively to
northern impact. In most instances, interaction is indicated by the presence of few northern
artifacts (obtained through a 'down-the-line' exchange system) and/or local copies of such goods. By
Period III, more directed relations link Lingnan with Chu state to the north. It is suggested that
in most instances, copies of northern goods were used in display and competition for power by
would-be leaders. When northern stylistic innovations became unavailable to societies in Lingnan as
a result of political/cultural change in central China, these societies are seen to have experienced
a decrease in social complexity. It is suggested that continued and gradual development in the scale
and hierarchical complexity of social systems in Lingnan is associated with a leadership in control
of subsistence activities rather than one which relies on display and mystification for the support
of the population. In the latter case, the system remains at the mercy of perturbations in the
source of foreign artifacts and ideas.
JOBS & GRANTS
KRF POST-DOCS
The Korea Research Foundation has just found funds to start a modest post-doctoral stipend program
to help up to ten foreign scholars who are within five years of their PhDs. As you know, the KRF's
main emphasis is on supporting domestic Korean Studies programs but it has an international program
as well which is embarking on individual research support with this announcement, a program "that we
will improve and refine, as we experience with it." Keep watch for the deadlines for this program of
funding during 1996-7. Contact:
Mr. HONG Sah Myung, Director, International Exchange Division
Korea Research Foundation, 1991-1 Tongsung-dong, Chongno-gu, Seoul, Korea
Tel: (02) 741-4630, Fax: (02) 744-0279
Grants Received
Korea Foundation
Grayson, James (Sheffield Univ) "Myths and legends from Korea: an annotated compendium of ancient
and modern materials"
Gonzalez, Vicario and Maria Teresa (Spain National Teachers' University) "The sculpture of the
Kingdom of Shilla"
CSCC
Barnes, Gina L. (Durham Univ) "Archaeological survey at Niuheliang and investigation of the site's
function"
Etler, Dennis A. (Univ California, Berkeley) "Archaeological investigations at the Yunxian fossil
hominid site"
Skaff, Jonathan K. (Univ Michigan) "Military administration of China's northwestern frontier during
the reign of TAN Xuanzong (712-56)"
EXHIBITIONS & MUSEUM NEWS
This section may include overlaps with "Newsletter, EAAA" listings; for fuller information about art historical showings, subscribe to Newsletter, East Asian Art & Archaeology, Dept. Art History, Univ. Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1357, USA.
The Freer Gallery is holding an exhibition on the conservation of Japanese Paintings: "The Life of a Japanese Painting," an exhibition of 35 hanging scrolls, handscrolls, albums, fans and folding screens from the 13th to early 19th centuries, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., 18 Jan - 4 Aug 1996. The presentation explores the creation and preservation of these distinctive East Asian painting formats by specialists trained in a centuries-old tradition. The exhibition is made possible by a generous grant from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Ann Yonemura, associate curator of Japanese art, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, is the exhibition curator. The press release is available (with pictures) on the World Wide Web (http://www.si.edu/amsg-fga). (via eaanet by T. Chase)
The Phoenix Art Museum is exhibiting its collection of 18th-century Chinese imperial court robes and textiles together with an exhibition on "Tang Dynasty Tomb Figures Loaned from the Ronbert B. Mayer Memorial Collection." From 1 April 1996 with a closing to be determined.
The Rijksmuseum Asia galleries in Amsterdam reopened in April 1996. The galleries contain numerous examples of Buddhist sculpture from Cambodia, China and Japan in stone and wood.
"Splendors of Imperial China: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei" will next be showing at the Art Institute of Chicago, 29 Jun - 25 Aug 1996, and at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco 14 Oct - 8 Dec 1996 and finally at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 27 Jan - 6 Apr 1997. With over 400 pieces, including paintings, calligraphy, textiles, and Song-Qing period ceramics, this is the first time that a major collection from the Palace Museum has ever travelled outside Taiwan.
"Hare's fur, tortoiseshell, & partridge feathers: Chinese brown-and-black-glazed ceramics, 400-1400" was shown at the Arthur Sackler Museum, Harvard University, through 10 March; it will travel to the Chin Institute, New York, 20 Apr - 13 July 1996. An exhibition catalog is available by the organiser, Robery Mowry.
"Early Chinese and Korean Star Maps", a photographic exhibition of East Asian historic
illustrations compiled by Prof. F. Richard Stephenson (Dept of Physics, University of Durham) was
shown March to April at the University of Durham Library. The four-page accompanying exhibition
handout states:
"From ancient times, East Asian astronomers carefully recorded the positions of both comets and
temporary stars (novae and supernovae) relative to specific asterisms. These observations have
proved of great value in the study of the long-term motion of comets (notably Halley's) and also the
identification of the remnants of galactic supernovae using radio telescopes and x-ray satellites.
With only a few isolated exceptions, East Asian observations of these phenomena have proved to be
without equal anywhere else in the world before the European Renaissance. Investigation of these
records requires careful identification of the individual stars charted on the oriental maps by
comparison with modern star charts and catalogues."
At the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, the exhibition "Luxury Arts of the Silk Route Empires" continues indefinitely.
The Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey has acquired and is now displaying several Liao dynasty painted tomb panels.
The National Palace Museum, Taipei, has temporary exhibitions continuing indefinitely on "Artifacts from a Late Shang Dynasty Royal Tomb," and "A Special Exhibition of Shang Dynasty Bronze Inscriptions." Permanent installations include bronze ritual vessels of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Late Shang oracle bones, pottery and porcelain from all ages.
The British Museum will be holding an exhibition on the "Mysteries of Ancient China" from 13 Sept
96 - 5 Jan 97, accompanied by a catalog edited by Jessica Rawson. The emphasis of the exhibition is
on religious beliefs, especially those concerned with the spirit world and the afterlife, based on
recent tomb excavations.
LECTURES
Depicting and Describing Early China, Univ of Chicago
This is a graduate research workshop newly instituted this academic year, coordinated by
EAANmember Magnus Fiskesjö (fisk@midway.uchicago.edu). An archaeological topic was:
26 Oct 95 "Recent archaeological discoveries at Buddhist sites in Xinjiang, China", by MA Shichang
East Asian Art & Archaeology Seminar, Harvard
28 Sept 95 "Western Zhou mortuary practice as seen from the cemetery at Zhangjiapo, Shaanxi
Province", by ZHANG Changshou
29 Sept 95 "Excavations at the Taosi site, Shanxi Province", by GAO Tianlin
12 Dec 95 "The Jade Age and the emergence of Chinese civilization", by MOU Yongkang
and Elizabeth Childs-Johnson. (This lecture was also given at Columbia University on 6 Dec 95, and
at Yale University on 14 Feb 96.)
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington DC
12 Mar 96 "Traders and raiders on China's northern frontier," by Jenny F. SO
Korea Colloquia, Harvard
21 Mar 96 "The Formation of Korean Ethnicity", by Dr. Yangjin PAK
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
24 Mar 96 "A first look at Shangqiu: a buried, pre-dynastic Shang city," by K.C. CHANG
Percival David Foundation, SOAS, Univ of London
16 Apr 96 "18th-century Oriental ceramics from archaeological sites in England", by Jennifer
Barry, MA
Archaeology Seminar, Durham Univ
24 May 96 "Korean potters and warriors: between the states," by G.L. Barnes
UCL Institute of Archaeology Seminar, Univ of London
11 Jun 96 "Origins of Agriculture in Northeast Asia", by Prof. Sarah Nelson
NOTEWORTHIES
Notes in the current issue are referred to as NOTEWORTHIES No. 00, while those in a previous issue will be referred to as NOTEWORTHIES 00-00, with the issue number before the dash and the note number after the dash.
- JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES
(submitted by Barbara Seyock; her translations and bracketed comments)
A. Kofun-period wooden coffin
Archaeologists found a carved wooden coffin in good condition in a stone chamber at the rear of the Yamato group of ancient ombs in Tenri (Nara). Located in the central part of Tenri, the early seat of the Yamato government and the location of a large number of ancient tombs, the coffin is said to be the first ever uncovered that might shed direct light on the general picture of ancient tombs. The mound is considerably large, about 120 m in length. The rectangular rear portion is about 60 m long on one side. The tomb itself is 18 m from north to south and 12 m from east to west. The original length of the wooden coffin is supposed to be 6 m, but only 5 m still remain. The stone chamber is surrounded by rock beds of 2 to 3 m width, and was sealed by several layers of clay earth. Jute cloth pieces were pasted onto the top and bottom layers of clay. Only a few relicts have been found, including jade beads, but due to the earthenware discovered in the stone chamber, the tomb is said to date back to the end of the 3rd century. (Japan Times, 6 Dec 95)
B. Bronze spearhead from Yayoi-period pit-building
In the Yayoi site of Shigetome (Kitakyūshū City, Kyūshū) a hirogata-dōhoko (socketed bronze spearhead with a wide blade) has been unearthed. The dōhoko is believed to date back to the late half of the second century (Late Yayoi). It was uncovered in a pit-style house site, the first one ever to be found in a house site. The rectangular house site is about 8 m in length and 6 m in width. Due to a lot of charcoal which was spread all over the place, the house site is believed to have been a building for ritual purposes (saishi-tatemono). Since pottery for everyday use was also found, Shigetome was not only a site for ritual purposes but also a settlement.
Sites of dōhoko hoards are quite rare, therefore not only special "hoard administrators" (mainō no kanrisha) are assumed to have existed, but also a class of regional chiefs whose power went beyond a single settlement. Relating the discovery of a dōtaku (bronze bell) hoard at the Yano settlement site in Tokushima City (Shikoku), which may have had a building with ridgepole postholes above, this find sheds new light on Yayoi ritual customs. (Asahi Shinbun, 9 Feb 96, by NISHITANI Tadashi)
C. Engraved wooden plank from Late Yayoi
A wooden plank with the engraved picture of the upper part of a human body with a tattooed face was uncovered at Jōkansu site in Maebara City (Fukuoka, Kyūshū). The plank is about 15 cm long, 10.5 cm wide, and about 6 cm thick. At the time of the discovery the plank was broken into 4 pieces, so some small parts in the middle of the plank are missing. The material is said to be Cinnamomum camphora (kusunoki, Engl. camphor). The plank is assumed to have been treated with fire, because the whole plank is of a dark, blackish colour. The face is situated almost in the middle of the plank, with the torso underneath. The oval-shaped face has eyes which look closed, a nose and a smiling mouth. The tattoos run from the middle of the forehead in a sort of "c"-shape round both eyes and slanting down the cheeks. The open sides of the two "c"s are directed towards the [not depicted] ears. Another two lines which run parallel to the upper parts of the "c"s look like eyebrows. Some short vertical lines are situated above and underneath the eyes, and some longer vertical lines run from the mouth to the chin. Some other slanting lines are situated at both sides of the chin. Since the lines on the chin recall a beard, the depicted person is believed to be a male. [I have a faint remembrance that Ainu women used this kind of tattooing, though.] On the right side of the head [looking from the picture's direction], there is something that looks like a horn or maybe a plait. There is nothing written about it, yet.
The plank is supposed to be from the first half of the Late Yayoi period, which coincides in time with the descriptions of the Gishi Wajinden. Since the Wajin-den reports that the Wa "used to tattoo their bodies", the Jōkansu find is certainly an important source for valuating the truthfulness of the ever so controversial Chinese document. (Mainichi Shinbun, 29 Feb 96)
- H-JAPAN: NEW ELECTRONIC DISCUSSION GROUP
H-Net announces H-Japan, an international, nonpartisan Internet discussion group sponsored by H-Net: Humanities-On-Line. It provides scholars, graduate students and professionals a free daily forum to discuss Japanese history, culture, religion, and society, including contemporary political, diplomatic, security, and economic issues.
If you wish to subscribe to the list, please send the following message (with a blank subject line) to LISTSERV@h-net.msu.edu
sub H-JAPAN (Firstname Lastname, Affiliation)
for example:
sub H-JAPAN Yoichi Jones, Northern University
Applicants will be asked to fill out a short form regarding your interests, and the editors will then sign you up. You will automatically receive messages in your email. H-JAPAN is free: there are no dues or fees of any kind. (Undergraduates need an e-mail letter from a faculty sponsor to join.) H-JAPAN is supported by the Center for a Global Partnership of the Japan Foundation (Kokusai Koryu Kikin Nichibei Center, who have also given support to H-Asia and H-USA).It is also sponsored by the Kansai Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of Osaka University of Foreign Studies, the Department of History of the Ohio State University, Michigan State University, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. H-Japan is directed by a team of editors and an international editorial board of scholars. It works closely with the other H-Net lists, especially H-ASIA and H-USA.
We invite subscribers to submit questions, answers, comments, reports and replies to H-Japan. H-Japan publishes syllabi, outlines, handouts, bibliographies, listings of new sources, guides to library catalogs and archives, and reports on new software, data sets and cd-roms. We post announcements of conferences, fellowships, recently published books on Japanese studies, and jobs. H-Japan commissions serious book reviews and responses from authors and audience alike.
H-Japan is an EDITED list. All messages must be approved by the editors, and all must be signed with the author's name and e-mail address. Only messages that promote scholarly dialogue will be published; no "flames" or personal attacks will be published. It is our intent to encourage international participation and in particular to encourage interaction among specialists in Japan and others located throughout the world. To this end, we are working to establish the ability to transmit messages in Japanese. We are now able to transmit Japanese messages; however to read and write messages in kanji, members must have the appropriate communications software on their local PC or Mac- Intosh machines. We hope in the future to be able to provide information that will assist our non-Japanese members and their institutions to communicate in Japanese.
H-JAPAN will have a "gopher" and its own page on the World Wide Web, which will be fully bilingual. For more information, please contact one of the editors:
Philip Brown, H-Japan Editor, Department of History, Ohio State University, 230 West 17th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 USA
Email: brown.113@osu.edu; Tel: 614-292-0904; Fax: 614-292-2282
(from Janet Goodwin via eaanet)
- THE LIANJIANG SHIPWRECK, FUJIAN
"A 13th century ship sunk at Dinghai, off the coast of Lianjiang in Fujian, has been investigated jointly by the Museum of Chinese History in Beijing and Adelaide University, Australia. The project started in 1990 as part of a field training program for young Chinese underwater archaeologists. The final season of fieldwork was completed last September. It is not yet clear whether the ship was bound for a foreign destination or was engaged only in local coastal trade.
"More than 2,000 items have been recovered from the boat. Most of them are ceramics: black glazed Jian-type ware and qingbai ware are most abundant. It is interesting to note that high quality imitations of Jian ware were made and sold in the same area-northern Fujian-where genuine Jian ware was made. Perhaps serious competition from nearby kiln centers was one of the factors which hastened the decline of the Jianyang kilns in the late Song period."
(from ACRO Update, Feb. 1996.1: 1)
- LIU WU'S SUIT OF JADE AND GOLD
BEIJING (Reuter) - Chinese archaeologists have unearthed one of their greatest finds, the tomb of a king buried 2,000 years ago in a magnificent suit of gold and jade hidden away deep inside a mountain to deter grave robbers. The shroud of Liu Wu, third king of the state of Chu during the Western Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 24), consisted of 4,000 wafer-thin jade plaques, sewn with gold thread and decorated with gold flowers and gold buttons. The king was interred about 2,170 years ago in a tomb chiselled 383 feet into the rock of Lion Mountain on the outskirts of Xuzhou in eastern Jiangsu province.
Archaeologists had to clear away 16 seven-ton rocks, placed to protect the tomb and its treasures from grave robbers, before they could enter its 229-foot tunnel. "The jade clothes were the finest and the most precious shroud ever excavated in the world," an official of the State Bureau of Cultural Relics said. Four huge buttons of pure gold, the heaviest weighing 13 ounces, were found on the king's belt and engraved with two bears tearing at a galloping horse, Xinhua said. "This indicates that the gold belts originated Central Asia-new evidence of early exchanges between central China and Central Asia," one researcher said. Archaeologists found a treasure trove of 176,000 ancient coins, more than 200 official seals, 200 jade objects, a hoard of ancient weapons and about 1,500 gold, silver, copper, iron, jade, pottery, lacquer, bone and other ancient relics, it said. The trove of seals would teach archaeologists much about the political system, history and geography of the period, it said.
About 10 years ago, archaeologists excavated two huge pits containing some 3,000 terracotta soldiers and horses about 500 yards east of the tomb, a find second only to the famous warriors found at the tomb of China's first emperor at Xian.
(as posted by Tom Chase on eaanet via Frank Preusser, Visiting Prof. Geidai)
- EAA & DOCUMENTARY FILM?
"Dear EAAN collective,
It would be helpful to have some advice, suggestions, and input relative to today's marketplace in regards to East Asian archeology and anthropology and documentary film production. Is anyone familiar with :
- Yunnan U.'s visual anthropology program?
- Guangzhou Tung Ah?
- Institute of National Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences?
I welcome any and all suggestions.
Sincerely, David Wiggins; Email: Naganadi@aol.com" (posted on eaanet)
- CHINESE INTERPRETATIONS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
"Hello. My name is Susan Oliver, I am a grad student in anthropology at the University of Iowa. I am conducting a research project on post-liberation Chinese views of biological anthropology and archaeology, especially those that might conflict with 'Western conventional wisdom'. I want to investigate the roots of social/political interpretations of these findings as well. Can anyone suggest sources in English? if so, my e mail address is: soliver@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu" (via eaanet)
- SPECIAL ISSUE ON PRESERVATION
Volume 9, Number 1 of Asian Art and Culture (1996) is a special issue on 'Preservation.' It is published by Oxford University Press in association with the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. To order, call 1-800-852-7323 or fax 919-677-1714.
(from Tom Chase <chaset@simsc.si.edu> via eaanet)
- KOREAN STUDIES JOURNAL CALL FOR PAPERS
"This seems an opportune moment to announce that the journal Korean Studies especially invites manuscripts on issues of gender both in Korea and among Koreans abroad for volume 21, due to appear in May 1997. The manuscript deadline is September 1, 1996. After the grueling but fairly successful attempt to build volume 20 around the theme of Korea and Japan, the editors hope to continue a tradition of theme-oriented volumes, although manuscripts not related to the theme for any particular year are also welcome. Suggestions for future themes are also welcome."
Joel Bradshaw <bradshaw@hawaii.edu>
Managing Editor, Korean Studies, Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai`i, 1881 East-West Road, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Tel. 808-956-6389, Fax 808-956-2213
- HISTORICAL MAP MAKING
"My husband and I have put together a 3-D interactive model for the Yi'nan tomb (late 2nd century c.e.) in Shandong Province as part of my dissertation. It is totally interactive so that you can move through the tomb, pull back, zoom in on details, turn around, move up and down etc...I have used it in 2 presentations at the National Gallery of Art and the College Art Association to good effect. You can take a look at some stills at the tomb.html web site below. It runs on an IBM laptop. By the way, I have a lot of slides of Han pictorial stones from my travels in Shandong Province and plan to make a web site for this material."
Lydia Thompson, New York University, Institute of Fine Arts
ldt@graphics.cs.nyu.edu http://found.cs.nyu.edu/fox/ldt
http://found.cs.nyu.edu/fox/ldt/tomb.html
- REGIONALITY OF THE JAPANESE & JAPANESE CULTURE
A team research project of the above title was conducted at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) in Kyoto between May and October 1995. As reported in the Nichibunken Newsletter (22: 4, 1995), the presentations over these months consisted of:
Matsushita, Takayuki: Regionality of the Yayoi people
Hanihara, Kazurō: Regionality of the Japanese-focussing on the Kofun period
Tsude, Hiroshi: The Kofun cultural regions
Kobayashi, Takashi: The Japanese linguistic regions looked at from usage
Kojima, Tomiko: Folk music on the Japan Sea and Pacific coasts
Sasaki, Kōmei: East-/west Japanese culture
Suzuki, Hideo: Regional differences of Japanese culture
Higa, Masao: The regionalism of the South-west islands looked at from social structure
Ueno, Kazuo: The regionalism of the Southern islands folk customs
Doi, Naomi: The South-west islands' people looked at from skeletal morphology
Asato, Susumu: The regionalism of the southwest islands through archaeology
- 2ND-CENTURY SILLA TOMB?
Korea Newsreview (30 March 1996: 5) reports the excavation of a Silla tomb (Sara-ri #130) in Kyongju by a "'private' excavation team which had been excavating the area since last November". The tomb finds include ca. 110 artifacts: a crystal-bead necklace, 32 bronze items, and 80 pieces of iron. Among the bronzes were mirrors and a 50 cm-long old-style sword with a grip; these together with the beads were taken as evidence that a "high-ranking Silla official" was buried there. 70 iron bars were also laid in seven rows on the bottom of the tomb; they are interpreted as currency bars. The tentative date of the tomb is given as the 2nd century AD.
- EARLY CHINA RECEPTION
At the recent AAS meetings in Hawaii, the Society for the Study of Early China held joint reception with the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley, for a twentieth anniversary celebration of the publication of Early China in honor of the journal's founder David N. Keightley. Early China 20 is a special issue dedicated to Prof. Keightley. Edward L. Shaughnessy, the outgoing editor, and Lionel Jensen, guest editor of volume 20, presented a copy of the special issue to Prof. Keightley at the annual meeting of the Society prior to the reception. The titles of the 18 contributions can be found in the p RUNNING BIBLIOGRAPHY. Donald Harper is the new editor of Early China and can be contacted about submissions and subscriptions at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA. Tel. 502-621-7505; Fax -1149; email: dharper@ccit.arizona.edu
- FUJIAN KILN EXCAVATIONS
"The Fujian Provincial Museum just finished a month-long excavation, led by Lu Jianan...at the 13th-14th century kiln site of Tu-wei-an in Jinjiang county. The site seems to have specialized in underglaze-painted basins reminiscent of Cizhou style and in kendis and bottles with bright green or yellow lead-based glazes. Many Tu-wei-an wares have been found at archaeological sites in Asia outside China.
"The famous kiln center in Tongan county will be excavated early next year by the Fujian Provincial Museum. The products of the Tongan Kilns, green glazed bowls often known by their Japanese name, 'Shuko green glazed ware', were extensively exported to Japan and other Asian countries during the 12th-14th century. Their true nature, however, remains poorly known. The project promises to unveil and important phase of ceramic production in Fujian."
(from ACRO Update, Feb. 1996.1: 1)
- OLDEST JAPANESE WRITING?
An early 4th-century haji ware minijar
has been found at Katabe site near Ise in Mie Prefecture which bears on its rim a slight image that
can be construed as the character for 'rice paddy'. However, researchers are divided whether this is
an actual written character or just a patterned discolouration. The image is marked with charcoal
and does not contain any magnesium or iron; thus it is thought by those who support its written
nature to have been done with sumi, writing ink. However, the image does not show up in infrared
exposure, and chemical analysis shows it to be no different from its surrounding. (Asahi Shinbun, 20
Jan '96)
- 6TH-C. CHINESE IMPERIAL SEAL RECOVERED 3 YEARS AFTER STOLEN
[CND, 06/18/96] Grave robbers stole a large seal that belonged to a Chinese empress of the sixth century in September 1993. Xinhua News Agency said that the seal was found after a suspect arrested in connection with the original robbery identified the grave robber who kept the relic for the past three years. The seal, said to be the earliest ever discovered, inscribed with the empress's name, was buried with her and Emperor Wudi of the northern Zhou dynasty in a tomb dated back 1,400 years in Xianyang city of Xian province. Experts said that the one-kilogram (2.2-pound) seal is considered crucial to studies of the southern and northern dynasties (AD 420-581).
(Bo XIONG, Daluo JIA, as transferred via eaanet from Nathan Sivin)
- LUCE FOUNDATION SILK ROAD PROJECT IN TURFAN
The Luce Foundation funded Chinese-American project, "The Silk Road Project Reuniting Turfan's Scattered Treasures", headed by Prof. Valerie Hansen (Yale University), initiated its first stage of operation on May 5-May 12, 1996. During the week in Urumqi and in Turfan, the group visited a number of sites including Astana, Gaochang, Jiaohe, the temple caves at Toyuq, Sengim and Yarkhoto. A smaller number of the group inspected a Tang fort at Alagou while others went to the sites of Beiting and the temple at Jumusa. LIU Hongliang (Director, Turfan Museum), Islafir (Director, Urumqi Museum) and WANG Binghua (Director, Institute of Archaeology, Urumqi) were unstinting of their time and were most generous in meeting the requests of the members of the group. Excavated materials were made available at all three institutions.
Lectures and presentations were made by MA Shichang (Beijing University), WU Zhen, WU Min, and Islafir, (all of the Urumqi Museum), and CHEN Guocan (Wuhan University). Other participants included ZHU Lei (Wuhan University), RONG Xinjiang, WANG Xiaofu and DENG Xiaonan (all of Beijing University), Janet Baker (Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, Calif.), Al Dien (Stanford University), Sarah Fraser (Northwestern University), Judy Ho (University of California, Irvine), Denise Leidy (Metropolitan Museum), Angela Sheng (Yokohama, Japan), John Skaff (University of Michigan), Oktor Skjaervo (Harvard University), Nancy Steinhardt (University of Pennsylvania), Victor Xiong (Western Michigan University) and Nobuyoshi YAMABE (Yale University). Staff included Larissa Schwartz (Yale University), QIU Ling (Institute of Archaeology, Urumqi) and SUN Jingyun (Xinjiang University).
The project will run for three years, and is to result in a volume of research papers.
(submitted by Al Dien)
- SHENZHEN UNIVERSITY MUSEUM
Shenzhen University in China is setting up a permanent Museum display in late 1996 of the amateur interdisciplinary field studies in search of pre- and proto-historic sites in the Xili and Nantou prefectures carried out by Professor Peter Thompson and JIU Shunqiang from 1987 to the present. The Museum will include objets trouvés with the help of local farmers and site maps together with an account of the search approach applied to an increasingly wasted landscape now in the stage of final destruction by major industrial development. Sixteen major sites have been identified as supplemental to the three or four previously known to experts in the eastern sector of the mainland Pearl River delta.
Typologically, a small number of tool finds date from the early Middle Stone Age, with settlement evidence including a major village in Nantou dating continuously from early Late Stone Age (ca. 7000 BP) to late Qin, followed by very little until late Han, Tang and Song partial recovery; the final part occupancy [was] in a succession of disasters from Japanese occupation to recent times.
Some of the first major finds are in Shenzhen City Museum and recorded unacknowledged [as to discovery context] in Archaeological finds from the Pearl Delta in Guangdong (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 1991). (submitted by Peter Thompson)
EAANet CONVERSATIONS:
This is a new section for EAANnouncements, recording some of the more interesting exchanges on the listserver, eaan, which is jointly supported by the East Asian Archaeology Network and the Society for the Study of Early China. The list is operated by Prof. Nathan Sivin at the University of Philadelphia. Sign-on instructions are given on the last page of this newsletter. All EAANmembers are urged to get an email address in order to participate in the listserver exchanges.
A. Comments on the AD 414 stele for King Kwanggaet'o
This set of comments by Gari Keith Ledyard (Columbia University) and James Jamieson (Chinese
University of Hong Kong) were posted on eaanet during discussions of Korean historical materials.
They focus on an inscribed stele erected by the son of King Kwanggaet'o of Koguryo in the early 5th
century. The text of the stele is controversial; the comments below explain the process and
historical circumstances of the initial rubbings of the text, putting the controversy into
perspective.
Ledyard's comments:
I have a little difficulty seeing the discovery of the Kwanggaet'owang Stele as
"archaeological." Granted, it is an ancient monument that was lost to human consciousness for
centuries, the sudden discovery of which in the early 1880s set the stage for the modern debate. But
to our great misfortune, this discovery was in no strict sense "archaeological." Although introduced
to international scholarship by Japanese researchers, the actual discoverers were Chinese officials
who were organizing local Chinese administration in the Ji'an-xian area for the first time, from
about 1875 on. Some of these officials had an avocation for epigraphy, and it was they who
discovered the stone, much of it buried under ground and completely covered in a tangle of bushes
and weeds, some of them literally growing out of the stone. The sheer size of the stone, even when
the dirt was cleared away and the overgrowth burned off, made rubbing extremely difficult.
The stone is about 6.3m high, and its four surfaces average about 1.6m in width. The total surface
covers about 40 square meters. This means that each character is, on the average, about 230 square
centimeters in size. With margins, that would mean that an average 8.5x11" sheet of paper would only
hold about two and a half characters; therefore it would take almost 700 sheets of such paper to
make a rubbing of the whole text. Although bigger sheets of paper were available, it still took well
over a hundred very large sheets to rub the whole text. Given that the text had many missing
characters and that in places parts of the stone surface had long since fallen off, even putting
these sheets together correctly was an extremely difficult task. Those who believe in Japanese
conspiracies to doctor the text should at least start with the fact that even assembling the text
presented numerous problems that would confuse even an honest scholar. And I'm not implying that the
first Japanese investigators of the stone were necessarily dishonest.
The first complete rubbing (now lost) was produced around 1882 and does not seem to have left
Chinese hands. In the fall of 1883, Lieutenant SAKAWA (sometimes read as SAKOU) Kageaki, who was
scouting, indeed spying for the Japanese General Staff in Manchuria, arrived on the scene and
purchased another rubbing from local Chinese scholars. He turned it over to the General Staff upon
his return to Japan, and for the next six years it was treated as a secret. Lt. Sakawa himself did
not make make the rubbing, but only purchased it; the Japanese insider scholars who were recruited
to study it had never seen the actual stone, and had an extremely difficult time figuring out how
the various pages fit together. Their report was published in 1889 in a classified military journal,
the Kaiyoroku. The first genuinely public scholarly reference to the text was by the Japanese
scholar KAN Masatomo, in 1891.
Given the mess surrounding the discovery and the early understanding of this stone inscription,
there is enough for scholars to do just to understand the complexity of the thing, let alone figure
out conspiracy theories. There's no question that interpretive mistakes were made, some of them
possibly encouraged by naive schemes encouraged by the Japanese General Staff, but I find the
various claims of textual doctoring put forward by YI Chinh'i and others overblown and unconvincing.
A lot of good work has been done organizing the history and issues presented by this singular stone.
It will be grist for endless mills in the future as it has been in the past.
gkl1@columbia.edu
Jamieson's reply to Ledyard:
A supplement to Gari's note on the Hot'aewang stele. WANG Jianqun's Haotaiwang Yanjiu (Jilin
renmin chubanshe, 1984) is a very useful reference that colleagues may not know about. A good
friend, Wang has done a rather thorough job of putting together the history of the stele, from its
discovery in 1875 on through to the manner in which it was cleaned up and includes renditions of a
dozen others: Chinese, Japanese and North Korean. Most intriguing is his record of interviews with
the descendants of CHU Tianfu and CHU Junde, the father and son team who supplemented their
livelihoods by selling rubbings of the stele, having had a monopoly on the enterprise throughout the
end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Their nicknames in the area were "Big Stele Chu."
When they began, the massive rock was covered with layers of moss and vegetation that had become
anchored to the surface and, to remove it, they covered the thing with horse dung and when that had
dried, soaked it with oil and set it on fire, causing a section of the stele to crack off in the
process. If you've seen the thing, you know it is a bumpy rock, hence not made for taking easy
impressions. The Big Stele Chus solved this by filling in cracks and crevasses with lime, a
time-honoured approach, as was filling in missing characters in order to make the final product more
saleable, in the rubbers' view. This is likely why some early photos show white lines and splotches,
and was partially the basis for YI Chinhi's inaccurate charges of text doctoring. The Chus were men
without any formal education who lived in a thatched house adjacent to the stele, which neighbors
said reeked of the rancid smell of the mixture of cooking pot soot, glue and cheap slab ink they
used for their rubbings. Company didn't hang around long, I would bet. The particular odor. of
unperfumed slab ink generally, is reminiscent of that of an elephant house at a city zoo at the end
of a productive day. You'll get all this and more from Wang's work, a recommended read. No scratch
and sniff inserts, rest assured. His analysis of peninsular and adjacent archipelago tribe
relations-Koguryo, Piryo, Paekche (called a nasty name), Silla, Wae, Imnakara, Puyo-is sound, as is
that of the nature of the indentured families which guarded Hot'aewang's tumulus and stele. And all
ample evidence that early Japanese interpretations of the stele are interesting aspects of modern
imperial history, but irrelevant otherwise.
jcjamieson@cuhk.hk
B. Publication subsidies for Chinese archaeological reports
The following is an exchange between Prof. Al Dien (Standford University) and Prof. Nathan
Sivin (Univ. Philadelphia) concerning publication subsidies for Chinese archaeological reports. The
messages were posted on eaanet; both authors have given their permission for the letters to be
reproduced here. If anyone has any comments, EAANnouncements can serve as a forum for discussion of
the difficult issues raised:
from Al Dien:
I met Prof. JIANG Zanchu of Nanjing University last month for the first time since 1977. He is
an archaeologist of the Yangzi region during the Six Dynasties period, perhaps at present the most
prominent. Among other things he told me that there is a manuscript describing all of the Six
Dynasties excavations at Echeng, the ancient Wuchang, some 394 tombs in all. To put this into
perspective, I have a data base of all Six Dynasties tombs which have been reported in most of the
journals, and for this particular area I have only 39 on record. It was possible to compile this
work, according to Prof. Jiang, because there are only a few archaeological and museum units
involved, whereas in the Nanjing area, there are so many that such cooperation would be impossible
to achieve. The manuscript has 250,000 characters, 400 figures, 200 photographs. The problem, of
course, is money, especially given the publishing situation in China today. It would require US
$8000 to 10,000 to see it through printing. Does anyone have an idea to whom one might apply for
this sort of money?
from Nathan Sivin:
The problem of [Chinese] requests to colleagues abroad for publication cost subsidies is a very
tricky one. Almost everyone encounters it sooner or later. It amounts to foreign collusion in
blackmail by publishers, who have no trouble at all in paying to endlessly duplicate each others'
titles on qigong, sexology, etc. If we give in, the result will be that no Chinese publisher will
consider a scholarly book without a subsidy, and the amounts will go up to stay slightly ahead of
the market. Thus, we will go from restricted opportunities to publish to no opportunity at all for
anyone who does not have foreign sources of funds. I need not remind you of the name for such a
situation.
A similar problem arises with offers by Chinese colleagues to publish translations of work by
Americans, which sooner or later also involves a large payment for publication costs. The result of
this frequent con is that publishing in Chinese translation is now considered by most promotion and
tenure committees, in the absence of contrary evidence, to be vanity publication.
I therefore hope colleagues will agree that only funds internal to China should figure in such
advice. What matters most is to refuse to go along with this.
from Al Dien:
Thanks for the remarks and advice, but I think they are not relevant in this case. I have indeed
received many requests for subventions, but I am confident in my ability to make a judgment based on
the author and the material. I know Prof. Jiang's work very well, having read everything he has
published over the years, and know him to be a person of highest integrity. I also know that the
situation for publication of academic material in China is in a terrible shape, and given the
expectation for low sales for a work of this sort, its liklihood of being published is nil. Finally,
this is a rare opportunity to learn in depth the archaeological record of a place and a period,
instead of knowing the record from a skewed publication of one-fifth to one-tenth of what has been
excavated. It has the potential of providing a corrective through extrapolation for what we know of
other areas as well. But thanks anyway, I realize your remarks stem from the same sorts of
frustration that I often feel as well.
CONFERENCES:
CONFERENCE CALENDAR
Titles new to this issue are emboldened and those dealing specifically with East Asia are
starred
*June 14-16 '96: Evidence from the Tombs: changing styles of life and death from Late Warring States to Han, an international symposium accompanying the Imperial Tombs exhibition at the Portland Art Museum. Speakers include WU Hung, Robert Thorp, and Hsingyuan TSAO. Contact: Donald Jenkins, Curator of Asian Art, Portland Art Museum, 1219 S.W. Park Avenue, Portland, OR 97205. Fax 503-226-4842. Application deadline 15 April 1996.
*June 15-16 '96: Nihon Bunkazai Kagakukai, Tokyo Gakugei University. 75 papers on dating, palaeo-environment; conservation science; cultural properties science; materials, techniques and sourcing.
*July 1-4 '96: Third Pacific and Asia Conference on Korean Studies, Sydney. Contact: Sang-Oak Lee, PACKS Organising Committee, School of Asian Studies, Univ Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia. FAX 2-351-2319; email: sangoak.lee@asia.su.edu.au
*July 27-8 '96: Kyushu-Yongnam Joint Archaeological Society meeting, Taegu, Korea. Topic: 4th-5th century Korean-Japanese relations.
*Jul 8-11 '96: Asian Studies Association of Australia 20th Anniversary Conference, La Trobe Univ, Melbourne. Contact: Robin Jeffrey, La Trobe Univ, Melbourne, Australia. email: polrj@lure.latrobe.edu.au
*Aug 12-16 '96: Xiong-nu Archaeology Session of the World Archaeology Congress, Buryatia [Ulan-Ude], Russia. Themes: Nomadism in the system of ancient civilizations; Regional patterns of nomadism; Ecological problems of nomadism; History and culture of the Xiong-nu; The nomadic mode of life-adapting to the natural environment; Protection and use of the historic and cultural heritage. Excursions: to archaeological monuments of Buryatia and to Lake Baikal. Contact: The Institute of Social Sciences, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ulitsa Sakhyanova 6, Ulan-Ude 670042 Russia. Tel. (301 22) 372-16 or 330 42; Fax (301 22) 632 44, Box 057.
*Sept 2-6 '96: 6th International Conference, European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, Leiden, The Netherlands. Contact: Marijke Klokke, IISA, Nonnensteeg 1-3, PO Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands. Fax 71-274162
Sept 8-14 '96: International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences XIII Congress (IUPPS), Forli, Italy. Contact Segreteria XII Congresso UISPP, via Marchesi 12, 47100 Forli, Italy. Fax 543-35805
Sept 13-18 '96: Bog Bodies, Sacred Sites & Wetland Archaeology Conference, Copenhagen. Sponsored by WARP. Contact: Mogens Schou Jørgensen, RAS, National Museum of Denmark, Frederiksholms Kanal 12, DK-1220 Copenhagen K, Denmark. Fax 33 93 26 71
Oct 25-6 '96: Western Conference, Association for Asian Studies, Ogden, Utah. Call for papers, panels and poster sessions by July 1st. Contact: Gordon K. Harrington, Program Chair, WCAAS'96, Dept of History, Weber State University, 1205 University Circle, Ogden, UT 84408-1205, USA. email: GHarring@ssnet.weber.edu
*Nov '96: 3rd International Conference on Ancient Bronze Drums and Bronze Culture of Southern China and Southeast Asia, Guilin, Guangzi, China. Trips to Guilin Museum and the Jingjiang Imperial Tomb Museum. Contact: Prof. JIANG Tingyu, Guangxi Museum, 34 Min Zu Ave., Nanning 530022, Guangxi, P.R. China
Feb 10-11 '97: Sixth Australasian Archaeometry Conference, Sydney. Contact: Sixth Australasian Archaeometry Conference, AINSE, PMB1, Menai, NSW 2234 Australia, or Dr. R. Fullagar, Fax 2-320-6058, email: richardf@amsg.austmus.oz.au. Papers on review of certain fields, as well as case studies, are welcome.
Apr 2-4 '97: Joint East Asian Studies Conference (JEASC), University of Durham, Contact: Lynn Baird, email: lynn@essex.ac.uk
Apr 2-6 '97: Annual Society for American Archaeology (SAA) meetings, Nashville, Tennessee.
*July 7-12 '97: 35th International Congress of Asian and North African Studies (ICANAS), Budapest. General subject: "Oriental Studies in the 20th century: state of the art." A special panel about Aurel Stein and archaeology on the Silk Road is planned, and an exhibition on the Silk Road is being prepared. Contact: Körösi Csoma Society, Muzeum krt 4/b, H-1088 Budapest, Hungary.
Fall '97: Conference on Technological Transfer between Japan and the Continent,1100-1600. Universitmeetings, NashVILLE, TENNESSee.
July 7-12 '97: 35th International Congress of Asian and North African Studies (ICANAS), Budapest. General subject: "Oriental StUDIES IN THE 20TH CENTURY: STATE OF THe art." A special panel about Aurel Stein and archaeology on the Silk Road is planned, and an exhibition on the Silk Road is being prepared. Contact: Körösi Csoma Society, Muzeum krt 4/b, H-1088 BuDAPEST, HUNGARY.
FALL '97: CONFERENCE ON TECHNOLOGIcal Transfer between Japan and the Continent,1100-1600. University of Oregon.
PAPERS READ
For copies of the papers listed here, please contact either the symposium or panel organizer
if the author is unknown to you
City Walls: form, function and meaning, 5-8 Oct 95, University of Minnesota. East Asia
Papers were:
Farmer, Edward: Walled cities of Ming China
Steinhardt, Nancy: Representations of Chinese cities in the pictorial and graphic arts
Ancestral Glory: the ritual bronzes of ancient china, 14 Oct 95, Arthur M. Sackler
Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
This symposium was held to mark tHE PUBLICATION OF THE INDIVUDUAL BOOKS IN THE ANCIENT CHINESE
RITUAL BRONZES FROM the Arthur M. Sackler Collections trilogy, entitled:
So, Jenny F. (1995) Eastern Zhou ritual bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections
Rawson, Jessica (1990) Western Zhou ritual bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections
Bagley, Robert (1987) Shang ritual bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collection
It serves as the venue for the authors and collaborators to discuss the significance of this
publication project.
La Sérinde terre d'échanges: art, religion, commerce du premier au dixième siècle (The Silk
Road Symposium), 13-15 February '96, Paris. Contact: Mme Roche-Vouri, Service de la Diffusion
Culturelle et de la Communication, École du Louvre, Paris 75038 France.
Pinault, Georges-Jean: Narration dramatisée et narration en peinture dans la région de Koutcha
Mair, Victor H.: La littérature bouddhique et ses représentations, de l'Inde à la Chine
Grenet, Frantz: Avatars de Vaisravana-les étapes sogdienne et tibétaine
Forte, Antonino: Iraniens en Chine. Bouddhisme, masdéisme, bureaux de commerce
Wang, Binghua: Nouvelles découvertes archéologiques en Sérinde
Debaine-Francfort, Corinne: Les plus anciennes images du Bouddha en Sérinde
Maillard, Monique: L'architecture de terre en Sérinde
Whitfield, Roderick: Imperial splendour-the Sui dynasty (589-618) at Dunhuang
Ponnau, Dominique: Présentation des Rencontres
Zeymal, Tamara: Le bouddhisme dans le Tokharistan septentrional. Questions de chronologie
Marshak, Boris: Iran, Sogdian and Serindian art
Bhattacharya-Haesner, Chhaya: Indian influences in Buddhist iconography in Central Asian art
Kuo, Liying: Un Mandala de confession à Dunhuang
Magnin, Paul: L'Empéreur et le Bouddha-fondement d'une nouvelle harmonie
Yaldiz, Marianne: The cosmological Buddha at Northern Silkroad
Imaeda, Yoshiro: Rituel du serment des traités sino-tibétains (VIIIe-IXe siècles)
Lubo-Lesnitchenko, Evgueny: Tissus de Dunhuang et route de la soie
Raschmann, Simone-Christiane: ExchaNGE Of textile goods along the silk roads according to the Uigur
texts
Trombert, Eric: Textiles et tissus sur la route de la soie. Éléments pour une géographie de la
production et des échanges entre le Ve et le Xe siècle
Thierry, François: Entre Iran et Chine, la circulation monétaire en Sérinde
IIAS International Workshop: The origins and past of modern humans-toward a reconciliation,
21-3 March '96, Kyoto.
Organised by Phillip Tobias (University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, South Africa) and Ōmoto
Keiichi (International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto)
Aoki, Ken'ichi: Modelling the spread of early farming and of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe
Bellwood, Peter: Human migration and colonization in prehistory-the Southeast Asian data and their
implications
Bräuer, Günter: On the possible degree of continuity/gen flow in Europe as seen in early Upper
Palaeolithic crania
Cann, Rebecca: MtDNA in Oceania-resolution with linguistic, morphometric, serological, and nuclear
genetic markers
Deka, Ranjan: Tracing the origin of modern humans using nuclear DNA polymorphism
Harding, Rosalind: Gene trees for ß-globin sequences-inferences on the evolution of modern humans
Horai, Satoshi: Mitochondrial DNA polymorphism in East Asian populations with special reference to
the peopling of Japan
Miracle, Preston: The spread of modernity in Paleolithic Europe
Nei, Masatoshi: Genetic studies on the origins of modern humans
Pääbo, Svante: Linguistic and genetic diversity in Europe
Pope, Geoffrey: The new dates from Java and China, their relevance to the origin of modern humans
Rightmire, Philip: The First anatomically advanced humas from South Africa and Levant
Ruhlen, Merritt: Human language and human migrations
Takahata, Naoyuki: Genetic considerations on the origin of modern humans
Tokunaga, Katsushi: HLA Class II alleles and haplotypes in Asian populations-with special reference
to the Ainu
Wang, William S-Y: Dating the past
Wolpoff, Milford: What are modern humans
Wu, Xinzhi: Continuity or replacement-viewed from source of certain features of modern humans in
China
First World Conference of EAANetwork, 10-11 April '96, Honolulu
Abstracts:
Agriculture on the periphery and the southern expansion of the Chinese empire
Magnus FISKESJÖ
How was South China incorporated into China? This complex problem is here explored from the perspective of agricultural transformations, emphasizing the use made by the Chinese state from Han times onwards of agricultural colonies and promotion of irrigated rice cultivation, to sustain and expand the taxation system of the state in order to colonize and assimilate the southern peripheries. It is suggested that the famous old distinction between "raw" and "cooked" Southern "barbarians" should be understood in terms of such an extended process, wherein the "raw" (often indigenous agriculturalists relying on various forms of swidden agriculture) are incorporated (i.e. "cooked") into the Chinese economy. Drawing on records and historical scholarship revealing the mechanics of enforced assimilation of "Miao" peoples of the south (Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan; mainly in the Qing period), inferences are made regarding the implications for archaeology both in terms of the late imperial period, and autochtonous state formation in the Bronze Age, and late prehistory. The paper forms a call for an archaeology of Southern agroecosystems, including the study of transformations of concomitant settlement patterning, animal use, plant remains, and tool complexes, etc., as related to the dynamic processes of sinicization/state formation.Introduction: centre and periphery: concepts and applications to East and Southeast Asia
Francis ALLARD
This paper briefly reviews how the core/periphery model has been applied by archaeologists, making the point that the varied and unsystematic application of the idea has reduced its usefulness as a basis for the comparison of separate cases. Rather than advocating the abandonment of the concept, however, it is suggested that it can be used as a heuristic device capable of directing productive research. Importantly, attention should be directed toward the investigation of the nature and impact of intersocietal interaction rather than the identification of core and peripheries from limited data. It is suggested that the concepts of 'dependence' on and 'benefits' of inter-societal interaction, although difficult to clearly identify in the archaeological record, can be useful in the investigation of interaction. In the case of East Asia, it is argued that we are provided at the outset with a ready-made core in the Yellow river valley, whose complexity and importance is supported by a wide range of evidence. However, this should not detract us from investigating the nature and impact of interaction. Neither should archaeologists attempt to 'rehabilitate' the periphery by simply indentifying these perpheries as innnovators of new cultural elements. Although a number of societies in East Asia are shown to have benefited, to varying degress, from interaction, there are as yet no instances of prestige good economies dependent on the acquisition of large numbers of non-utilitarian goods from afar.Periphery as an active player: the case of the upper Xiajiadian in northeast China
Gideon SHELACH
During the first half of the first millennium BC, the polities of northwest China, known collectively as the Upper Xiajiadian cultures, were much less complex than the Chinese status of the Yellow River area. However, contrary to the commmonly held notion of periphery s a passive player-politically and culturally dominated by the Centre and economically exploited by it-the data suggests that in their relations with the centre, the Upper Xiajiadian polities were active and independent.
Statistical analysis performed on data from all the published excavations of Upper Xiajiadian graves suggests the existence of a conscious attempt at symbolically marking the status of grave owners. It reflects a stratified society in which a few paramount local leaders were buried in rich graves which contained, among other things, Chinese bronze vessels. It is argued that the acquisition and consumption of Chinese bronzes served to legitimize the powers asserted by the Upper Xiajiadian elite. It is therefore clear why the leaders of the Upper Xiajiadian polities were active initiators of contacts with the Chinese states to their south and were willing to invest considerable effort in maintaining their local monopoly over the use of Chinese bronzes.Center or periphery: the evidence of a reconstructed Shang chariot
Barbara STEPHEN
During the last three months, production of a short video for the new Early China Galleries at the royal Ontario Museum offered an opportunity to reconstruct a Shang hunting chariot using the technique of computer animation. While the wheeled vehicles of Shang China are generally considered to be evidence of imported technology, they are sometimes presented as examples ofr local independent development. a more precise understanding of this design could therefore assist in understanding their origins. During the project, reference was made to archaeological records of the vehicles (including the later but very detailed evidence of two bronze models found near the Qin tomulus); to Shang pictographs; and to Western studies of chariot design and mechanics. We began work on the reconstruction by assembling the more solid components best known from excavations, then proceeded by adding more perishable components necessary for function, such as reins and backing elements, for which Shang evidence is lacking. The exercise led both to a resolution of some questions of design and to the definition of new ones for further study, demonstrating the value of the technique as a research tool.
The resulting 'virtual chariot' can be shown to have non-Chinese precedents for every major design component, from the multiple-spoked wheels to the bits with rigid cheek pieces attached to soft mouthpieces. The design of the yoke and its yoke saddles, with a distribution across the Eurasian range of vehicles of this type, remain among the most telling elements. While reasons for the appearance of this complex and colstly technolgy for nort-central China are still hypothetical, its value as a prestige ceremonial instrument for the Shang rulers clearly justified its adoption.Strangers in their midst: 'others' at Anyang
Katheryn M. LINDUFF
Early Chinese historians presented a selected picture of life, one which they thought, and probably believed, represented the most important and relevant elements of Chinese culture. They marginalized people and artistic traditions which did not fit their normative, historical model of Chinese culture. Recent archaeological recovery in China as well as intellectual debate on the construction of cultural identity and definition, however, encourage reconsideration of the cultural make-up of early China.
The traditional view of Chinese culture was and still is made vivid through the notion of contrast, or through 'us/them' constructs which defined who was Chinese and who was not. The intimacy of their association is reflected particularly in the most solemn of rituals, burials which include artifacts typical of 'others' mixed with traditional Chinese-style items. Excavated burial assemblages in 'Chinese' contexts dating from the Shang period, even at Anyang, are actually quite diverse, and the traditional normative view of culture cannot account for this variance. Evidence of the interaction between the Shang and 'other' cultures is apparent in these burials and provides an excellent setting in which to study this predicament. I will examine the notion of 'Shang' culture in relation to the role of 'others' in the late Shang by analyzing burials at Anyang and other northern, Shang site dates.Images of self and society in the mural tombs of Koguryo
Miwa STEVENSON
Since the beginning of the 10th century, when the discipline of archaeology found its first partisans in the scholarly world of East Asia, some 60-odd muraled tombs have been excavated along the border between Korea and Manchuria, with large concentrations in the vicinity of the modern cities of Pyongyang and Ji'an. The identification of these two sites with Koguryo capitals dating from the 3rd through the 7th centuries has led to the general belief that the muraled tomb style developed in conjunction with the emergence of Koguryo royal power in this region. Bordering on the North Korean-Chinese frontier, the 'Koguryo' muraled tombs have attracted the attention of archaeologists and art historians of diverse ethnic and scholarly persuasions who are interested in the cultural history of early northeast Asia. Interpretation of the tomb murals and their historical significance has become a focal point for various ideological subtexts. While Korean scholars tend to regard these tombs as products of a purely indigenous 'Korean' tradition, Chinese, Japanese and Western scholars treat them as retardataire relics of Chinese funerary art of the Han period, preserved in this outlying region. By consistently subordinating them to a narrative of linear historical influence, they have neglected to consider their intention within their immediate social and cultural idiom.
This paper will address two main concerns. One is to review different approaches to interpretation of the muraled tombs and to offer a critical appraisal of the polemical tensions that have developed around their study as historical monuments. The second is to understand these tombs as monuments of self and ancestry, as formulated wir identify the given scenes as events in the official career and family life of the deceased. Thus, epitaph and mural constitute an intergrated program dedicated to the glorification of self and clan, especially as fabricated within the context of service to the regional court. The pictorial program found in the Anak and Tokhungri tombs is broadly representative of the other muraled tombs as well, indicating that, although originally informed by Chinese funerary motifs, the program was adapted as an effective visual language for articulating selfhood and status in the new social order of the emergent Koguryo state.Digging for Edo: Archaeology and Japan's early-modern Past
Constantine VAPORIS
It is only since the mid-1970s that the archaeology of Japan's early modern (kinsei) period has become an accepted sub-discipline. Beginning with the economic bubble of the 1980s, large-scale redevelopment in Tokyo, particularly in the center of town, gave an opportunity to excavate the city's substrata in what were mostly salvage-type operations. While this economic redevelopment played an important role in the development of the archaeology of the early modern period, this phenomenon should also be seen as part of a growth in interest in the history of the period as a whole-the so-called "Edo buumu". This is a first attempt to sift through the growing body of literature on the subject. Using site reports, reports geared toward the general public, museum exhibition catalogues, monographs and periodic literature, I will try to assess some of the significance of the field for our knowledge of the urban history of Edo. In doing so, I will focus particularly on excavations of domainal residence compounds (daimyō yashiki), e.g. those at Tokyo University, Hakuō, Shiodome, Roppongi and Kioi-chō among others.Su Bingqi and contemporary chinese archaeology
WANG Tao
Su Bingqi (b. 1909), now the elected president of the Chinese Association of Archaeology, is the doyen of contemporary Chinese archaeology. His theory of regional divisions in the development of Chinese civilization has influenced and indeed shaped current archaeology in China. In his theory, first introduced in 1975, Su divides the archaeological development of early Chinese civilization into six geographic regions: (1) the northern region centred on the Great Wall; (2) the central plain which adjoins Shanxi, Shaanxi and Henan; (3) the middle range of the Yangtze River, centred on Lake Dongting and its surrounding areas; (4) the lower range of the Yellow River, centred on Shandong and its neighbouring areas; (5) the lower range of the Ynagtze River, centred on the Lake Taihu area; and (6) the southern region region which takes Lake Boyang and the Pearl River delta as its axis. Within each of these major divisions are many sub-types. Su's theory argues that each region has its own cultural development and that interaction among them is constant. This theory differs from the traditional view, long held in the profession, that Chinese civilization originated in the middle Yellow River valley, then diffused to other regions. Su argues that there are different stages and multi-layers in the formation of Chinese civilization. His theory has been verified by recent archaeological discoveries and inevitably forces archaeologists to reconsider their traditional framework and methodology. Su's thought marks, many scholars in China believe, the establishment of an independent school of Chinese archaeology. A critical examination of this from a historical and comparative perspective would broaden our understanding of archaeology as an academic discipline in contemporary China.Ritual to Insifnia: Jade vessel sets and the definition of the Jade Age
Elizabeth CHILDS-JOHNSON
Why can we speak of a Jade Age? In the Warring States text, Yue Jueshu (Lost Records of the Yue-Precious Swords), the author YUAN Kang makes reference to weapons from four different ages: the so-called Stone, Jade, Bronze and Iron Ages. Kwang Chih Chang, in recognizing the significance of this reference, coined the term "Jade Age" to encompass primarily the Liangzhu culture that produced the representative jade type-the prismatic cylinder known as cong (Orientations June 1989). Historically and archaeologically, it is evident that ancient China experienced a period when jade was the primary material exploited for artistic, religious and political purposes. On the basis of current archaeological evidence, the time frame for this period of jade exploitation is over 1000 years, from ca. 3500 to 2100 BCE. Culturally this period incorporates the Late Neolithic proto-historic cultures, currently identifiable as the Hongshan, Liangzhu and Shandong Longshan. Earlier cultures, such as Xinglongwa in far north China, Hemudu in south China and Dawenkou in northeast China used jade occasionally as small-scale decor in the form of huang, jue-earrings and beads, but not on a scale that predicates identifying these jades beyond a decorative purpose.
During the era of ca. 3500-2100 BCE, jade emerged as a material exploited for the purpose of signifying religious and political power in the form of primarily ritual tools, costume ornament and weapons, and later in the form of religo-political insignia. The evidence for the role of jade as a religio-political power symbol of the ruling elite is based on excavated contextual data and on burial remains. For example, from the earliest burials of Hongshan cultural date, jade types, including so-called pig-dragons, hooked cloud placques, horse-hoof cylinders and cat-headed falcons identify burials of elites. These latter burials, which were constructed according to a specialized design, and their jade finds are further associated with religious centers marked by large-scale, carefully designed stone-lined square and circular outdoor altars. The same specialized context and type of jades characterize the slightly later but overlapping culture called Liangzhu. There, not only do the elite burials contain specialized types of jades in the form of the ritualized yue-weapon, ritual tools cong and bi, and specialized costume ornaments such as the axially oriented set of four D-shaped crown pieces, but they are associated with a specialized cemetery, recently identified at Sidun, Jiangsu, by the large-scale cosmological design of square and circle (Zhongguo wenwubao 1995.12.31, p. 3), reminiscent of the later Western Zhou architectural monument called mingtang.
Finally, and least known archaeologically, is the alternative jade form marking the end of the Jade Age, the insignia based on tool and weapon types, including zhang, dao, yue, and gui, best known in the later historic Erlitou period (E. Childs-Johnson, Archives of Asian Art, 1995) but also represented amidst the slightly earlier and overlapping Longshan phase of the Late Neolithic in Shandong and elsewhere in north China. Although architectural foundations and elitist jade works of art are not well-known during this Longshan era, extant jade insignia can be used to document that this cultural stage for exploiting jade as the primary symbol of political and religious power.
(This paper and related ones by Professors MOU Yongkang [Zhejiang Institute of Archaeology] and WEN Guang [Beijing Institute of Geology] will be published by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County as Stones from Heaven: Ancient Chinese Jade Symposium Papers in the fall of 1996).
ASSOCIATION FOR ASIAN STUDIES 48TH ANNUAL MEETING, 11-14 April 1996, Honolulu.
Panel: At the interface between objects and humanistic enquiry-the material culture of Ryukyu,
org. by A.M. Stinchecum, Independent Scholar
Asato, Susumu: The system of East Asian trade and the formation of the Ryukyu Kingdom
Tomiyama, Kazuyuki: Changes in sovereign power and the royal cult as revealed in posthumous
portraits of Ryukyuan kings
Stinchecum, Amanda Mayer: Ryukyuan dress as icon-yukata of Tokugawa Ieyasu, robes of the Shuri
nobility, and the transmission of cultural forms
Panel: Paleographic perspectives on women in early China, org. by A.B. Kinney, Univ. Virginia
Keightley, David N.: Out of the Stone Age-women in the shang bone inscriptions
Cook, Constance A.: Slaves, wives, and queens in Zhou period China
Kinney, Anne Behnke: Qin Chain-gang women
Weld, Susan: Rough justice-women in an Early Han casebook
Panel: Contrasting cosmologies-the search for a coherent world view? chaired by Sarah Allan,
Dartmouth College
Field, Stephen: Speculations on the existence of primitive geomancy-was there a fengshui before
Wuxing?
xx: The role of tian as sky and heaven-conceptual implications
xx: Methods of divining human nature in the third century BCE
Miscellaneous:
Horton, H. Mack: The Silla envoy poems in the Man'yoshu
Pankaj, Narendra M.: Renwang Jing (the 'Benevolent King Sutra') and its political uses in early
Silla
Miyagawa, Yasuko: The prehistory of national language
Anderson, Richard W.: Religious folk art as an indicator of nationalistic-imperialistic aspirations
among local elites-Jingu Kogo ema in southwestern Japan
Roundtable: Three Gorges Dam: local and global perspectives
Participants:
Dai Qing, journalist, Beijing; author of "Yangtze, Yangtze". (Nancy Liu of Columbia University will
serve as translator).
Richard Hayman, of Victoria Cruises; has travelled extensively on the Yangtze for the last 6-7 years
and has had contact with local Chinese officials and the Tujia minority people.
James Nickum, institutional economist at the East-West Center, concerned with China's water
institutions in communes and irrigation districts, conflicts due to urbanization, and problems of
environmental governance.
Lester Ross, specialist in environmental law, Chadbourne and Park Associates; concerned with foreign
investment and international financial assistance in relation to infrastructural development in
China, particularly electric power and water resources development.
Vaclav Smil, Geography, University of Manitoba; author of "China's Environmental Crisis: An Inquiry
into the Limits of National Development" (1993).
Lawrence Sullivan, Political Science, Adelphi University; focusses on CCP history and policy-making.
Elizabeth Childs-Johnson, Hamilton College, discussant.
THE BRONZE AGE AND IRON AGE PEOPLES OF EASTERN CENTRAL ASIA, 19-21 April '96, University of
Pennsylvania Museum; Organiser: Victor H. Mair
Anthony, David W.: Chariots and driving gear in the Russian/Kazakh steppes
David-Kimball, Jeannine: Tribal interaction between the Early Iron Age nomads of the southern Ural
steppes, Semirechiye, and Xinjiang
Chang, Claudia & Tourtellotte, Pierre A.: Social evolution on the Eurasian steppe-Late Sakae (600 BC
to 300 BC) through the Medieval Islamic period (ca. 700 AD to 1100 Ad) in southern Kazakhstan
Barber, Elizabeth J.W.: Bronze Age cloth and clothing of the Tarim Basin-the Loulan and Hami
evidence
Good, Irene: Bronze Age cloth and clothing of the Tarim Basin-the Cherchen evidence
Kuzmina, Elena E.: Cultural connections of the Tarim Basin people and the Andronovo
culture-shepherds of the Asian steppes during the Bronze Age
Parpolo, Asko: Early Aryan (Indo-Iranian) speakers and the Bronze and Iron Age cultures of
Xinjiang-with a note on the origins of the Chinese star-calendar
Hiebert, Fredrik T.: The origins of the Bronze Age oasis settlements in western Central Asia and
Xinjiang
Shui, Tao: On the relationship between the Tarim and the Fergana basins in the Bronze Age
Brooks, E. Bruce: Chinese text evidence for 04c Sino-Bactrian contacts
Littleton, C. Scott: Were the Xinjiang mummies Alans? An excursus in Trans-Eurasian folklore and
mythology
Shishlina, Natalia & Hiebert, Fredrik T.: The steppe and the sown-interaction between Bronze Age
Eurasian nomads and agriculturalists
Tuite, Kevin J.: Evidence for prehistoric links between the Caucasus and Central Asia-the case of
the Burushos
Fleming, Harold C.: At the vortex of Central Asia-mummies as testimony to prehistory
Wang, Penglin: A linguistic approach to Inner Asian ethnonyms
Sinor, Denis: The myth of languages and the language of myth
Colarusso, John: Languages of the dead
Ringe, Donald: The position of Tocharian-computational evidence
Winter, Werner: How early did proto-Tocharian lose its ties to the other Indo-European languages
Pinault, Georges-Jean: Tocharian languages and pre-Buddhist culture
Janhunen, Juha: The horse in East Asia-reviewing the linguistic evidence
Lin, Meicun: Qilian and Kunlun-the earliest Tokharian loan-words in ancient Chinese
Banti, Giorgio: On the proto-history of the tocharian languages
Lubotsky, Alexander M.: Tocharian loan words in Old Chinese
Hamp, Eric P.: The ethnic and racial identity of the Tokharians
Mei, Jianjun: Early bronze metallurgy in Xinjiang
An, Zhimin: Ancient bronze remains of the Tarim Basin and surrounding areas
Xu, Wenkan: Is it possible to solve the mystery of the origins of the Tocharians
Han, Kangxin: The study of ancient human skeletons from Xinjiang
Zhao, Tongmao: A Mongol-Caucasian mixed Uygur population-genetic evidence and estimates of Caucasian
admixture in the populations living in northwest China
Francalacci, Paolo: Molecular analysis of mitochondrial DNA extracted from desiccated ancient
corpses from Xinjiang (China)
Kamberi, Dolkun: New study of archaeological civilization in the ancient Tarim Basin and surrounding
areas, from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age (ca. 2000 BCE-400AD)
Bunker, Emma C.: Cultural diversity in the Tarim Basin and its impact on ancient China
Puett, Michael: Recent debates over the origins of Chinese civilization
Mair, Victor H.: Priorities for research on the Bronze Age and Iron Age peoples of eastern Central
Asia
Renfrew, Colin: Indo-European origins, molecular biology, and the archaeology of the steppes-some
hypotheses
Mallory, James Patrick: Asian perspectives on Indo-European expansions
Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi-Luca: Genetic geography and ancient migrations in Eurasia
Akishev, Kimal: Migrations of Nordic tribes/Indo-Aryans and the mummies from Qizilchoqa
Chen, Ge: Cultures of the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in Xinjiang
Khoja, Abduqeyum: The ancient culture of the western regions
Jettmar, Karl: Contenders in a great game-ethnic groups in early Central Asia
Kliks, Michel M.: The uses of paleoparasitological analyses of mummies as indicators of cultural,
behavioral, and temporal parameters
Lu, Enguo: The discovery of and research upon Chauhut culture
Narain, A.K.: On the Tokharian/Yuezhi and the mummies from Qizilchoqa
Wang, Binhua: Significance of the historical culture of Qawrighul
Wang, Kelin: Cultural origins of 'The Horseriding Peoples' in Chin
Wang, William S-Y: The languages of Bronze Age China
Yu, Taishan: Tokharians and Scythians-the historical evidence
Zhang, Ping: Archaeological culture of the Bronze Age in Kucha, Xinjiang
MIDWEST EARLY CHINA SEMINAR, 18 May 1996, Ann Arbor, MI sponsored by the Center for Chinese
Studies, University of Michigan
Shaughnessy, Edward: The birds and...the trees: nature imagery in the Shijing
Chen, Zhi: Preliminary remarks on the 'non' section of the Shijing
Wang, Eugene: Remarks on shi
Powers, Marty: Xiang, shi, qi-their role in early landscape theory
Poor, Robert: Proclaiming harmony-art and text in the Song period
Introduction and demonstration of the CRSTAL (Concept Research System for Terminology in Art and
Literature) Database for critical terminology in Classical Chinese art and literary theory.
ASIAN CERAMICS: FUNCTIONS AND FORMS, 24-6 May 1996, Field Museum, Chicago. Contact: . East Asian
papers:
Pirazzoli-t'Serstevens, M.: From the ear-cup (erbei) to the round cup (zhan): changes in Chinese
drinking vessels from the 2nd to the 6th century AD
Wang, Qingzheng: Chinese ceramics and their functions
Sayers, Robert: Belief and meaning in the preparation of three Korean food staples: soy sauce, soy
paste and red pepper paste
Yee, Lai Suk: Unconventional form for conventional function-Zhisha studio objects by CHEN Mingyuan-a
new phase of Yixing ware in the 18th century
Ono, Masatoshi: Ceramics used for Japanese ritual in the 15th century
Liang, Ellen: Incense burners in ancient China
Pearson, R: Prestige and ritual in the ceramics of the Gusuku period in Okinawa, 1100-1609 AD
Chung, Margaret: Chinese Yixing wares: collectors and connoissers of tea and ceramics
Jorg, C.J.A.: Yixing wares in Europe
Otsuka, Ronald Y.: Forms and non-functional functions-collecting and connoisseurship of contemporary
Japanese ceramics
Maske, Andrew: Towards reading the Morse code: Japanese mukozuke food dishes in the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston
Ho, Chuimei & Smith, Malcolm: State patronage and its influence on connoisseurship in medieval Japan
and China
Pinger, Ruan: Collections and tendencies of the last thirty years of ceramics in China
Little, Stephen: Shao Pao on porcelain-a 15th century literatus's view of Jingdezhen
CONFERENCE REPORT
On capitals as ritual spaces - a conference on the archaeology and history of early
Japanese capitals. 20-21 January 1996, Nara
More than a hundred archaeologists and historians gathered at the Nara Kokuritsu Bunkazai Kenkyūjo
on 20-21 January 1996 to discuss the current state of early capital studies (tojōsei) and the future
direction of research. The meeting was sponsored by the Society for Research on Early Capitals
(Kodai Tojōsei Kenkyūshūkai). Focusing on diachronic analysis of layout and function of palace
precincts, seven archaeologists and three historians discussed the Chinese precedents from Han to
Tang times; the results of excavation at the early Naniwa palace; the Kiyomihara palace; the
Fujiwara palace; the Nara palace; the Kuni palace; the Heian palace; and the Nagaoka palace; as well
as insights from written sources concerning the development of the Garden of Ministries (chōdō) and
its trajectory in Heian times. Three scholarly trends were clear: expanded cooperation between
archaeologists and historians, heightened consciousness of Japan's place in the broader sphere of
East Asia, and interest in the role of ritual in the construction of kingship and polity. Conference
participants received an extremely useful volume of papers entitled Kodai tojō no girei kūkan to
kōzō that included source documents, chronologies, and extensive bibliography. Ideally a copy should
be in any major research library where pre-modern East Asian studies are taken seriously.
YAMAZAKI Michiharu discussed the early emergence of the chōdō-an assembly and work area for the
hundred offices (hyakkan)-in Han times. He reported that in the post-Han era the chōdō was
increasingly ritualized. During the Sui and Tang periods multiple chōdō were constructed for
specialized ritual purposes, and a system of regulated entry (shōdō) developed.
UEKI Hisashi noted that finds from the earliest palace layer excavated at Naniwa, known as "zenki
[early period]Naniwa", confirm that Great King Kōtoku's era (r. 645-54) was one of significantly new
organization for court and kingship. Distinct tiles and pottery are seen to confirm the written
reports in the Nihon shoki that zenki Naniwa was constructed during Kōtoku's reign and subsequently
destroyed by fire during Temmu's reign.
KAMETA Hiroshi described the tremendous challenge posed by the suspected site of Great King Temmu's
Kiyomihara palace in Asuka. Below it lie the remains of other palaces, including Great King Saimei's
Okamoto no Miya, and separating the layers has proven difficult. However, wooden tablets (mokkan)
offer particularly valuable datable evidence, with recent findings dating from Temmu's era.
HANAYA Hiroshi described how numerous mokkan found in recent years at the site of the Fujiwara
palace confirm that surveying and early construction began during Temmu's lifetime, in the late
670s, a decade and a half before the move to Fujiwara in Great King Jitō's reign. The layout of the
precincts has by now been more or less determined.
IWANAGA Shōzō reported revisions in views of the Nara capital and palace. Researchers now agree that
Tang Chang-an was the model. Older theory had the western sector of the palace being built first and
later replaced by the eastern sector. Many now believe that the residential palace was moved
eastward as early as 720, for Emperor Shōmu's enthronement. Two concurrent chōdō, employed for
distinct functions, seem to have been built early on.
HORIUCHI Hiroaki reported that the densely urban setting of Kyoto has made excavation of the Heian
palace and metropole fragmentary and difficult. Nevertheless, excavation between 1979 and 1994 has
identified three key elements of the Heian palace: the residential palace and two specialized chōdō,
known as the Chōdōin and the Burakuin. In 1984 remains of the Throne Hall were uncovered, and in the
last few years offices adjacent to the residential palace have also been excavated.
KUBO Tetsumasa reported on the state of our knowledge on the temporary palace at Kuni (740-44). Over
the last decade it has been determined that the site of a raised platform long associated with the
Yamashiro provincial temple was originally the site of the Throne Hall, north of which stood the
palace and south of which extended the chōdō. The palace precincts at Kuni were considerably smaller
than those at Nara.
YAMANAKA Akira presented an overview of successful excavation at the Nagaoka capital, where
excavators have been aided by extensive finds of mokkan. Moreover, there has been increasing
concurrent study of Kammu's era by historians. It is now well appreciated that the move to Nagaoka
was occasioned by such special circumstances as Kammu's descent from Tenji's royal line and his
vision of a more Chinese-style autocratic and monarch-centered realm.
KANEKO Hiroyuki presented an overview of the extant written record concerning changes in the layout
and functionality of chōdō through time. Kaneko sees the origins of the chōdō in the open space
known as the ōba, or great courtyard, outside Suiko's palace. Notable is the changing number of
halls comprising the chōdō-as few as four to as many as fourteen, with twelve at the later Nara and
Heian palaces. By the eighth century a ritual arena comprising the daigokuden and chōdō had emerged.
YOSHIKAWA Shinji described how at the new Heian palace, from the 790s on, inner palace
administrative offices (sōshi) supplanted the chōdō. From Kammu's reign onwards, Daijōkan ministers
summoned to the palace as intimates of the throne brought Daijōkan administration out of the chōdō
and into the royal residence, where it merged with offices of household administration. The chōdō
became purely ritual arenas, while administration and politics were centered in the residential
palace. In Yoshikawa's view this trajectory separating ritual (girei) and administration (seimu) was
a cause for the decline of ritsuryō governance.
The Society for Research on Early Capitals plans to hold future meetings to provide a space for
scholars from a variety of historical disciplines to meet, share new information, and formulate new
lines of inquiry. For further information contact: TATENO Kazumi, Department of History, Nara
National Cultural Properties Research Institute, Nijo-cho 2-9-1, Nara 630, Japan.
Joan R. Piggott, Cornell University
BOOK REVIEWS
Art of bronze bells in early Japan.
Edited by Makoto SAHARA and Hideji HARUNARI (In Japanese with matching translations into
English by Ken'ichi Sasaki). Tokyo: Mainichi Newspapers, 1995-6. No price stated.
The lavishly illustrated 264-page bilingual book accompanying the exhibition of the same title at
the National Museum of Japanese History is much more than a catalogue of exhibits. The twelve
chapters discuss all aspects of dōtaku, the bronze bell-shaped objects that were manufactured in
Japan in the Yayoi period and played an important role in the agricultural ceremonies of the early
rice growers. The origins, manufacture, function, distribution, regional characteristics,
ornamentation-both abstract and pictorial-and discovery of these remarkable objects all have
chapters devoted to them. The dōtaku are set in the context of Yayoi society, and there are
discussions of the types of rituals in which they may have been used and their relationship with
other bronze ritual paraphernalia, especially the broad swords of Kyushu and southwestern Honshu.
There is a brief survey of the role of bells in later Japanese history, tracing their transformation
from the focus of communal rituals in the Yayoi period, to status symbols in the Kofun period and
later into objects for the whole society.
The book opens with a discussion of how the pictorial representations on dōtaku can be approached
from the standpoint of an understanding of children's art. Only a relatively small number of the 430
or so dōtaku so far discovered in Japan actually bear pictorial representations. However, the
interpretation of the scenes depicted, from fishing to fighting to a variety of animals and insects
related to paddy field agriculture, is important for understanding the meanings these artefacts had
for Yayoi people. Equally important, though, is the way in which children's art and ethnographic
representations can be used to approach the question of why Yayoi people depicted these scenes in
particular ways. The fact that this book starts out with this essay is a clear indication that
Japanese archaeology has moved far beyond simple classification to engage with more interpretive
issues.
Questions of context are also prominent. The conditions in which dōtaku were buried hold the key to
their use, and evidence from recent excavations shows how they were deliberately buried, sometimes
after being broken. The issue of deliberate and structured deposition is of great interest in
archaeology beyond Japan, so it is good to see these impressive artefacts receiving the
comprehensive treatment promised in the preface.
The book is arranged with the Japanese and English text on the same page, broken up with the many
and varied high-quality illustrations. This format doubtless works well as one is perusing the
exhibits in the Museum itself, but also allows the more distant reader to easily and quickly take in
the many points raised. Ken Sasaki's flowing English text is not a direct translation of the
Japanese original, but succinctly encapsulates all the relevant information, despite a few lapses in
spelling and grammar. This reviewer hopes that many other museums and exhibitions will follow the
fine precedent set here.
Simon Kaner, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge
y
ASIAN-LANGUAGE PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED
Onoyama, Setsu (ed.) (1995) Biwako shuhen no roku-seiki o saguru [Investigating the 6th century in the Lake Biwa vicinity]. Kyoto University Archaeology Dept. (in Japanese)
CAO News, Nabunken Centre for Archaeological Operations, 78-80 (1994-5) (in Japanese)
#78: Conservation facilities and trained conservators in Japan
#79: 1991 statistics on CRM in Japan
#80: One year later-cultural resources after the Hanshin/Awaji earthquake
Sahara, M. and Harunari, H. (ed.) (1995) Dōtaku no bi [Art of bronze bells in early Japan].
Tokyo: The Mainichi Newspapers. (in Japanese and English; received from Ken SASAKI)
Ōsaka Daigaku Inarizuka Kofun Hakkutsu Chōsadan (1996) Inouchi-Inarizuka kofun: dai 3ji hakkutsu
chōsa gaihō [Inouchi-Inarizuka tumulus: a sixth century keyhole-shaped burial mound in southwestern
Kyoto]. Nagaokakyō-shi Bunkazai Chōsa Gaihōsho Dai34-satsu bessatsu. (in Japanese with English
summary; received from TSUDE Hiroshi)
advertisement: Han-Shang Tang Books
advertisement: Manchuria- an ethnic History by Juha Janhunen
RUNNING BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bibliography
JOURNAL UPDATES
- Chinese Environmental History Newsletter 2.2, November 1995
- Chinese Environmental History Newsletter, 3.1, May 1996
- ACRO Update, February, 1996(1)