EAANnouncements 11
Autumn 1993
Contents
EAAN activities:
This issue's logo symbolizes the fireworks of Guy Fawkes' Day, the most English of English
holidays held every year on November 5th. It has nothing to do with archaeology, except that in
Lewes, a small town near Brighton where the best parade, bonfire and fireworks are held, there is a
Norman castle set among other prehistoric and early historic remains on England's southern coast.
In this issue, the newly volunteered Research Editor for China, Francis Allard (Univ Pittsburgh),
submits his first CHINA ROUNDUP of news of the field. I would be grateful for the emergence of
editors for Japan and Korea as well. Your remit would be to actively solicit research reports from
your colleagues about the most exciting work being done in your area. The reports do not have to be
written by EAANmembers, but such members should have their arms twisted occasionally to inform us of
their doings. I am too busy for such correspondence and must take what comes to me; however, if any
of you volunteer to become a research editor, I will send you the most up-to-date address list of
members to enable you to contact them.
I also would greatly appreciate someone volunteering to be the Conference section coordinator.
Responsibilities would include sending me notices of conferences; but more importantly, I would like
someone to correspond with the organizers of the conferences in the calender to obtain the lists of
papers given (especially those concerned with East Asia). The record is poor even for EAANmembers
who attend these conferences: few bother to send on to me the schedule of papers, much less
narrative reports on how the conference was. By comparison, our sister publication Early China
Newsletter does a grand job at conference reporting. Can't we upgrade our operation here?
MEMBER NEWS (in alpha-order):
New members have their entire addresses and contact numbers listed; news about current members is
written in paragraph form.
Dr. Norbert R. ADAMI has returned to Germany after five years in Japan. His new address is: am Vorort 21-23
44894 Bochum, GermanyProf. Robert BORGEN (Japanese early history and literature)
Dept of Chinese & Japanese
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA 95616-8560 USA
Home 916-756-4477
Work 916-752-4127
FAX 916-752-3363
Email: rborgen@ucdavis.edu
Bob professes no knowledge of East Asian archaeology, but he once wrote a very good article touching on Japanese protohistory: "The origins of the Sugawara: a history of the Haji family" (Monumenta Nipponica 30.4: 405-22, 1975). He also participated as a discussant in the recent SSRC Roundtable on Early Korean Armour Excavated on the Korean Peninsula" in Los Angeles. His major published work is Sugawara no Michizane and the early Heian court. (Harvard East Asian Monographs 120, 1986).Gaidagh CHAPMAN (Univ Bournemouth) spent the summer in Japan working on a dig and restoring pottery to fulfill work-study requirments for her Conservation course. [REVIEWS & REPORTS]
Mr Youn-sik CHOO (Univ Cambridge) has returned from his one-year fieldwork in Korea and Japan to Cambridge in order to write up his Ph.D. dissertation on the agricultural transition in prehistoric Korea. During his fieldwork, he mostly spent his time in Korea and published the following three papers (in Korean) based on Korean archaeological contexts:
1992. "The use of culturally specific and relational analogies in archaeological reasoning." Journal of Korean Ancient Historical Society (Hanguk Sanggosa Hakbo) 10: 439-501.
1993. "Formation processes of a shell midden." Journal of the Korean Archaeological Society (Hanguk Koko-Hakbo) 29: 77-111.
in press. "Radiocarbon dating and high precision bidecadal calibration." Journal of the Korean Archaeological Society 30.
He also visited Japan for one month in May and presented one paper on post-depositional processes of shell middens at the Association for Cultural Properties in Osaka.
Youn's new address: St. Edumunds College
14 St. Matthews St. 0223-565645
Cambridge CB1 2LT, UKProf. Walter EDWARDS (Tenri Univ) joined the faculty of the recently established program in Japanese studies at Tenri University in Nara last April. He is now teaching courses on general anthropology, intercultural communication, and contemporary Japanese society to "a handful of foreign students". He can be reached at:
The Department of Japanese Studies
Tenri University
1050 Somanouchi, Tenri City
Nara 632 Japan
Work 07436-3-1515 ext 6348
FAX 07436-2-1965
Dr. Christopher FUNG (Harvard Univ) has recently submitted his doctoral dissertation on "Social power and domestic labor on the Mesoamerican frontier." Although basically interested in Chinese archaeology, the lack of past field opportunities forced Chris to change his area of expertise, but he remains an East Asian archaeology supporter, as evidenced by his attendance at the Asian offerings of the SAA meetings last April in St. Louis.The ever-amazing US postal service informed me of a change of address via a computerized sticker stuck onto a piece of returned mail; why, I wonder, didn't they just forward the letter?? since the international postage was paid? In any case, here we learn that Dr. Janet R. GOODWIN has moved to:
1-17-26 Matsunaga, Ikki-machi
Fukushima Pref 965 JapanDr. Chuimei HO (Field Museum, Chicago) was awarded an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship to collect historical, archaeological and ethnoarchaeological data on Blanc de Chine porcelain at the Dehua County Museum, Fujian between August and November 1992. The research was part of a multi-year project aimed at fuller understanding of the southern Chinese ceramic industry in medieval times.
Mr. Simon HOLLEDGE (Tokyo) was able to attend the opening conference for the Sackler Museum and spent the month of June in Beijing. He has pending an application to be a Visiting Scholar at the Museum of Chinese History. Meanwhile, the Kodansha encyclopedia for which he did much of the computing has now appeared: Japan, an illustrated encyclopedia, 2 vols. Tokyo: Kodansha (to be sold at a discount, £140, before the end of March, 1994, when the price increases to £175).
Ms. Leo Aoi HOSOYA successfully completed her M.Phil exams and thesis in archaeobotany at the University of Cambridge and is continuing on to a Ph.D. Congratulations, Leo! Her M.Phil thesis focussed on the botanic remains recovered from an excavation at Jesus College in Cambridge, but she will undertake research on the transition to agriculture in Japan for her Ph.D.
Dr. Juha JANHUNEN (Manchurian ethnohistory & ethnolinguistics)
Lilla Robertsgatan 4 K 55
00130 Helsingfors, Finland
Home +358-0-632326
Work +358-0-1912888
FAX +358-0-1913329
Juha is a Senior Researcher at the Academy of Finland within the University of Helsinki. She has been investigating the ethnic situation in Manchuria through annual ethnolinguistic fieldwork since 1986. She is also researching the ethnic history of mediaeval Manchuria by working on the Khitan and Jurchen scripts, determining the ethnolinguistic composition of the Bohai, Liao and Jin states. The broader framework of her work includes the general ethnic history of North/Northeast Asia (Siberia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, Japan) from prehistory to the present. Her publications include an ongoing discussion of Japanese language origins with Prof. Roy Andrew Miller.Mr. Gwon Gu KIM (Seoul) has sent in photographs of the first exhibition hall, named "The Life History of Korean People", in the new National Folk Museum at which he is a Curator (p Museum news).
Mr. Tom KOMPIER has entered the M.Phil course with an option in East Asia at the University of Cambridge. After November 1st, his address is:
14 Rustat Road
Cambridge CB1 3QT, England
Prof. Jason KUO (Univ of Maryland) received a CSCC China Conference Travel Grant to attend the International Academic Symposium on WANG Shimin, WANG Jian, WANG Hui, and WANG Yuanqi in Shanghai, 25 Oct 1992. In the summer of 1993, he directed the 5-week NEH Summer Institute for Chinese Art, entitled "The Art of Imperial China."Ms. Chao-Hui Jenny LIU (East Asian Medieval archaeology and history)
Department of Archaeology
Downing St Home 0223-61403
Cambridge CB2 3DZ, England Email: CJL1002@PHX.CAM.AC.UK
Jenny is a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, and an M.Phil student studying the archaeogy of East Asia. She is particularly interested in Tang-period archaeology and the role of women in Tang, as exemplified by the ruler Empress WU Zetian.Dr. Hyung Il PAI (Univ California, Santa Barbara) is spending the year at Berkeley on leave to write her book. She can be reached at the same email number, but the rest of her address changes to:
Center for Korean Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
University of California, Berkeley CA 94720 USA
510-642-5674, FAX 510-643-7062, email: Hyungpai@hcfmail.ucsb.eduDr. Scott PEARCE (East Asian protohistory through Medieval history)
Liberal Studies, MS 9084 Home 206-671-3333
Western Washington University Work 206-650-3897
Bellingham, WA 98225 USA FAX 206-650-7295
email: pearce@henson.cc.wwv.edu
Dr Pearce is an Assistant Professor at Western Washington, working on a history of the Särbi (Hsien-pei) Yüwen for publication as a book.Dr. Heather A. PETERS (Chinese early historic archaeology, ethnohistory & cultural anthropology)
University Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology
University of Pennsylvaina
33rd and Spruce Streets
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324 USA
Home 215-735-6777
Work 215-898-4000
FAX 215-898-0657
Heather is a Research Associate at the University Museum, recently returned from China where she oversaw the construction of the Sackler Museum in Beijing and organized the opening symposium (p EAANnouncements 10: Papers Read). She is currently consulting for UNESCO in Phnom Penh, where they are at the "crossroads of switching from a French colonial presentation to an indigenous presentation" of Cambodia in their national museum.Ms. Margarete PRÜCH, M.A. (Chinese early historic-Medieval archaeology)
Schoßheide 73a
65366 Geisenheim-Johannisberg
Germany
Margarete is currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation, entitled "Ornaments on Han lacquer vessels", at the University of Heidelberg.Jessica RAWSON's edited book, The British Museum Book of Chinese Art (British Museum Publications, 1992) has been awarded the National Art Book of the Year Prize for 1993. This is one of a series of "comprehensive handbooks" comprising introductions to Eastern art. In winter term early 1994, Jessica will be taking leave of absence to teach a course on ancient Chinese jades in the Fine Arts Department, University of Chicago. This is part of her work on a catalog of Chinese jades. She is also involved in the metallurgical analysis of Ming Dynasty iron objects and of historic bronze castings-especially the differences between coins and vessels.
Ken ROBINSON is off for 18 months doctoral research in Korea and Japan, supported by the SSRC. His dissertation will be a study of Korean involvement in regional (maritime and continental) trade from the late 14th to 16th centuries. During his time abroad, he can be reached at 1060 Maine Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90813 USA
Dr. Kathy SCHICK (East Asian prehistoric archaeology)
CRAFT Research Center Home 812-331-2804
419 N. Indiana Work 812-855-7568
Bloomington, IN 47405 USA FAX 812-855-7574
Email KASCHICK@INDIANA.BITNET
Kathy is Co-Director of the CRAFT (Center for Research into the Anthropological Foundations of Technology) Research Center and Asst. Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Indiana University. Having obtained her Ph.D. in Palaeolithic archaeology in 1984 under Glynn Isaac, she has been involved with the Chinese Palaeolithic since 1987. In 1990 she initiated "Collaborative Palaeolithic Archaeological Research in the Nihewan Basin" under a 3-year grant from the Luce Foundation.Edward SHAUGHNESSY (Univ Chicago) received a CSCC travel grant to attend the Second Conference on Western Zhou History in Xi'an in October 1992, This feeds into his current work on the cultural history of China's Western Zhou dynasty, partially undertaken at the Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology.
Stéphanie SOUHAITÉ (Paris) has obtained a grant from the Taiwan Ministry of Education to study for the M.A. degree in Taipei. She plans to stay for two years, researching the prehistory of Taiwan in the context of her broader interests in the Neolithic cultures of South China and Viet Nam. Her address is:
c/o Prof. SUNG Wen-hsun
Department of Anthropology
National Taiwan University
Taipei 10764 Taiwan ROCProf. Enzhong TONG (Protohistoric Chinese archaeology)
136 Delaney Dr. Home 412-824-1389
Pittsburgh, PA 15235 USA
Prof. Tong is based in the Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh. His research focusses on Bronze Age archaeology in southern China and Southeast Asia.Dr. Don WAGNER will be in Cambridge for the next two years where he will be researching a book on Chinese iron at the Needham Research Institute. For the next five months, he will also be commuting to Berlin to give a lecture course on "Chinese science and technology, 1368-1840" and a proseminar on "Iron and steel in Chinese history" at the Centre for History and Philosophy of Chinese Technology, Berlin Technical University. Don can be reached at:
Flat 35 Causewayside
Fen Causeway
Cambridge CB3 9HD, UK
Home +44-223-68398
Work +44-223-311545
FAX +44-223-62703
Dr. WANG Tao (Prehistoric-early historic Chinese archaeology)
Dept of Art & Archaeology
SOAS, University of London Home 071-226-1352
30 Russell Square Work 071-637-2388
London WC1 0XG, UK FAX 071-436-3844
Wang Tao has just been appointed Lecturer of Chinese Archaeology at SOAS, beginning to teach courses on Chinese archaeology and epigraphy this autumn. In August he attended the conference on southern Chinese bronzes and Yin-Shang culture in Nanchang, Jianxi, followed by a research trip along the Yangtze River into the western part of Yunnan.
Mariko YAMAGATA (Univ Tokyo) participated in Ian Glover's excavation of the Burchau citadel at the Tra Kieu site near Misong, Viet Nam in Feb-Mar 1992. She is now studying at the Institute of London, UCL, during fall term.
FAX & EMAIL DIRECTORY
EAANmembers' October 1993
ASIAN SCHOLARS ABROAD
Prof. YANG Jianhu (Jilin Univ) is a Visiting Scholar at the Dept of Archaeology, Univ Cambridge, in the autumn term 1993 to study Mesopotamian archaeology.
Prof. Keiji IMAMURA (Univ Tokyo) will be visiting the Institute of Archaeology, UCLondon, where he will be giving ten special seminars during the autumn (p Lectures).
Prof. Tu Chengsheng and his wife, CHEN Fangmei spent the academic year 1992-3 at SOAS and the British Museum in London. He is a specialist in Chinese state formation at Taiwan National University and member of Academia Sinica, while she is a curator in the Bronze section at the Palace Museum in Taipei.
Mr. WU Jiaan (Institute of Archaeology, Beijing) is a K.C. Wang Fellow affiliated this October/November with the Palaeolithic Department of the British Museum, London.
AN Jiayao, a glass specialist and Asst. Researcher at the CASS Institute of Archaeology in Beijing, visited Korea for three months in the spring of 1993. She gave several lectures and "joint programs" were organized around her visit.
Mr. Shin'ichiro FUJIO (National Museum of Japanese History) will be a Visiting Scholar to the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge between 1 Nov 93 and 31 Aug 94. He will be researching the transition to agriculture.
HUANG Wanpo (IVPP) was hosted by Paul Garber at the University of Illinois for research on "A paleoecological reconstruction of diet and behavior of fossil apes in China".
LUO Erhu (Sichuan Univ Museum) was hosted by Richard MacNeish (Andover Foundation for Archaeological Research) and Vaughn M. Bryant (Texas A&M Univ) for "Learning new palynological techniques for the Jiangxi Project".
LU Liancheng (Institute of Archaeology, Xi'an branch) will be a K.C. Wang Fellow at the British Museum.
REVIEWS & REPORTS:
For articles to appear in this section, they should be limited to 500 words and submitted to
the Editor by the issue deadlines stated on the front cover of EAANnouncements: mid-January for the
Winter 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!!
Work-study in Japan in conservation archaeology
by Gaidagh E. Chapman
I was privileged to receive an invitation to visit the Nagahara Branch of the Osaka Cultural Properties Association from 19 June to 5 August 1993 as part of a course placement from the Conservation Department of the University of Bournemouth in the UK. Under the guidance of EAANmember, Mr. Katsuyuki OKAMURA, my time was divided between site excavation and post-excavation work, concentrating on the conservation and restoration of ceramics, as well as looking at aspects of cultural resource management and undertaking a number of visits to other historical and archaeological sites, museums and institutions.
The site excavation was Ichigazuka Kofun, part of a group of burial mounds in the Nagahara district of south Osaka in the Kinki region. The finds mostly consisted of haniwa scattered mainly in the ditch of the mound. The large geometrically incised haniwa are slab-built cylindrical terracottas which are known to have surrounded the uppermost periphery of the tomb. The sheer amount of sherds accumulated poses many storage and processing problems; they are handled by a large team responsible for the laborious task of cleaning, sorting, cataloguing and reconstructing them all. One of the processes I learned at first hand was the delicate blot printing technique of takuhon, which gives a two-dimensional print of incised and decorated pottery. This technique was particularly useful for discovering the method of decorative application, especially to Sue ware and haniwa, a job that demanded much patience and a light touch, which I have yet to master.
I was given the task of reconstructing a small hand-built Yayoi-period pot under the supervision of Mr. Hisashi SAKURAI, the team leader. After many weeks of delicate and intensive restoration to provide an accurate profile and prepare it for ultimate display, my labours were rewarded by the sight of a nearly complete prehistoric piece. The remaining missing pieces were infilled with modelite and painted to blend in with the original piece. I found that the experience raised a number of conservational issues about how far the restoration process should be taken. Many museums in Japan, as in other countries, have replicated numerous famous finds in order to attract wider public attention, and many incomplete ceramic artefacts are given a complete facelift as a way of giving a better picture of the past. These artefacts are interpreted by museums in the light of current theory and in turn are not immune from present-day socio-political attitudes.
I was lucky enough to visit Osaka during the Bon-odori festivities and just in time for the Tenjin Festival in particular. I made many good friends and attended the Tenjin Festival, with its fireworks and large boats on the many waterways in central Osaka. I dressed up in traditional yukata, only to be subsequently spotted by an Osaka television crew, who observed that, although my name was Gaidagh, I was not wearing geta, a pun which proved to be a source of great amusement. Conservation Department
Univ of Bournemouth, Bournemouth, England
CHINA ROUND-UP
The three 'China' reports presented in this issue are proof that foreign archaeologists are
continuing to take advantage of the new climate of cooperation which presently exists between
Chinese scholars and their overseas counterparts. Armed with Western-inspired models and dreaming of
random surveys, some of us plan fieldwork seasons which involve collecting and counting potsherds or
stone tools, just as we would back home. Others, more sensible perhaps, comb the museums and attend
conferences in search of unpublished nuggets of information. From the arid north and west to the
subtropical south, foreign archaeologists are gaining access to primary data and benefiting from
discussions with Chinese scholars. As the present issue makes clear, many of us have opted, for
whatever reason, to focus on regions traditionally thought of as 'peripheral' to developments taking
place in the Yellow River Valley. Admittedly, while many of these regions could be discussed as
profitably in relation to areas located outside China, this report unashamedly adopts the view that,
editorially at least, a little centrism is a good thing.
Fieldwork, conference or museum reports dealing with any region located in present day China are
welcome. Preferably, these reports, which are limited to 250-500 words, should summarize your
findings, and make a mention of their significance in the context of existing knowledge or
explanatory models. I look forward to receiving your contributions. Please send any material to
Francis Allard, Dept of Anthropology, Forbes Quad, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.
FAX 412-648-2792; E-Mail: fnast1@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Ceramic ethnoarchaeology in Guizhou Province
by Anne P. Underhill
My research this summer (late June-late August 1993) was the first part of a two-year project in
the Qiannan Buyi and Miao Nationalities Autonomous Region, south-central Guizhou Province. My goal
is to examine variability in the organization of production (household specialization) represented
in two pottery-making villages. This summer I focused on the Buyi village of Shang Pinglang, located
about one and a half hours from Duyun. Male potters at this village make vessels on a part-time
basis (in addition to farming) using kick wheels made of dried clay (with wooden frames, for more
than one kind of large storage jar) or wooden hand wheels for small eating or drinking bowls.
Production takes place most often in small workshops adjacent to houses or in rooms within houses.
Vessels are fired in long 'dragon' kilns (multi-chambered climbing kilns) shared by potting families
and sold primarily at markets held periodically in the local area. I observed the production
process, interviewed potters, measured vessels to assess the degree of standardization, and took
measurements of workshops and tools such as ceramic anvils. I learned that there is a great deal of
variability represented in terms of intensity (time spent in production-even though every potter
could be labeled 'part-time'), output (number of vessels produced per year) and method of
distribution (method of selling vessels and distance to market). My preliminary analyses suggest
that variation in the organization of production can be recognized in the location, size, and
construction material of workshops rather than in the degree of vessel standardization.
This project is being funded by the National Science Foundation, Division of International Programs.
In addition, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research provided a supplemental grant
for the summer of 1993. This work follows a pilot project on ceramic ethnoarchaeology in Guizhou and
Xinjiang conducted in the summer of 1992, funded by the Archaeology Committee of the CSCC (Committee
on Scholarly Communication with China). I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Mr
LUO Tingru and Mr PENG Liyao, both of the Duyun City Museum, and I have also benefited from the
expertise provided by Mr SONG Zhaoling of the National Museum of Chinese History in Beijing.
Dept of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Fieldwork in northern Guangdong Province
by Francis Allard
A short-term project was carried out in northern Guangdong during the summer of 1993 with the aim of collecting information on Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement patterns and materials. This region occupies a strategic position within the landscape of southeast China, located as it is immediately south of the Nanling range which separates Lingnan (Guangdong and Guangxi) from central China. Two important passes facilitate communication through the mountain range, while the area is also linked, through the Beijiang River to central Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta.
One interesting question concerns the type of interaction which may have linked northern and central Guangdong, where a number of rich Eastern Zhou burials have been found in the lower Beijiang and Xijiang river systems. The material I examined in a number of museums, as well as the information on Bronze Age burials provided by local archaeologists, points to societies of lesser complexity than those of central Guangdong at the same time. The burials contain fewer and simpler bronzes and none of the 'northern' bronze vessels of Chu or other origin often placed in the burials of central Guangdong. This is relevant in that these latter artifacts may have passed through northern Guangdong on their way down the Beijiang river system. Thus, directed contact between Chu and central Guangdong is the likely explanation for the absence of these artifacts in the northern burials. In contrast to the Bronze Age, when central Guangdong seems to be surrounded by a number of 'peripheral' areas characterized by lower levels of complexity, northern Guangdong during the late Neolithic displays features which point to a relatively well developed culture. The well known site of Shixia, located at the confluence of two major tributaries of the Beijiang, has yielded in its late Neolithic levels numerous elaborate stone artifacts and ceramic vessels. Interestingly, I found during this visit that the late Neolithic material in those counties located northeast and northwest of Shixia (i.e. closer to the mountain passes leading to Jiangxi and Hunan) was clearly less elaborate than that found in Shixia. Whether this can be explained by the fact that these counties suffer from more limited fieldwork or the fact that Shixia and nearby sites are located in a well watered flat and large basin deserves further attention.
My visits to a number of sites and discussions with local archaeologists also revealed a settlement pattern similar to that which I encountered last year during fieldwork in Fengkai county (western Guangdong), namely the preference during the Bronze Age for low mounds surrounded by low and well watered land. As in Fengkai, Neolithic occupation in northern Guangdong seems more extensive than Bronze Age occupation, with Neolithic material often found on top of higher mounds located some distance from these flat well watered areas.
Dept of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA, USA
Late Neolithic in the Beifang
by Katheryn M. Linduff
During late May and June, 1993, I travelled through Inner Mongolia visiting late Neolithic and early Metal Period sites and the museums that hold materials from local excavations of that period. I worked with the excavators of the sites as well as with those who are currently responsible for the analysis and care of excavated materials. I paid special attention to the remains of the Lower Xiajiadian culture (c. 2300-1600 B.C.) in eastern Inner Mongolia as well as to Zhukaigou (c. 2200-1500 B.C.) and related sites in the west. I was accompanied by GUO Suxin of the Inner Mongolia Institute of Archaeology in Huhehaote.
I sorted through large numbers of Neolithic ceramic remains with particular interest in cultural continuity and/or diversity in each level in each region; I examined the metal items with special attention to technological questions (some of the objects from Zhukaigou have been tested for composition); and I studied the field notes of the excavators when possible. I began a preliminary study of households, particularly at each level at Zhukaigou, recorded topographic and locational data not available in publications and catalogued pottery sequences in each location.
What interests me about this region is the emergence of metal-using cultures and complex society during the late 3rd and early 2nd m. B.C. as well as the demise of the groups in the period contemporary with the late Shang or early Western Zhou. My preliminary survey indicates that these northern cultures used metal technology quite likely to have developed locally and not, as usually argued, as the result of stimulus from the outside. Raw materials were, apparently, available locally, and the metal items produced were small and utilitarian in function. Unlike long-held models which proposed cultural incompatibility between the herders of the steppe and the farmers in the south, these northern cultures had an agricultural base and level of technological sophistication quite similar to contemporary cultures in the Yellow River Basin, Gansu and Shandong. Although each region was locally distinctive (utilitarian pottery is parochial), their economic base was comparable. When these northern centers became peripheral to full bronze producing cultures located to their south and finally declined, they were clearly in contact with their then more powerful neighbors. What and how the relationship between them developed is a question which I hope to take up as well.
Department of Fine Arts, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA, USA
ABSTRACTS
Ph.D. dissertations
Colour Symbolism in Late Shang China
WANG Tao, Ph.D., SOAS, University of London, 1993
This study has two main tasks: (a) to examine the colour terms used in oracle bone inscriptions
of the Late Shang Dynasty (ca. 1300-1027 BC) in relation to the underlying Shang colour
categorization; (b) to analyse the evidence found in oracle bone inscriptions relating to the use of
colours in Shang ritual practice, and to explore their meaning in a specified cultural system.
The approach taken is by necessity a pluralistic one, determined by the complexity of the topic and
the materials that are available. It draws upon the strength and potential not only of sinological
studies, but also of general linguistics, anthropology and archaeology.
This thesis is divided into three parts: In Part One, there is a brief introduction to the general
topics, findings, and the methodology employed. Archaeological evidence, in particular of Shang
pigmentation, is also mentioned. Several other fundamental questions regarding oracle bone
inscriptions shall be looked at: the graphic and phonological aspects, and the new approach of
classification and periodization to oracle bone inscriptions found at Yinxu; this study uses the new
method throughout and, in some respects, reinforces it. The problem of Shang sacrifice and
divination is also briefly discussed. The key to understanding the nature of the Shang divinatory
texts is first to understand the context in which they are used.
Part Two examines some important colour terms found in oracle bone inscriptions; these are chi
'red', xing 'red-yellow', bai 'white', hei (or jin) 'black', zhi 'brown', huang 'yellow', you
'dark-red', and wu 'multi-colour'. The results disclose the nature and pattern of Shang colour
categorization. Five colour categories are distinguished, and the study of Shang colour terms seems
to prove that colour categorization is an evolutionary process.
In Part Three, the question of how the colour symbolism actually worked in Shang ritual practices is
analysed in detail. The Shang people used ritual offerings of different colours in different ways.
The white, red and multi-coloured animals were mainly sacrificed in their ancestral cult; black
sheep were only used in rain-making ritual; and the colour yellow was probably associated with the
earthly gods. The symbolic meaning of each colour is discussed in turn by analysing the relevant
inscriptions, leading to an exploration of the underlying colour symbolism in Shang ritual.
Finally, the characteristics of the Shang colour symbolism are discussed in relation to later
traditions such as the Wuxingshuo or 'Five Phases' theory. The Shang colour symbolism influenced the
formation of the correlative system-building which later became dominant in Chinese philosophical
and scientific thinking. This study throws a new light on our understanding of the orientations of
early Chinese thought and provides a basis from which further research on the colour symbolism in
later periods may be conducted.
Jern of stål i oldtidens Kina [Iron and Steel in Ancient China]
Wagner, Donald Blackmore, Ph.D., University of Copenhagen, 1990
This dissertation consists of a collection of nine previous publications on various aspects of
the production and use of iron and steel in ancient and traditional China: 1). 'Some traditional
Chinese iron-production techniques practiced in the 20th century.' Journal of the Historical
Metallurgy Society 18.2: 95-104, 1984. 2). Dabieshan: traditional Chinese iron-production techniques
practised in southern Henan in the twentieth century. Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies
Monograph Series 52. London & Malmö: Curzon Press, 1985. 3). 'Toward the reconstruction of ancient
Chinese techniques for the production of malleable cast iron.' East Asian Institute Occasional
Papers [University of Copenhagen] 4: 3-72, 1989. 4). 96 pages of abbreviated translations of 10
articles in Chinese archaeological journals, published in Chinese Archaeological Abstracts vols.
2-4, ed. by A.E. Dien et al., Los Angeles: Project for the Study of Chinese Archaeological Material,
1986. 5). 'Swords and ploughshares, ironmasters and officials: iron in China in the 3rd c. BC.'
Pages 174-92 in Analecta Hafniensia: 25 years of East Asian Studies in Copenhagen, ed. by Leif
Littrup. London: Curzon Press, 1988. 6). 'The dating of the Chu graves of Changsha: the earliest
iron artifacts in China?' Acta Orientalia 48: 111-56, 1987. 7). 'Ancient Chinese copper smelting,
6th c. BC: recent excavations and simulation experiments.' Journal of the Historical Metallurgy
Society 20.1: 1-16, 1986. 8). 'StŌbejerns metallurgi og lidt om kinesisk stŌbejen' [The metallurgy
of cast iron, with some notes on Chinese cast iron]. 53 pages in Jern: Fremstilling, nedbrydning og
bevaring: Fortryk af forelaesninger til Nordisk Videreuddannelse af Konservatorer, KŌbenhavn, 17-28
august 1987. KŌbenhavn: Nationalmuseet, Bevaringssektionen, 1987. 9). 'Jern og stål i oldtidens
Kina' [Iron and steel in ancient China]. Polhem: Tidskrift för teknikhistoria 8.1: 2-37, 1990.
JOBS & GRANTS
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
The Dept of Anthropology invites applications for a full-time tenure-track position in archaeology
to start August 1994. The rank is open and salary commensurate with rank and experience.
Applications must have the Ph.D. and teaching/research experience in 1) Old World archaeology, 2)
Latin American archaeology or 3) African-American archaeology. Minority and women candidates are
encouraged to apply. Please submit a CV, names of three or more referees and any supporting
materials to Michael Moseley, Chair, Search Committee, Dept of Anthropology, 1350 Turlington Hall,
Gainesville, FL 32611 USA 904-392-4795. (no deadline given) email: MX"ARCHORN@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu
(from ARCH-L, 11 Oct 93)
ROM GERVERS RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP
The Royal Ontario Museum will award a Fellowship in Textile and Costume History of up to CAN$9,000
to a scholar working on any aspect of textile or costume history which makes direct use of or
supports any part of the extensive ROM collections. Contact Chair, Veronika Gervers Memorial
Fellowship, Textile Dept, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C6 Canada,
416-586-5790. Deadline: 15 Nov 93.
CHIANG CHING-KUO FOUNDATION
The CCK offers fellowships for 1) dissertation research related to China but conducted outside of
the USA and PRC; 2) postdoctoral research on Chinese topics outside the PRC but permitting short
visits to the Mainland; 3) senior scholar grants for work in Chinese studies only in the humanities
and social sciences. Contact CCK Foundation, Suite 131, Van Ness Center, 4301 Connecticut Ave. NW,
Washington DC 20008 USA, 202-362-2914, FAX 202-362-2935.
EARTHWATCH GRANTS FOR FIELDWORK
The Center for Field Research supports field research by scientists and humanists mainly by covering
expenses for maintaining research staff and volunteers in the field; costs for travel for principal
investigators, leased or rented field equipment, consumables and insurance, support of staff and
visiting scientists, and support for associates from host country may also be augmented.
Applications are reviewed continuously. Contact CFR, 680 Mount Auburn St, PO Box 403, Watertown MA
02272 USA, 617-926-8200, FAX 617-926-8532.
THE CHARLES A. LINDBERGH FUND, INC.
The Lindbergh Grants Program supports research and educational projects that focus on a balance
between the advancement of technology and preservation of the human/natural environment. Deadline:
June 15, 1994. Contact Lindbergh Grants Program, 708 South 3rd St, Suite 110, Minneapolis, MN 55415
USA, 612-338-1703, FAX 612-338-6826.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
The NGS Committee for Research and Exploration provides grants-in-aid for basic, original,
scientific field research and exploration; Particular emphasis is placed on multi-disciplinary
projects of an environmental nature. Applications are reviewed continuously. Contact: Attn: Steven
S. Stettes, Sec'y, NGS Grants-in-Aid, Committee. for Research and Exploration, 17th and M Streets
NW, Washington DC 20036-4688 USA, 202-857-7439.
EAST-WEST CENTER
Asian-Pacific Fellowships are offered for predoctoral and postdoctoral research; the former are
expected to be taken up at the University of Hawaii, but the latter are arranged in conjunction with
the scholar's degree-granting institution. The applicant's country of citizenship should be
specified in letters of inquiry or requests for applications. Contact: Office of Award Services,
East-West Center, 1777 East-West Road, Honolulu HI 96848 USA.
KOREA FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIPS
Two fellowships are offered: for Korean studies in the fields of humanities, social sciences and
arts (2-10 mos); and for Korean language training (6-12 mos). Deadline: 31 July 1994. For
application forms, program guidelines, or further information, contact: Personnel Exchange Dept, The
Korea Foundation, CPO Box 2147, Seoul, Korea 82-2-753-6553.
GRANTS RECEIVED
Committee on Scholarly Communication with China, USA
Scott Cook (Univ Michigan) "A new study of the Qin," Chinese Academy of Arts, Research Institute
of Music [unclear whether Qin refers to the dynasty or the musical instrument]
Amy Mayer (Univ Chicago) "Archaeology of the Shang and Zhou periods," Peking University
Karen Rosenberg (Univ Delaware) "Modern human origins: an analysis of Late Pleistocene postcranial
morphology from China," Peking University
Constance Cook (Lehigh Univ), "Scribes, ritualists, and feasts: the transmission of the liturgy of
political legitimation in ancient China," CASS Institute of History
NEH Interpretive Research Program
James B. Palais (Univ Washington) "Cambridge History of Korea"
American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
Helen Dunstan (MIT) "State and environment in North China, 1400-1900"
Leo K. Shin (Princeton) "Ethnicity and state: southwestern expansion in Ming China"
Ittleson Fellowship, 1993-95
Lydia Dupont Thompson (Inst. of Fine Arts, New York Univ) "The Yi'nan Tomb"
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 Department of Asian Art, Art Institute of Chicago, has received a $100,000 commitment from the Frederick Henry Prince Testamentary Trust. The funds will be used to renovate and reinstall the Galleries of Chinese, Japanese and Korean art, which opened to the public in 1992.
The exhibition Chinas Goldenes Zeitalter ("China's golden age: the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and the cultural heritage of the Silk Road") is showing from 22 Aug - 21 Nov 93 at the Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Dortmund, Germany.
The Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey USA, is hosting a special exhibition, "Symbols of the Ancestors: the power of Chinese bronze and jade".
The exhibition "Friends of Asian Art Gifts: 1985-1993" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York includes 50 works from China, Japan, Korea, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia: jade, gold, bronze, stone, wood sculptures, ceramics, textiles, and paintings, dating from ca. 1100 BC to the 18th century.
Further news on the National Museum in Seoul is that the four-story Renaissance-style structure built by the Japanese in 1926 will be demolished. A brand-new museum to replace it will be built starting next year in the Yongsan Family Park (the former 300,000 m2 U.S. Army golf course).
The new Korea Foundation is to finance independent Korean galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (to be completed in 1995), the British Museum, and the Guimet Museum in Paris (to open at the end of 1995). The Guimet "is said to have the most valuable and wide-ranging collections of oriental artefacts in the world." (from the Korea Foundation Newsletter 2.1: 4-5, 1993)
"Symbols of the Ancestors: The power of Chinese bronze and jade" is a travelling exhibit (14 Oct 93 - 4 Jan 94) drawn from the collections of the University of Pennsylvania. The uses of jade and bronze as powerful symbols of ritual and political authority in ancient China are explored through 54 artifacts, text panels, photographs, maps and graphics. (from Newsletter EAAA, 44: 5, Sept 93)
"A decade of collecting: Friends of Asian Art Gifts 1984-1993" shows ca. 50 important works from East, South and Southeast Asia acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29 Sept 93 - 9 Jan 94). An illustrated catalogue is available.
The exhibition "Luxury Arts of the Silk Route Empires" (continuing indefinitely) is presented in a newly constructed space that connects the Sackler and Freer Galleries at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA. Objects from the two collections illustrate the effect of multicultural interaction on the arts for the first 1000 years AD. The 24 objects from the Sackler are from China, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan, including a gold buckle and belt fittings, a gold sword handle, silver plates, bowls, cups, an ewer, an animal-shaped vessel, and a Central Asian wall painting. The 58 objects from the Freer include 8 gold ornaments and a crystal statuette from Egypt, silver bowls, cups, mirrors and containers; and ceramic cups, bowls, ewers, and jars from Iran, China, and Afghanistan. The newly refurbished Freer Gallery of Art, whose opening exhibit "America meets Asia" runs from May 1993 to May 1994, has several new galleries: American, Japanese, Korean ceramics, Chinese, the Peacock Room, Chinese painting and calligraphy, Ancient Chinese, Buddhist art, South Asian, Islamic, and Luxury arts of the silk route empires. Showing at the Sackler indefinitely are the exhibitions "Arts of China" including ancient ritual jades and bronzes, and "Monsters, Myths, and Minerals" focussing on animal imagery in Chinese art as expressed in jade, ceramic and bronze (1100 BC - AD 1800). (from Newsletter EAAA, 44: 8-9, Sept 93)
The exhibition "Appeasing the Spirits: Sui and Tang Dynasty Tomb Sculpture from the Schloss Collection" has moved to the College Art Gallery, State University of New York in New Paltz, NY, USA, showing during Oct and Nov 1993.
"Pathways to the afterlife: early Chinese art from the Sze Hong collection" is showing at the Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, USA from 6 Feb 93 - 2 Jan 94. A catalogue is available (White and Otsuka in RUNNING BIBLIOGRAPHY).
"Het Berenfeest: De Ainu van Japan in foto's van Gosco Maraini" was shown at the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, The Netherlands through 29 Aug 93.
The permanent display of "Ritual bronzes of the Shang and Chou Dynasties" at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan is organized chronologically and according to vessel type.
The Smithsonian Institution announces that HONG Jong-Ouk of Seoul, Korea has been named the first recipient of the Forbes Fellowship at the Freer Gallery of Art. His year of research began 1Sept 93. The Forbes Fellowship is awarded anually for a project that furthers the scientific study of the care, conservation and protection of works of art. Hong is an analyst on the staff of the Korean National Research Institute of Cultural Properties. At the Freer he will continue his research on a group of earthenware vessels from Korea's Three Kingdom's period, excavated from Cheju, Chonnam, and Kyongbuk provinces. He also plans to analyze Freer ceramics from elsewhere in Asia for comparison to the Korean examples. (from Newsletter EAAA, 44: 23, Sept 93)
The new National Folk Museum in Seoul has as its first gallery the "Life History of Korean People." Included in the displays are a panel of Korean faces through the ages; models of the imperial capital of 9th-century Kyongju, a Shilla glass-making workshop, a Kaya blacksmith's shop; and mannikins wearing the dress of the Three Kingdoms elite, mannikins of a Kaya mounted horseman in full armour and of the deceased of the Iron Age Tahori No. 1 tomb-depicted as a 'scholar' in a study with all his paraphernalia. Panoramic reconstructions portray a Bronze Age village, a Koguryo retinue led by horsemen, Koguryo daily scenes (taken from the tomb frescoes), and a Paekche ancestral rite.
The new National Puyo Museum of Korea was opened on August 6th with a special exhibit of
materials from the Fujinoki and Takamatsu tombs in Japan, lent by the Asuka Historical Museum and
the Kashiwara Prefectural Museum in Nara.
LECTURES
The Slade Lectures, University of Cambridge
In Lent Term 1992, Prof. Lothar Ledderose (Univ Heidelberg) presented the following public
lectures under the title "Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art":
21 Jan Calligraphy: the perennial paradigm
28 Jan Casting bronze the complicated way
4 Feb A magic army for the Emperor
11 Feb Factory art: lacquer and porcelain
18 Feb Building blocks, brackets, and beams
25 Feb The word in print
3 Mar The bureaucracy of Hell
10 Mar Freedom of the brush?
The Barlow Collection, University of Sussex
25 May 93 Ancient Korean wall paintings," by Youngsook PAK
School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield
In the first term seminar series of 1993-94, Mr. Richard Siddle will present at 5pm, Arts Tower
Lecture Theatre 5 :
7 Dec 93 The Ainu and the International Year for Indigenous People
Japanese archaeology lectures, London
Asst. Prof. Keiji IMAMURA of Tokyo University will be giving ten special lectures in autumn 1993 on
"The prehistory of Japan and its position in East Asia" at the Institute of Archaeology, University
College London on Mondays at 5.10 in Room 410:
11 Oct Introduction to man and environment in Japan
18 Oct The Palaeolithic in Japan
25 Oct The earliest pottery and questions of dating
1 Nov Establishment of the Jomon economic system
8 Nov Jomon coastal economy and forest hunting
15 Nov Plant foods and the Middle Jomon culture
22 Nov The arrival of agriculture
29 Nov Cultural and diplomatic exchanges with the mainland
6 Dec Political unification
13 Dec Japanese prehistory and its position in East Asia
Institute for Asian Studies, New York
The following lectures and tours offered among the fall/winter 1993-94 lecture series touch on
East Asian archaeology:
5 Oct China and Japan: influence or confluence in the arts?
14 Oct The Yi minority of southwest China
23 Oct Visit to the Newark Museum
6 Nov Visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
30 Nov Early evidence of silk in ancient China
4 Dec Tour of Chinese ceramics at the Met
3, 10 Jan Travel in China: on and off the beaten track
19 Jan Chinese tomb figures: stylistic connections with sculpture, wall paintings, etc
25 Jan Chinese jade: fakes, foolery & fabulous finds
26 Jan Wild beasts & winged immortals: Han tombs & their contents
Write to receive their detailed brochure: Institute for Asian Studies, Inc., 141 E. 44th St., Suite
307, New York NY 10017, 212-338-0159, FAX 212-338-0160.
Extra-mural courses on archaeological issues
In Britain this academic year, there is a spate of adult education (extra-mural) courses on
aspects of archaeology:
Univ Oxford Dept for Continuing Education:
6-7 Dec Project Management in Archaeology
1 Feb Air photographs and archaeology
14-15 Mar Computing as a tool for archaeologists
Univ Sheffield Div of Adult Continuing Education:
13 Nov Glass for the archaeologist: weathering, deterioration and conservation
Univ of Leeds Dept of Adult Continuing Education:
30 Oct Archaeology in adult education: the future for the past
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.
- ANCIENT MAP ON HEMP REPRODUCED
An 9th-century pictorial map, Nukatadera garan narabini jorizu (designated a 'National Treasure'), showing the Nukatadera temple buildings and surrounding area of ancienct Nara with the checkerboard grid reflecting the jori system of land division, has been reproduced by the National Museum of Japanese History (Sakura, Chiba Pref.) and the Tokyo University Historiographical Institute (Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo). Researchers were allowed to remove sample data from the national treasure for X-ray and microscope study, allowing them to analyze the pictures and lettering as well as the cloth, dyes, and paints used. The restoration brings back to life the original light green, vermilion and other colors of the map, as well as the texture of the hemp cloth, woven using 8th-century techniques. Researchers carefully surveyed the neighborhood of the temple as well, before re-creating the ancient map. (Japan Foundation Newsletter 22.1: 15, 1993)
- RICE PHYTOLITHS IN JOMON POTTERY OF 1500 BC
3,500 year-old earthenware fragments excavated in 1992 from the Minami Mizote site in Soja, Okayama, have been discovered to contain components of the rice plant. According to a study by FUJIWARA Hiroshi, Miyazaki University professor of regional agriculture, phytoliths found in rice plant leaves have been detected in the pottery sherds, believed to have been made of clay collected from land where rice had been cultivated. (Japan Foundation Newsletter 22.1: 15, 1993)
- A 'SIBERIAN EVE' NEXT?
The 1982-87 excavations of Russian archaeologist Yuri A. Mochanov on the Lena river have produced purported stone tools from strata thought to be between 1.8-3.4 million years old. They are described as cobble tools, flakes and quartzite cores. The deeply buried alluvial deposit they come from has been dated by thermnoluminescence and palaeomagnetism, but the results remain the subject of debate. The lithics resemble those of Olduvai Gorge in east Africa. (from The Artefact 15: 38, 1992)
- REQUEST FOR MICROORGANISM INFORMATION
Prof. S. Aaronson writes to ask if anyone has found evidence for the use of algae (seaweed) or fungi as food or medicine in prehistoric or ancient Japan [or presumably China and Korea]. He is tracing the origin and antiquity of the human use of microorganisms (bacteria, algae, fungi or lichens) as food or medicine. If you have information to offer, please contact him at the Department of Biology, Queens College, City University of New York, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Flushing NY 11367-1597 USA, 718-997-3400.
- HAN DYNASTY WOMEN WARRIORS STATUES & PEANUTS
A 1990 discovery of 50 unglazed but painted statues depicting women warriors (height unstated), from an Early Han tomb in Shaanxi, was just announced on July 23rd. The painted but unglazed clay figures are described as "each displaying a heroic spirit" (Evening Standard 23 July 1993).
Why this news had been delayed was unexplained. The figures hold swords and wear "wooden armour." They were part of a grave goods assemblage consisting of "thousands of funerary artefacts" in which also occurred the earliest documented peanuts in China. Peanuts were previously thought to have been introduced from Southeast Asia in medieval times. (The Times, London, 23 July 1993)
- PAEKCHE KINGDOM PRESERVATION AREAS
The South Korean government has designated 1,915.46 sq. km of land in four regions (Kongju, Puyo and Nonsan in S. Chungchong, and Iksan in N. Cholla) as 'special' regions to protect and preserve cultural properties of the 'Paekche' Kingdom.
- INDEPENDENT SCHOLARS OF ASIA, INC.
This is a non-profit, non-partisan, professional organization which is affiliated with the Association for Asian Studies, USA. Founded in 1981, ISA represents Asian specialists who (a) prefer to stay independent, (b) are looking for a tenured position in academia, (c) are considering an alternative career, or (d) are planning a career in the field of Asian studies.
"We discuss career alternatives, survival techniques, and the changing roles of Asian scholars. Our networks link us successfully to other professional organizations, institutions of higher learning as well as public and private sectors. Our goal is to make the expertise of our members available to the public. We, therefore, maintain files and consultant rosters and conduct lecture and workshop series as well as conferences on the local, national, and international level. We have also published ten books reflecting research of our members.
"ISA has presently 172 members of which 123 live in 34 states of the United States and 49 live in 23 foreign countries. Our 9 directors, as well as all members, serve as local contacts to share networks and resources. Among our members are experts on South, Southeast, Southwest, North and East Asian countries, trained in one or more of the many disciplines including archaeology. Most members have worked in one or several Asian countries."
Annual fees are US$12 for General or $7 for Supporting/Student Members. These fees entitle access to individual counseling and 3 newsletters per year. Contact: Dr. Ruth-Inge Heinze, ISA National Director, 2321 Russell St. #3A, Berkeley CA 94705 USA. 510-849-3792.
- MOATS GALORE!
Haru-no-tsuji site, Iki Island: Remains of a V-shaped moat, 2-3m deep and 3m wide have been excavated at the Middle to Late Yayoi Haru-no-tsuji site on Iki Island, Nagasaki Prefecture. A small section (about 2m) of a second moat has also been found suggesting that the Yayoi settlement was originally surrounded by at least two moats. These discoveries are seen as confirming Haru-no-tsuji's importance on ancient Iki. (Yomiuri Shimbun 26 June 93). Comment by MJH: First reported in 1923, the Haru-no-tsuji site has - together with Karakami - long been seen as the most important Yayoi site on Iki. Excavations have produced pit buildings, jar and stone cist burials, bronze mirrors, swords, and coins. Even before discovery of the moat, the site had been proposed as the center of the kuni of Iki which is mentioned in the Wei zhi. Although theWei zhi relates that the Iki islanders had to engage in trade to supplement poor agricultural land, it is interesting to note that Haru-no-tsuji's importance is thought to lie in its location amongst the best paddy land on the island. Another point of note is that double moats around Yayoi settlements are rare in Kyushu. (MJH)
Yu'usu phase moat at the Naka site, Fukuoka: A moat dating to the Yu'usu phase of the Initial Yayoi was found at the Naka site in Fukuoka City in 1992. Itazuke had previously been the earliest settlement moat, but it is now clear that moated villages date from the very beginning of the Yayoi period. Naka is also unusual in having a double moat: this was the first time that two parallel moats had come from a Yayoi site in Kyushu showing that what had been thought of as a Kinai-type settlement layout had probably originated in Kyushu. (Asahi Graph 25 Dec 92).
New moated settlement at Yoshinogari: a new Late Yayoi moated settlement was found at Yoshinogari in Saga in May last year. It has two inner moats with a width of 2.5 - 3m and a depth of about 1.5m. Two of three moat projections have 6 post holes for watch towers. This new enclosure is just south of the northern mounded tomb; it was contemporary with the now partly reconstructed central settlement but at 2750m2 was only a quarter of the size. Yoshinogari thus has not only two mound burials, but two contemporary double moated enclosures within the same huge outer moat. What was the relationship between the two enclosures? Did they house two ethnic groups or was the separation on class? (Asahi Graph 25 Dec 92).
- YAMANASHI ARCHAEOLOGY, JAPAN
Huoquan coin from Yamanashi: A huoquoan (J. kasen) coin of the Wang Mang interregnum has been found at the Komekurayama B site in Yamanashi Prefecture. Since these Chinese coins were only in circulation from AD 14 - 40 they are very important in dating objects in Yayoi Japan. So far 36 of the coins have been found in Japan from 9 sites, mostly in north Kyushu but as far east as Osaka. This new find is the first example from eastern Japan. (Asahi Graph 25 Dec 92).
Heian special issue: A special issue of the bulletin of the Yamanashi Archaeological Society deals with Heian archaeology in that prefecture. The 16 articles cover topics from ceramics to temples to ritual objects. Much of the emphasis, however, is on ceramics, particularly the local Kai- type Haji bowls, made from the 8th-10th centuries. The articles provide a good, detailed overview of the state of Heian archaeology in Kai Province. Yamanashi-ken Kokogaku Kyokaishi No.5. Tokushu: Kai-no-kuni ni okeru Heian jidai kenkyu no genjo to kadai. 1992. Available from: Teikyo Daigaku Yamanashi Bunkazai Kenkyujo, Yotsuka'ichiba 1566, Isawa-cho, Yamanashi-ken 406, Japan. (MJH) submitted by Mark Hudson
- 7-BRANCHED SWORD INTERPRETATION
A Korean scholar has countered the Japanese theory on reading the inscription on the 7-branched sword allegedly given by a Paekche king to a Yamato sovereign in AD 369 and since housed in the Isonokami Shrine, Tenri, Nara. Prof. SOH Jin-chol, Wonkwang University, proposes that "the inscription should be read to indicate that the Paekche king bestowed the sword to a relative who was appointed to rule a Japanese feudal state." Soh maintains that the word chi, read by Japanese scholars as the 'will' of the King, should instead be read as the name of the Yamato King, King Chi. (Korea Newsreview 3 July 93)
- CANADIAN FOUNDATION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF CHINESE CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL TREASURES
This a non-profit organization recently founded to support archaeological research and the preservation of historic sites and relics. Their first focus is on the Three Gorges area of Hubei and Sichuan provinces, which will be innundated over the next twenty years upon the building of a dam. The Foundation's goal is to make the history of the area better known and to alert the international community to opportunities to assist in field surveys and excavation, the preservation and protection of relics and monuments, and the development of museums and interpretive facilities. The Ministry of Culture and the National Bureau of Relics in Beijing are cooperating in making known their needs for expertise, modern technology and funding. The Foundation is undertaking to publish a book of English translations of scholarly articles by Chinese archaeologists on recent work done in this part of the Yangze Valley. EAANmember Prof. Gary Crawford, University of Toronto, will serve as Editor-in-Chief, and he sits on the Board of the Foundation. The Foundation is located at 4040 Finch Avenue East, Suite 208, Scarborough, Ontario M1S 4V5 Canada, 416-298-2277, FAX 416-492-0061.
- REQUEST FOR ANCIENT ROADS INFORMATION
Dr. W.Welles Bretherton writes to ask if anyone can guide him to works, preferably in English, on ancient roadways of Japan-especially precursors of the Tōkaidō. Works in Japanese would also be acceptable. Please contact him at: 3108 W. Dahlia Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85129, USA.
- PACIFIC RIM ARCHAEOLOGY
The editor of the journal of the Archaeological and Anthropological Society of Victoria, Inc. in Melbourne, Australia has recently expanded coverage to the Pacific basin. His journal, now entitled The Artefact: Pacific Rim Archaeology, is a new forum for publications on East Asian archaeology, and manuscripts are actively invited. Articles comprising major overviews, papers on methods, epistemology, and ethics are desired; and especially wanted are articles on Pleistocene occupation and on early colonisation out of Asia. For instructions to contributors, contact Mr. Robert G. Bednarik, Editor of The Artefact, PO Box 216, Caulfield South, Victoria 3162 Australia, 03-523-0549.
- LANDSAT DATA
The MSS Landsat data has now reverted to the public domain. One can order full scene data on computer tape for US$200 from the Eros Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA, 605-594-6151. Archived/processed Landsat TM data from Landsat 4 & 5 is also back in the public domain. Full scene images are only US$1500 (instead of $4400). The number for these is 1-800-344-9933 (only within the USA). (ARCH-L, 9 July 93)
- CURRENT RESEARCH IN THE PLEISTOCENE
The journal of the above name, published by the Center for the Study of the First Americans, is a major carrier of articles on the East Asian Palaeolithic, as you will see from the articles listed in this issue's p RUNNING BIBLIOGRAPHY. The editorial office has recently moved, as has the Center. Their new addresses are as follows, and potential contributors and subscribers to CRP are urged to contact the new editor: Dr. Bradley T. Lepper, Editor CRP, Newark Earthworks, 99 Cooper Ave, Newark, OH 43055, USA. The Center's director is: Dr. Robson Bonnichsen, Weniger 355, Oregon State University, Corvallis OR 973331 USA.
- SOUTH EAST ASIA RESEARCH
A new journal of the above title has been launched at SOAS, Univ of London. It will include articles on all aspects of Southeast Asia, from archaeology, language, music and culture to economics, politics and law. Articles (4000-8000 words) will be based on original research or field work. The journal will also contain reviews of major works of scholarship connected with Southeast Asia. Send contributions to: Dr. Ian Brown, Editor SEAR, Dept of History, SOAS, Univ London, Thornhaugh St., London WC1H 0XG, UK.
- FMF EXCAVATION PRACTICUM IN XIAN, CHINA
The Xian Jiaotong University (Xian) and the Sino-American Field School of Archaeology, in cooperation with the Fudan Museum Foundation, is offering a summer excavation practicum in combination with a short study tour in China, 1 July - 3 August 1994. Archaeologists, university and college students, as well as high school seniors, teachers, and a limited number of other interested adults are eligible to participate. For archaeologists, there is a possibility to meet with Chinese counterparts to prepare future research arrangements with them under the umbrella of the Sino-American Field School of Archaeology. For information on fees and semester credits, contact: Alfonz Lengyel, 1522 Schoolhouse Road, Ambler, PA 19002 USA & FAX 215-699-6448.
- REPATRIATION OF BOOKS
In the acrimonious negotiations for the return of cultural properties removed during periods of imperial and colonial predation, books have now come under consideration. The Korea Newsreview (18 Sept 93: p. 29) reports that "Hundreds of ancient books taken from Korea to France 127 years ago will be repatriated to Korea, probably within a couple of years,...in the form of a 'permanent lease'....The ancient texts were taken from Korea following a military clash with France in 1866....Seven warships entered Korean waters and seized the administrative center of Kangwha Island, taking records and documents from the royal archives....Upon returning to Korea, the books will be on display to the public, and after the exhibition be kept at Seoul National University's archives." The article continues, stating that "According to a ministry tally, there are 54,655 Korean cultural relics overseas in 15 countries. Japan has the most with 31,223 followed by Britain with 7,281 and the United States with 5,863. France is listed as having a relatively small number with 104."
- NEW SPAFA ADDRESS
SPAFA stands for SEAMEO Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts; it offers training courses and bibliographic resources to Southeast Asian archaeologists. Its new address is: SPAFA Headquarters Building, 81/1 Si-Ayutthaya Road, Sam-sen, Theves, Bangkok 10300, Thailand.
- FREE RADIOCARBON DATES
New dating options are now available from the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. As an introduction to our facility, new submitters will receive one free radiocarbon date when submitting 5 or more samples. We have been determining radiocarbon dates for more than 15 years, and we now utilise 4 Quantulus spectrometers to measure residual C14 activity. We offer 4 options to users: high precision, standard dating, low precision, express dating. Contact: C14@waikato.ac.nz (ARCH-L, 16 Sept 93)
- EMAIL DIRECTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS
The University of Western Australia, in cooperation with the University of New York, Buffalo and Yale University, announce a service for finding the names, maill addresses, and e-mail addresses of scholars and departments in the field of anthropology (including archaeology and other related fields). The great advantage of this Directory, called Anthro Gopher, over other sources for addresses is that one may 'search' the data base and thereby get information on a specific individual or institution. The Directory's email address is anthro-gopher@yale.edu. For current means of access and use techniques, contact: Hugh Jarvis (C129QP43@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU) or Tom Plunkett (tom_plunkett@yale.edu). (ARCH-L, 29 Dec)
- EXCAVATION OF TANGUN'S TOMB
The Pyongyang Times (Oct 2 & 9, 1993) has announced the excavation of a stone chambered tomb in Kangdong County near P'yongyang which North Korean archaeologists believe to belong to the legendary founder of the Korean peoples and state. The tomb and its contents resemble the 6th c. AD Koguryŏ tombs of the region, but "the age of the male bones unearthed from the Tomb of Tangun was measured. The method of electronic paramagnetic resonance [=ESR]...was applied in examining them on 24 and 30 occasions respectively at two research institutes...Thus, it was scientifically proved that the bones date back 5011 years. The bones are the remains of none other than Tangun." !! The tomb appears to have been first identified with Tangun in the Koryŏ period when a shrine was established in front of it on the basis of mention in the History of the Koryŏ Dynasty of a nearby village named Pakdalgot being related to Tangun.
CONFERENCES:
CONFERENCE CALENDAR
Titles new to this issue are emboldened and those dealing specifically with East Asia are starred
*Oct '93: Annual Conference of the Chinese National Ceramic Society, Fujian. Contact: YE Wencheng, Dept of Anthropology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, PRC. This conference is timed to coincide with the opening of the Dehua Ceramic Museum.
Oct 1-2 '93: The Impact of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) on Archaeology and Cultural Resource Management, Ravello, Italy. Contact: Dr. Gary Lock, Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 36 Beaumont St., Oxford OX1 2PG, UK.
Nov 12-15 '93: 25th Chacmool Conference: Cultural Complexity in Archaeology, Calgary. Contact: 1993 Conf. Committee, Dept. of Archaeology, Univ. of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4 CANADA; 403-220-5227; FAX 403-282-9567.
*Nov 17-24 '93: 92nd Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), Washington DC. Dr. Kathleen Morrison, Univ of Hawaii, is organizing a panel on "Landscapes of power: regional perspectives on states in Asia."
*Nov '93: "The Grassland Ecosystem of the Mongolian Steppe." The CSCC will sponsor this research conference as part of its Grassland Ecosystem of the Mongolian Steppe (GEMS) Project, a collaborative research project among Chinese, Mongolian and Western scholars to examine the human and natural impacts on the grasslands. Contact: James Reardon-Anderson, Director, CSCC Suite 2013, 1055 Thomas Jefferson St. NW, Washington DC 20007, USA. 202-334-2718; FAX 202-334-1774.
Nov '93: Global Specialists Conference on Rock Art, New Delhi. Sponsored by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts under the aegis of UNESCO. Contact: R.G. Bednarik, POBox 216, Caulfield South, Vic 3162, Australia, 03-523-0549.
Dec '93: Archaeology Institute of America Annual Meeting, Washington DC. Panel on SEA archaeology organized by EAANmember Dr. Jean James, 1101 Kirkwood Ave., Iowa City, IA 52240, USA. Jean will be hosting a panel on Southeast Asian archaeology
Dec 13-16 '93: 15th Annual Conference of the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG), Durham. Session and paper abstracts due June 1st. Contact: TAG Organising Committee, Dept of Archaeology, 46 Saddler St, Durham DH1 3NU, UK.
*Dec 28-3 Jan '93: 60th Anniversary of Hoabinhian Conference. Contact: Dr. Marielle Santoni c/o Musée Guimet, 6 Place d'Iéna, 75016 Paris, France. This is scheduled to lead into the IPPA conference (see below).
*Jan 3-8 '94: Interdisciplinary Integration of Chinese Archaeology and History, Taipei. Contact: Dr. Yu-mei CHEN, Institute of History & Philology, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei 11529 Taiwan, ROC. 886-2-782-9555, FAX 886-2-786-8834.
*Jan 5-12 '94: 15th Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association (IPPA) Congress, Note change of location to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Contact: Dr. Peter Bellwood, Dept of Prehistory & Anthropology, ANU CPO Box 4, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia.
*Mar 22-25 '94: Late Palaeolithic-Early Neolithic of Eastern Asia and North America: success and cultural transformation, Vladivostok. Themes: 1) Development of Late Palaeolithic cultures and the problems of transitional (Mesolithic) complexes-method and theory; 2) Forms of cultural and economical adaptation at the end of Pleistocene and Early Holocene (the origin of ceramics, the genesis of fishing and sea gathering; 3) The origin of Early Neolithic cultures, etc. Contact by Nov 30th: Dr. Nina A. Kononenko, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography, Pyshkinskaya St. 89, Vladivostok 690600 RUSSIA
*Mar 24-27, '94: AAS annual meeting, Boston at the Boston Marriott Copley Place
Mar 24-27'94: Computer Applications in Archaeology CAA94, Glasgow University. Contact: Jeremy Huggett, Dept of Archaeology, Glasgow Univ, Glasgow, Scotland, email: JHUGGETT@uk.ac.gla.dish
Apr 4-8 '94: MRS Spring Meeting: Discussions on Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology, USA.
*Apr 6-8 '94: Joint East Asian Studies Conference (BAKS, BACS, BAJS), Boddington Hall, University of Leeds. Contact: Prof. Ian Neary, Contemporary Japanese Centre, Univ of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
Apr 11-13 '94: Wetland Archaeology & Nature Conservation: principles, problems & practice, University of Bristol, UK. First call for Papers. Contact Dr. Margaret Cox, Somerset Levels & Moors Archaeologist, Dept. for the Environment, Somerset County Council, County Hall, Taunton, Somerset TA1 4DY, UK. 0823-255426; FAX 0823-334346.
*Apr 17-23 '94: BUMA-3, the 3rd International Conference on the Beginning of the Use of Metals and Alloys, Sanmenxia. Contact ASAP: Prof. HAN Rubin, Institute of Historical Metallurgy, Univ of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083 China. +86-1-201-9944 x 2534, FAX +86-1-201-7283
Apr 18-24 '94: 59th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim, CA.
Apr 19-20 '94: 1994 Annual Meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society, held in conjunction with the SAAs, Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim, CA. Contact: Dr. John Yellen, NSF 4201 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22230, USA.
May 9-14 '94: International Conference on Archaeometry, METU, Turkey. Contact: Ay Melek Ozen, Dept of Physics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. 90-4-2101000, FAX 90-4-2101281.
May 13-17 '94 Megaliths and Social Geography, Sweden. Contact: County Museum of Skaraborg, Falköping, Sweden.
Jun '94: International Conference on Fresh Water and River Archaeology, College of North Wales, Bangor. Session: lake dwellings and crannogs, lake transport, riverside habitation sites, river transport, estuarine excavations, sink holes, inundated sites, drains and wells, boat finds from land-fill and drainage areas. Contact: Mensun Bound, MARE, Univ of Oxford, 4 Butts Rd, Horspath, Oxford, England.
Jul 4-6 '94: Gender & Material Culture: from prehistory to the present, Univ Exeter. Contact: Dr. Moira Donald, Dept of History & Archaeology, Univ of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QH, UK. 0392-264318.
*Sept 19-24 '94: From the Jomon to Star Carr: the archaeology of prehistoric foragers, Univ of Durham, England. Contact: Dr. P. Rowley-Conwy, Dept of Archaeology, Durham Univ, Durham DH1 3NU, UK; FAX 091-374-3740; email: P.A.Rowley-Conwy@durham.ac.uk
Dec 4-11 '94: World Archaeological Congress, New Delhi. Contact: Dr. Makkhan Lal, WAC, PO Box 112 H.P.O., Aligarh 2020001 INDIA. 571-29143 or 25546.
Aug '94: 15th International Radiocarbon Conference, Glasgow, Scotland.
Oct 10-15'94 4th Global Congress "Sense of Identity, Sense of Place", Barcelona. Contact: Heritage Interpretation International, PO Box 6116, Station 'C', Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T5B 4K5.
*Oct 17-22 '94: Kyoto Conference on Japanese Studies, sponsored by Nichibunken (International Research Center for Japanese Studies) and the Japan Foundation.
*Oct 24-28 '94: 5th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian
Archaeologists, Paris. Contact: Dr. Pierre-Yves Manguin, EFEO/EurASEAA, POBox 981/KBY, Jl.
Mampang Prapatan VIII/R5, Jakarta 12001 Indonesia, FAX 62-21-799-1784.
PAPERS READ
For copies of the papers listed here, please contact either the symposium or panel organizer if
the author is unknown to you
SYMPOSIUM ON CHINESE ARCHAEOLOGY, 11-13 Nov 1992, SOAS, Univ of London.
Organized by Sarah Allan and Roderick Whitfield
Xu, Pingfang: Recent archaeological excavations
Yu, Weichao: Underwater archaeology in China
Peng, Shifan: Excavations of the Shang site at Xin'gan, Jiangxi Province
Chen, De'an: Shang dynasty bronzes excavated from Guanghan, Sichuan
Su, Liancheng: The Western Zhou finds at Baoji
Zhang, Chi: Neolithic excavations in Hubei
Salviati, Filippo: Decorated pottery vessels from the Fuchunshan site of the Liangzhu Neolithic
culture
Ch'en, Fang-mei: Yue axes of Shang: stylistic development and cultural significance
Wang, Tao: Colour symbolism in Shang China
Allan, Sarah: The tiger, the south and Loehr Style III
Rawson, Jessica: Western Zhou bronzes from hoards and from tombs
Hardie, Peter: The beginnings of glassware in China
Tu, Cheng-sheng: The animal style and the archaeology of the northern frontier
Zheng, Jun: Problems of conservation in Chinese wall paintings
Whitfield, Roderick: Buddhist painting fragments from Dunhuang
Giés, Jacques: Illustrations of the Avatamsaka sutra: a painting from Dunhuang
Yu, Yongbing: Recently excavated ceramics from Song, Liao and Jin tombs and pagoda foundations
58TH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY (SAA), 14-18 April 93, St. Louis
Kang, Bong Won: An examination of an intermediate socioevolutionary type between chiefdom and state
COURT RITUAL IN CHINA, 7-8 April 1993, Cambridge.
Organized by Dr. J. McDermott, St John's College
Rawson, Jessica: Objects in ritual-Chinese ritual bronzes
Shaugnessey, Edward L.: From liturgy to literature-the Western Zhou ritual reform and the evolution
of the Shijing
Loewe, Michael: The Imperial way of death in Han China
McMullen, David: The death rites of Tang Daizong
Lewis, Mark: The feng and shan sacrifices of the Han
Janousch, Andreas: The emperor as bodhisattva: the bodhisattva-ordination of the Emperor Wu of the
Liang dynasty, 519 AD
Barret, T.: Inner and outer ritual
Moore, Oliver: The ceremony of gratitude-a ceremony of the Tang examination programme
Neather, Robert: Ritual in poetry-changing depictions of imperial hunts in the fu genre (Han through
Tang)
Chard, Robert: The imperial household cults
Ebrey, Patricia: Imperial rituals and China as an imagined community
di Cosmo, Nicola: Manchu rites and ceremonies at the Qing court
McDermott, Joseph: Empire, elites, and commoners-the community pact of the Late Ming
Faure, David: The emperor in the village-representing the state in south China
TEN DYNASTIES OF CHINESE CERAMICS FROM THE CHANG FOUNDATION, 24 April 1993, Taipei Gallery, New
York.
Organized by E. Childs-Johnson for the Chinese Information and Culture Center, 1230 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY 10020-1513 USA
Ayers, John: Tradition and innovation in Qing porcelain
Spencer, James: Chinese ceramics at the Chang Foundation, Taipei
Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth: Early imperial period mingqi-wares for the soul's delectation
Mowry, Robert: Interrelations among the arts of the Song
Little, Stephen: Chinese ceramics of the Late Ming and Early Qing dynasties-the transitional period
STIRRUP, SAIL & PLOUGH: CONTINENTAL AND MARITIME INFLUENCES ON JAPANESE IDENTITY, 20-23 Sept 93,
Canberra.
Contact: Mark Hudson, Dept of Prehistory, Australian National University.
Katayama, K.: The Japanese as an Asian-Pacific population
Mather, J.: North Kyushu creole
Pearson, R.: The place of Okinawa in Japanese identity
Fawcett, C.: The practice of archaeology in Japan and Japanese identity
Kaner, S.: Impact of internationalisation on Japanese archaeology
Tsude, H.: Keyhole-shaped tomb system as a socio-political basis for the formation of Japanese
identity
Shin, K.C.: Relations between Kaya and Wa in the 3rd to 4th c. AD
Barnes, G.L.: Family and state: negotiation of identity in early Japan
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION (AAA), 17-24 Nov 93, Washington DC.
Panel: "Landscapes of Power: regional perspectives on states in Asia", organized by Dr.
Kathleen Morrison, Dept of Anthropology, Univ of Hawaii, contains the following papers on East Asia:
Borstel, Christopher L.: Powerful landscapes-the modern state and the archaeology of complexity in
China
Allard, Francis: Power and symbols in Lingnan during the Bronze Age
Nelson, Sarah: Pre-Shang complexity in northern China
Ikawa-Smith, Fumiko: Azuma and beyond: the northeastern frontier of the Yamato state in early
historic Japan
Underhill, Anne: Regional perspectives on state formation in northern China
Shelach, Gideon: Interregional interaction and the emergence of social complexity in north China
during the 2nd millennium BC-the case of the Xiajiadian and Erlitou cultures
44TH ANNUAL AAS MEETING, 2-4 April 1992, Washington, D.C.
Li, Xueqin: A Neolithic jade plaque and ancient Chinese cosmology
46TH ANNUAL AAS MEETING, 24-27 March, Boston.
Panels:
Chinese and non-Chinese networks: the archaeology of the Northeast, organised by Sarah M.
Nelson (Univ Denver), sponsored by the Northeast China Studies Association
Early Chinese Buddhist art and its secular environment, org. by Patricia Karetzky (Bard
College)
Ritual in early imperial China, org. by Victor Cunrui XIONG (W. Mich Univ)
The Japanese and the Ainu: conflict, culture and representation, org. by David L. Howell
(Princeton)
Intellectual flowering of the Late Koryo Korea, org. by E.J. Schultz (Univ Hawaii, West Oahu)
Perceptions of identity and difference among the nationalities of Yunnan province, PRC, org.
by Charles McKhann (Whitman College)
New perspectives on the Qing frontiers, org. by James A. Millward (Univ Arizona)
Myths, masks, and music: the reconstruction of 'Korean' culture and identity, org. by Hyung
Il PAI (Univ Califirnia, Santa Barbara)
Border crossings: transationalisms on the Inner/East Asian frontiers, org. by Stanley W.
Toops (Miami Univ) and Dru C. Gladney (East-West Center)
Narrative reports on more conferences can be found in Early China News 5 (Fall 1992):
"The International Symposium on the Mawangdui Han Tombs (26-29 August 1992)", by Constance A. Cook,
pp. 1, 6-9.
"London Symposium on Chinese Archaeology", by Filippo Salvati, pp. 9, 32-33.
"Inner Mongolia Archaeology Conference", by Martha Avery, pp. 10-11.
"International Conference on the History and Culture of Ba-Shu", by Elizabeth Childs-Johnson, pp.
14-16, 36.
"Third International Conference on Archaeology around the Bohai Sea", by Sarah Nelson, pp. 18-20.
Some abstracts included.
"The Second Conference on Western Zhou History", by Edward L. Shaughnessy, pp. 20-22
BOOK REVIEWS
The archaeology of Korea, by Sarah M. Nelson
Cambridge University Press, 1993. 307 pp., 118 illus. HB: ISBN 0-521-40443-6 £35 (US$59.95),
PB: ISBN 0-521-40783-4 £16.96 (US$24.95)
This long-awaited and much-needed book is a welcome addition to the teaching materials for East
Asian archaeology. Thorough in its presentation of data about most of the sites known in southern
Korea, it also attempts to deal with northern Korea to a limited extent. The fact that such coverage
can be presented in one volume is reflective of the still young discipline of archaeology in Korea-a
coverage unthinkable for Japan, for example, with its thousands and thousands of sites. Thus, this
book will give one a solid introduction to the archaeology of the peninsula from the Palaeolithic
through the Three Kingdoms era.
Each chapter after the 'Introduction' and 'Environment' deals with a period of Korean prehistory,
though the titles do not carry the usual names of Palaeolithic (instead it is 'Forest Foragers'),
Chulmun (called 'Early Villages'), Bronze Age ('Megaliths, rice and bronze'), or Iron Age ('Iron,
trade and exploitation'); the Three Kindoms period, however, gives its name to chapter 7. Part of
the reason for avoiding the traditional period names is that the author challenges the local
periodization, especially in the case of the Bronze Age. She argues that since bronzes do not appear
until 700 BC but 'Bronze Age' pottery (Mumun) appears much before this (allegedly from 2000 BC
onwards), neither of these objects really characterize the sociological changes occurring between
2000 and 500 BC. She instead focusses on megaliths as the defining feature of this era; elsewhere,
she has proposed the actual name of 'Megalithic period' (Nelson 1992).
The final chapter deals with the subject of ethnicity, a major stumbling block in Korean
archaeology. Much local scholarship is preoccupied with showing the 'Koreanness' of prehistoric
remains over a much wider geographic area than the present-day nation-states encompass. The issue of
modern peoples struggling to find their roots in the past, however, is not limited to Korea. Nelson
claims that her outsider status gives her "increased objectivity, for [she] ha[s] no nationalistic
stake in the interpretations" (p. 5). However, I found her discussion of ethnicity peculiarly
lacking in the theoretical documentation she could have, as an outsider, brought to the Korean case,
given that ethnicity is an extremely timely and controversial issue in Western archaeology with much
being written on the subject.
Another issue stemming from being an outsider is an ethical one. Some Korean archaeologists dismiss
this work outright as unworthy just because it was written by a foreigner. The matter of
intellectual rights to past history is gaining increasing prominence in non-Western countries; China
has passed legislation on the subject which severley affects access to data and publication rights
even for joint projects. Leaving aside the question of whether an outsider is more 'objective' or
not, if Korean archaeologists had wanted to write a synthesis for English-language readers, then
they should have-or still can, without jeopardizing the worthiness of this book. I leave it to them
to detail what minute errors might occur in this volume.
Recognizing the usefulness of this publication, I must nevertheless lodge a serious complaint about
the standard of illustration. Since when are hand sketches of artefacts acceptable in lieu of scale
drawings for publication? I understand there was some problem with the publishers over this matter,
and although an author is responsible for submitting illustrations, publishers' stingy budgets and
time restrictions during editing often preclude proper presentation. This deficiency is more to
CUP's discredit than the author's, and there is no excuse for having accepted and/or encouraged such
a minimal level of illustration.
Gina Barnes St. John's College Cambridge, UK
Reference:
Nelson, Sarah M. (1992) 'Mumunt'ogi and megalithic monuments: a reconsideration of the dating.'
Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies 3: 183-94.
Nihonshi tanjō [The Birth of Japanese History], by SASAKI Kōmei.
Tokyo: Shueisha, 1991. 366 pp. ¥2400
This book is the first volume in the new Shueisha 22-part History of Japan. Such series are, of
course, big business in Japan and almost every publisher seems to have its own ever more lavish
version. For my money, however, this Shueisha series is one of the best. This first volume covers
Japanese history up to the beginning of rice farming. The book is unusual in that its author is an
ethnologist rather than an archaeologist. While I don't agree with all that Sasaki writes, it must
be stressed that his disciplinary orientation is very much an advantage, giving the book a
comparative breadth rarely found in other similar volumes. Chapter 6, for example, is an excellent
summary of the biological evidence for the development of the Japanese people. Furthermore,
throughout the text Sasaki puts his considerable anthropological experience to good use with
illustrative ethnographic examples from both inside and outside Japan.
Sasaki is particularly known for his espousal of Nakao Sasuke's "East Asian evergreen forest
culture" theory. Basically this theory argues that similar cultural and economic elements were
traditionally shared across the laurilignosa or broadleaf evergreen zone stretching from Southeast
Asia to western Japan. Sasaki has written extensively on this theme in the past, but the present
book affords an opportunity to update the theory with respect to recent archaeological discoveries.
For this reason, the sections dealing with Jomon-period subsistence are the most interesting and the
most controversial.
Sasaki takes the view that some sort of primitive cultivation played an important role in Jomon
subsistence. A variety of plants were cultivated, although until the Late Jomon most of these seem
to have been non-staple plants such as gourds, egoma (Perilla ocimoides, a close relative of shiso),
burdock, various pulses, and so on. In the Late and Final Jomon, rice and possibly other cereals
appear to have been cultivated in western Japan in slash-and-burn fields before wet-rice paddies
were introduced around the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Though space limitations prevent a
discussion of details here, generally I believe the evidence for much of this is strong. But I am
less willing to accept Sasaki's explanations for the origins of this Jomon cultivation.
My fundamental quarrel is with Sasaki's view of culture. He seemingly attributes all cultural
variation to cultural 'complexes' which arrived regularly from the continent bringing neat packages
of plants, technology and social customs. This approach is taken to its extreme when Sasaki then
attempts to link his cultural complexes with language. He views both language and culture as a
series of sub-strata that coalesce or simply overlay each other to form 'Japanese' culture. It is an
extremely static, passive view of culture which plays down not just adaptation but human intention
and interaction as well.
Since it is so typical of Sasaki's approach and its shortcomings, it may be worth looking at his
section on language in more detail. Like most Japanese scholars, Sasaki has little faith in proposed
sound correspondences with Korean and other 'Altaic' languages and supports the idea that Japanese
is a mixed language. While this remains a real possibility, there have been few attempts to get to
grips with the problem of how such a pidgin may actually have come about (but cf. Maher 1991).
Sasaki's solution is to incorporate practically every Asian and Pacific language with proposed links
with Japanese into one 'mixed language'. He fails to make it clear that a language can influence
another without making the result a mixed language in the traditional sense. Equally seriously, he
seems unable to conceive of cultural diffusion without massive linguistic influence.
Sasaki's concepts of language and culture are evident from the beginning of the book. On the very
first page he describes how the carefully chosen title symbolises the book's aim of describing how
"the culture possessed by we Japanese came into being". This avowed aim immediately ensnares Sasaki
in a paradox of which he seems aware but unable to solve: many of the elements of 'Japanese' culture
date from the late medieval era at the earliest ,and his definition of the Japanese as "the people
who speak Japanese as their mother tongue, who acquire traditional Japanese culture, and who
consider themselves Japanese" does not include the Ainu, Okinawans or other minorities in the
archipelago. (This definition, however, could include minorities who see themselves as Japanese but
are not viewed as such by the rest of society.) Defined in this way, therefore, the problem becomes
the formation of Sasaki's criteria rather than the formation of Japanese culture in the more general
sense of the culture of the Japanese archipelago. In short, Sasaki's approach predisposes his
conclusion that the prehistoric culture of the archipelago is intimately related to the contemporary
culture.
In a review like this it is easy to over-emphasize those things with which one disagrees. In reality
the above problems only occasionally interfere with what is the real aim of the book, to provide a
balanced review of prehistoric Japan. This Sasaki accomplishes well. For the most part the book is
well produced with a bibliography and index. One exception, however, is the illustration captions:
references cited in the captions are not always in the bibliography, and the captions sometimes
contain information which does not match the text. The photo caption on p. 201, for example, notes
that 500 fragments of clay figurines were found at the Shakado site, whereas the real total of over
1000 is found in the text on p. 204.
Mark Hudson, Dept of Prehistory, ANU, Canberra, Australia
Reference:
Maher, John C. (1991) North Kyushu Creole: a hypothesis concerning the multilingual formation of
Japanese. Kokusai Kirisutokyo Daigaku Kokai Koenshu 6: 15-48.
Nihon nōkō shakai no seiritsu katei [The formation of Japanese agrarian society], by TSUDE
Hiroshi.
Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1989.
In this book, Tsude argues that Japan was actually far more advanced during the Yayoi (400 BC -
AD 300) and Tomb (300-700) periods than heretofore believed. In asserting this controversial thesis,
Tsude has accomplished a feat only rarely performed by Japanese scholars: he has written a carefully
crafted, consistently argued monograph, instead of simply a collection of unrelated essays. One may
disagree with Tsude's argument and his use of data, but no one can deny that his book is a must-read
for everyone interested in Japan's early past.
Tsude writes in five sections with introduction and conclusion. Part One examines the all-important
topic of agricultural technology and land clearance, discussing two sizes of Yayoi paddy fields
(large, low-lying vs. small, upland) which served different functions. Four periods of rapid
agricultural change are identified: 1) the beginning of Yayoi, when immigrants introduced iron
spades and hoes; 2) Yayoi-Kofun transition, when iron completely replaced stone and wood tools and
cultivated area was expanded; 3) Middle-Late Kofun period, when new technologies (iron U-shaped
blades for hoes and spades) and better irrigation facilities entered Japan from Korea; and 4) Nara
period, when engineers laid plans for the regular division of cultivated lands (jōrisei).
Part One makes at least two crucial and debatable points. First, Tsude presents the thesis that
right from the start of Yayoi, Japan took advantage of its status as late developer to borrow the
most advanced technologies from the continent without domestic R&D [research & development]. Second,
he proposes that the eras of greatest transformation were over by AD 700, and the Nara period was
neither a time of technological change, nor expansion of arable, nor rise in agricultural
productivity-all points that contradict the conventional arguments of historians of the 8th century.
In Part Two, the author deals with peasant dwellings and the early unit of consumption. The most
important section analyzes surface plans for pit dwellings, resulting in two basic arrangements for
eastern and western Japan. Tsude argues that in western Japan, pit dwellings tended to be round or
multi-angled with posts set around the outer edge equidistant from the center, while in eastern
Japan, pit dwellings of the Yayoi and Kofun periods were rectangular, often with three posts lined
up on each long side. Hearths were also constructed differently in these regions. Thus, Tsude
provides the first archaeological evidence to support previous theses (primarily those of historian
AMINO Yoshihiko) that kinship and the family were fundamentally different in eastern (more
patriarchal) and western (more egalitarian) Japan.
In Part Three, Tsude turns to villages, discussing the sudden appearance and equally baffling
disappearance of large moated settlements during Yayoi. He proposes an organic parent-offspring
relationship between large and small settlements. He also argues that there was little difference
between 5th and 8th-century villages; in both cases the basic unit of reproduction and consumption
was "a small group" (shoshūdan).
Perhaps Tsude's most original contribution comes in Part Four, where he examines kinship and trade.
Following the research of G.P. Murdock, Tsude proposes that division of labor according to gender
existed in Yayoi; men hunted while women threshed grain, cooked, and made earthenware. Based upon
regional variations in Yayoi pottery, Tsude concludes that about 90 of Japanese women married within
a radius of 5 to 10 km, or about the area of the traditional district (gun).
Tsude utilizes the regional units he has constructed to discuss trade and the division of labor
within early Japanese society. He argues that there were both wandering artisans and craftsmen
residing in large moated Yayoi settlements, and he draws up a complex map of trade routes for the
Kinai. Keyhole tombs are used to elucidate four areas dominated by different local strongmen during
the 4-5th c., and he argues that the regional networks during Yayoi correspond loosely to those of
the Kofun period. For Tsude, the rise of a political entity in the Kinai thus is intimately bound up
in the division of labour and trade.
Part Five, in which the author examines various historical and anthropological theories, is the
least satisfying section. He devotes the obligatory large section to Marx and Wittfogel, and he
attemps to define such complex and abstract notions as unit of reproduction and chieftainship. His
discussion of kinship in early Japan is clearly biased, as Tsude favors patrilineality and slights
arguments asserting bilateral or other forms.
The Formation of Japanese Agrarian Society is a challenging and original work, and archaeologists
will undoubtedly have much to quibble with. As a historian, I found that his argument that iron
farming implements were universal by about AD 300 did not fit later archaeological evidence, which
shows that even most Nara peasants did not possess these rare tools. Tsude seems to assume that just
because a new technology entered Japan, its dispersion was automatic. Furthermore, there is the
issue of cities; if Japan was so advanced by the 4th or 5th c., then why did it not have cities, the
ultimate sign of civilization and social division of labor? Tsude has no answers here, although he
argues that the moated settlements of the Yayoi age were the beginning of a municipal tradition.
Yet the thrust of Tsude's hypothesis-that most of Japan's early agricultural development occurred
during the Yayoi and Kofun periods-will outlast criticisms and remain a lasting contribution.
Historians in Japan and the West are constantly over-rating the Nara period because of the plethora
of written documents and presumed existence of a powerful, centralized kingdom. I have tried to make
this same point in my 1985 book, where I emphasized the role of epidemics in dampening population
growth and retarding agriculture. A wide readership for Tsude's book will cause both historians and
archaeologists to re-think their assumptions and should spawn renewed interest in Japan's
protohistory.
Wayne Farris, Dept of History, Univ Tennesee, Knoxville TN, USA
Reference:
Farris, Wayne (1985) Population, Disease, and Land in Early Japan, 645-900. Harvard-Yenching
Institute Monograph Series 24. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.
The problem of meaning in early Chinese ritual bronzes, Ed. by Roderick Whitfield
Colloquies on Art & Archaeology in Asia, No. 15. London: Percival David Foundation of
Chinese Art, SOAS, University of London 1993. Price: £18 (+£3 p&p) or US$32 (incl. surface p&p).
More than a collection of symposium papers, this volume presents the lively, sometimes hostile,
debate among international scholars on how to interpret the decorative motifs on the Shang bronzes.
The symposium was organized around a manuscript by Sarah Allan concerning her theories of the
taotie, which was circulated to all participants. They were invited to respond to her hypotheses or
expand on the general topic of bronze decoration. Allan's manuscript was subsequently published as
the first chapter in her book, The shape of the turtle: myth, art and cosmos in Early China (State
University of New York Press, 1991), and also appears here as the first paper. Allan then
contributed an Epilogue to the present volume as a rejoinder to the responses by the other symposium
participants.
Allan's basic thesis is that the taotie and other animalistic and humanistic motifs or shapes of the
Shang bronze vessels are not meant to be realistic portrayals (i.e. photographic representations)
but only allusions to familiar or recognizable forms which have all been violated by breaches of
reality-through disjunction, distortion, illusion and transformation. The art is not
representational, in terms of telling a story or depicting certain beings; instead the motifs act as
direct vehicles for taking the viewer from the real world beyond to the other world. Many beings
alluded to (bovines, sheep/goats, deer, tiger) were used in sacrifices, and their presence signifies
the passage of death-the important transformation both of living people into ancestors through the
act of dying and of living beings into food for the ancestors through the act of sacrifice. These
aspects of death and transformation were further augmented by allusion to a series of animals
universally associated with death and regeneration: cicada, owl and snake. These allusions formed a
'sacred language' which assisted in the transformation of the vessel contents for the reception by
the ancestors.
I find Allan's approach to the Shang taotie plausible because her hypotheses are grounded on
mutually supporting assumptions about the natures of the animals alluded to, the function of the
vessels in the rituals, and beliefs about the afterlife. In the context of the Late Shang period,
therefore, I find her interpretations compelling and enlightening. However, problems arise with
Allan's approach in several arenas. First, her terminology is complicated and easily misunderstood.
While denying the function of representation, she still describes one human face as "realistically
depicted" and discusses a "realistic deer head." Only in the Epilogue does she clarify the dichotomy
she has drawn between realism and representation: the former can function as an allusion but never,
in Late Shang art, does it 'represents' reality. It would have helpful to have this stated earlier;
since it isn't, the reader is recommended to read the Epilogue early on. Allan also states that
primitive or 'mythic' art is "not meaningful 'in an established literary sense', i.e., it is not
symbolic of ideas which are verbally articulated...." Surely Australian aboriginal art is a clear
counter case where the art is coded narrative that makes little visual sense to those not knowing
the stories behind it. The tendency of Allan to talk in universalistic generalizations about the
nature of primitive art and a single meaning for the taotie obscures a whole range of possible
relations between concepts and narratives, reality and the supernatural, and image and meaning. Even
in the Shang period, each occurrence of the taotie on specific objects might not have had the same
meaning to their individual users, much less any continuity of meaning through time.
Taotie are now openly acknowledged to have derived from the Liangzhu 'face motif', as described by
LI Xueqin in his contributed paper. These motifs have significant structural differences from taotie
and do not occur on vessels but on strangely shaped jade objects unrelated to sacrificial food
offerings. Despite this, Li concludes that "When the taotie motif was inherited in the Shang from
pre-historic times, it was not simply a case of continuing an artistic tradition, but one of
inheriting beliefs and myths." I disagree, thinking that the adoption of the design by the Shang
probably stemmed from the necessity of importing artisans who were proficient in incised work-a
technique used on the Liangzhu jades but on no other media until required for Shang bronze moulds.
Thus, by definition, we are looking at a motif that acquired meaning within new contexts, and this
meaning must by necessity have evolved through time. Since the morphology of the taotie moved from
the abstract in Early Shang to more realistic in Late Shang (a trend not directly addressed by
Allan), it might well be that the image acquired its proposed meaning of 'death and transformation'
precisely through the incorporation of easily recognizable pictorial elements which served to allude
to the proper concepts (tiger or axe = agent of death, snake or cicada = regeneration, etc.) to
convey that meaning.
Robert Bagley challenges in his paper all the basic assumptions made by Allan in constructing her
argument and much of K.C. Chang's work on art: 1) that the pictorial elements ("natural symbols")
can have single, universal meanings as suggested above; and 2) that the designs on religious objects
must necessarily have a religious meaning. He also denies that the 'meaning' of any design can be
encapsulated in a single description ,since much of meaning is projected onto the object by the
individual viewer. He seems to believe that all designs are historical composites, some elements of
which may have symbolic referents (which are inaccessible without textual documentation) but the
whole not having any integrated, static, universally acknowledged and accepted 'meaning'. His own
approach is to view design, whatever its composition, as a means of making an object visually
compelling, to mark it as different and important.
Bagley's suggestion that "the bronzes carried decoration for reasons unconnected with symbolic
programs" is seconded by Jessica Rawson, who assigns in her paper the "attention-attracting effect
[as] the function or purpose of the ornament." This includes the intensity of ornamentation as
correlated with the owner's rank-an important issue rebutted by Allan in the Epilogue. Rawson also
interestingly proposes that the one-eyed creature was introduced into the decorative repertoire from
"outside the Henan area," and that realistic animal forms were in early use on the periphery of the
Shang culture, inviting the inference that the trend towards realism in taotie design was a product
of outside influence. Moreover, she argues that the motifs of "tigers and human figures and of
animals grasping birds" should be considered in a different category of meaning from the taotie. Her
brief description of time-space differences in animal representation provide grounds for
reinspecting Allan's generalizing propositions.
Further papers in this volume are very interesting but do not wrestle directly with the profound
problems discussed above: XIONG Chuanxin focusses on zoomorphic bronzes; WANG Tao looks at textual
evidence in relation to the taotie motif; Colin Mackenzie interprets the 'meaning' of decoration on
the wealth of Chu wood carvings, lacquer paintings, and bronzes; and Alain Thote analyses the
serpent motif in Eastern Zhou material culture. The formal citations for all these papers are given
in the RUNNING BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Gina Barnes, St John's College, Cambridge, UK
ASIAN-LANGUAGE PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED
other than offprints
Han'guk ui kodae yuri [Ancient glass in Korea], by LEE In-Sook. Seoul: Tosŏ Ch'ulp'an, 1992. PB, 118 pp., many colour plates. (in Korean) From the author.
Now How Q & A: Iisutaa shima moai shufuku purojekuto [Project reerecting the Eastern Island sculptures]. Tokyo: Tadano KK. pamphlet. From the company.
Han'gugin ui palchach'ui [Footprints of Koreans], by Kim Byung-mo. Seoul: Chimmundang, 1992, 2nd ed. (in Korean) From the author.
Gunga iseki [Gunga Site]. Takayama Rekishigaku Kenkyūsho Bunkazai Chōsa Hōkokusho 2. Habikino-shi: Takayama Historical Institute, 1992. (in Japanese)
Tokyo Miyaki-mura Itō Morendo iseki 1992 [The Morendo site, 1992]. Kokugakuin Daigaku Bungakubu Kōkogaku Jisshū Hōkoku 22. Tokyo: Kokugakuin University Archaeology Laboratory. (in Japanese) From KOBAYASHI Tatsuo.
Nagano-ken Kiso-gun Kaiden-mura Yanagimata iseki A jiten [Yanagimata-A site] Kokugakuin Daigaku Bungakubu Kōkogaku Jisshū Hōkoku 23. Tokyo: Kokugakuin University Archaeology Laboratory. (in Japanese) From KOBAYASHI Tatsuo.
RUNNING BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bibliography
JOURNAL UPDATES
- The East Asian Tertiary/Quaternary Newsletter, No. 15, Dec. 1992
- Prehistory andAncient History, Vol. 3, 1992.12
- Archaeological Studies in Japanese Ancient Culture, No. 3, Dec. 1986
- Out of Asia, The Journal of Pacific History,