Asian Perspectives

Carson, Mike T.; Flad, Rowan K.

2020 Asian Perspectives

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Womack, Andrew; Wang, Hui

2020 Asian Perspectives

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<p>abstract:</p><p>In the late Neolithic period in northwestern China, pottery was used in a variety of contexts, including in mortuary rituals. While some scholars have interpreted pots placed in graves as being produced solely for use as funerary items, up until now there have only been typological analyses of these vessels. This has resulted in interpretations of grave goods, particularly elaborately painted vases, as representing wealth, ritual power, or the ability to reward followers. This study analyzes use-alteration and manufacturing marks on vessels from two Majiayao 马家窑 (3200–2000 b.c.) and Qijia 齐家 (2300–1500 b.c.) period cemeteries and suggests that most items were actually daily-use goods which were later used as mortuary offerings. The diverse patterns of manufacturing marks and use-alteration also demonstrate that these vessels likely come from a variety of producers and had highly variable use-lives. These results suggest that during the Majiayao period mortuary rituals were potentially attended by individuals from multiple communities, who may have provided pottery and its contents partly to build relationships between groups; the situation is less clear for the Qijia period. This work demonstrates the importance of investigating use-alteration patterns and manufacturing marks alongside typology, decoration, and context.</p>

O'reilly, Dougald; Shewan, Louise; Domett, Kate; Sopheap, An

2020 Asian Perspectives

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<p>abstract:</p><p>Prei Khmeng, a village 13 km northwest of Siem Reap, Cambodia, is noted for the presence of one of the region&apos;s earliest monuments, Prasat Prei Khmeng. Aside from its ruined temple, Prei Khmeng is an important prehistoric occupation site that immediately pre-dates the foundation of the temple. First excavated by a Franco-Cambodian team in the early 2000s, the site was revisited in 2014 by an Australian-Cambodian research team. Recent research revealed Iron Age domestic occupation as well as inhumation burials. The burial assemblage provides evidence of regional trade and exchange and mortuary wealth differentiation. Bioarchaeological examination of the individuals interred at the site reveals intentional dental modification and perimortem blunt and sharp force skeletal trauma. This research sheds light on this important epoch in prehistory, a juncture between the prehistoric and protohistoric period in Cambodia, which was a time of substantial socio-political transformation.</p>

Dixon, Boyd; Welch, Danny; Bulgrin, Lon; Horrocks, Mark

2020 Asian Perspectives

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<p>abstract:</p><p>Documenting the continuity of traditional land use practices on Guam, from before Spanish Contact in 1521 to after the Colonial La Reducción ca. 1700, is provocative. La Reducción refers to a period after Spanish settlement in 1668 when all indigenous inhabitants of northern Guam were removed from their traditional homes and sent to six southern villages under the watchful eye of administrative and religious authorities, except those residing on the island of Rota. Recent geoarchaeological excavations at Site 66-08-0141, located on the northern plateau in South Finegayan, have exposed at least two <i>latte</i> sets or pre-Contact habitations with traditional Micronesian earth ovens postdating Spanish settlement. Artifacts included Latte Period pottery, marine shell adzes, a limestone sling stone, and historic to modern refuse from WWII to the modern era. Microfossil evidence of pandanus, coconuts, and likely cultivation of rice and taro have expanded our understanding of subsistence farming in micro-environments within the tropical forest a generation or more after 1700 and La Reducción. This suggests that archaeological evidence of land use continuity and indigenous resistance and accommodation to Spanish Colonial entanglement exists, while challenging prior historiography across the Pacific; such sites hold much potential to bring native voices to early communities long disenfranchised by the colonization experience.</p>

Chynoweth, Merryn; Summerhayes, Glenn R.; Ford, Anne; Negishi, Yo

2020 Asian Perspectives

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<p>abstract:</p><p>The 2007 excavation of Kasasinabwana Shell Midden opened a new chapter on Lapita on the south coast of Papua New Guinea. We look to establish the degree to which the Kasasinabwana assemblage fits into the current understanding of Lapita colonisation by investigating modes of pottery production utilising physico-chemical analysis of the ceramics and patterns of obsidian exploitation using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF). Three separate ceramic Chemical Paste Compositional Reference Units (CPCRUs) are identified along with the presence of calcareous non-plastic inclusions in layers associated with possible colonisation phases. Obsidian is present from around 2000 b.p. and its appearance seems to correspond with the emergence of Early Papuan Pottery (EPP). The Lapita ceramic production model fits well with Late Lapita production.</p>

Wengcheong, Lam

2020 Asian Perspectives

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<p>abstract:</p><p>This article studies the economic structure of early Chinese empires (Qin and Western Han) by focusing on the contribution of market exchange to the distribution and transportation of metal goods. Emphasis is placed on the part played by market forces in integrating and connecting communities on a regional level, an issue that has not been comprehensively addressed in the literature but was essential to market exchange in ancient China. A tripartite framework is proposed for conceptualizing three forms of market exchange or regional integration: dendritic, administrative-integrated, and fully integrated. These models may also be applied to the study of interregional interaction. An analysis of distribution patterns of everyday iron and bronze items from burial contexts within the capital region (Wei river valley) of the Qin and Western Han empires reveals a major shift in the development of the market system and sub-regional integration between the Qin and Western Han periods. The change in degree of integration shows that the region went from a more dendritic to a fully-integrated model, though one still dominated by major administrative centers (especially Chang&apos;an). The new approach for investigating market exchange used in this article offers a framework through which the structuring principles of ancient markets, forces driving change in market systems, and underlying mechanisms of administrative control over the movement of material culture can all be explored in the context of ancient China. The discussion of integration at a regional level sheds new light on the market system during the formation of massive, unified, early Chinese empires.</p>

Mi, Park Sun

2020 Asian Perspectives

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<p>abstract:</p><p>This article examines the process of diffusion of bird-pair antenna-style daggers and swords in southern Manchuria, the Korean peninsula, and northern Kyushu, analyzing the distribution of the daggers and swords, classifying them, and establishing a chronology. The daggers are classified into three types and sub-divided based on blade, handle, and pommel characteristics. Each form was produced and used at different time periods and in different areas, emerging first in the Jilin-Changchun region, then expanding into the Northern Liao region, Pyongyang, and as far as Tsushima and northern Kyushu. The bird-pair antenna-style dagger of Northeast Asia is unlikely to have been a trade item imported from outside of the region. It is more likely a local development as indigenous cultures that manufactured mandolin-shaped or slender bronze daggers were influenced by the bronze cultures of northern Asia and Ordos, the upper part of the Yellow River. This new type of dagger possibly represented a symbolic or prestige good reflecting political or economic alliances within the Puyŏ state of southern Manchuria or the early Wiman Chosŏn state in Pyongyang or among the statelets of Pyŏnhan and Chinhan in the Yŏngnam region. The bird-pair antenna-style daggers eventually flourished in the Yŏngnam region, where a local style developed. These daggers in turn diffused via immigration and trade to Tsushima in the mid-first century b.c.e.</p>

Horrocks, Mark

2020 Asian Perspectives

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<p>abstract:</p><p>Presented are revised procedures for recovering pollen and spores, phytoliths, and starch and other plant material from archaeological and other palaeoenvironmental deposits for microscopic analysis. The procedures are based on lengthy experience of preparing numerous samples of deposits from Malesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The procedures are designed as a simple laboratory guide, outlined in detail and summarized to provide a practical, time-efficient, step-by-step method. The method has been carried out successfully on many types of soils and other deposits from Pacific Islands, including: clays, silts, and sands; waterlogged, porous, peaty, volcanic, and coralline soils; and sediment cores, tools, pot sherds, dental calculus, and coprolites from a range of environmental settings in tropical, sub-tropical, and temperate climates. Also included in the procedures are mounting recovered microfossils on microscope slides and preparing and mounting modern reference samples.</p>

Higham, Charles

2020 Asian Perspectives

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Cunliffe, Barry

2020 Asian Perspectives

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Haicheng, Wang

2020 Asian Perspectives

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Wilkinson, Toby C.

2020 Asian Perspectives

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Lee, Rachel; Byington, Mark

2020 Asian Perspectives

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Ling-Yu, Hung; Kidder, Tristram R.; Friedman, Sara

2020 Asian Perspectives

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