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Abstract: Welcome to the latest issue of Asian Perspectives. As always, the journal remains committed to publishing high-quality research articles whose chronological and regional scope reflects its broad readership across East, South, and Southeast Asia and the Pacific region. You will note that several articles in this issue focus on the identification and interpretation of specific materials and technologies. The topics covered by four of the articles include rock art in early Mongolia, bone tools in prehistoric eastern China, metallurgy at the Han empire’s southern periphery, and plant remains and parasite microfossils in pre-contact New Zealand. A fifth article relies on settlement pattern and demographic data from ... Read More PubDate: 2023-03-22T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Situated on the eastern margins of the high Mongolian grasslands, Eastern Mongolia sits at the crossroads of a number of important geographic zones, including the boreal forest, eastern Eurasian steppe, and Gobi desert. As a geographic unit, the term “Eastern Mongolia” was first used by Soviet scholar V. A. Obruchyev (1947) to describe the vast area of the eastern Mongolian plateau (meridian 106°) dominated by steppe vegetation. Subsequently, the term has also been used in archaeological research articles to refer to contemporary Mongolia’s three eastern provinces (aimags) of Khentii, Dornod, and Sukhbaatar (Batbold 2017:52–58). The territory of these three provinces covers about 20 percent of the total territory ... Read More PubDate: 2023-03-22T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: The emergence of large-scale and more complex forms of social organization between 1000 and 7000 years ago in many parts of the world was not a unilineal phenomenon (Berrey 2015; Drennan and Peterson 2006; Price and Feinman 2010; Wang and Wu 2021a). Comparative studies of early complex societies have long followed a cultural evolutionary approach and focused on delineating the similarities shared by traditional societal types (Fried 1967; Morgan 1877; Sahlins 1960; Service 1962; Spencer 1898; Tylor 1870). As new archaeological discoveries around the world keep revealing great variability within each societal type (e.g., chiefdom), scholars have made an effort to characterize and explain such variation (Blanton et ... Read More PubDate: 2023-03-22T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: The Holocene archaeological record in China attests to a rapid succession of regionally circumscribed cultural entities. Changes in pottery, architecture, metal work, prestige goods, and symbolic practices such as burial and divination play a decisive role in defining these entities and elaborating cultural chronologies from the Neolithic to Dynastic periods (Allard 2014; Cohen 2014; Cohen and Murowchick 2014; Wagner and Tarasov 2014). In recent years, an increasing number of studies have been carried out in China to investigate the underlying causes responsible for these cultural changes (An et al. 2005; Gao et al. 2007; Han et al. 2007; He et al. 2018; Huang et al. 2011; Pei et al. 2018; Stanley et al. 1999; ... Read More PubDate: 2023-03-22T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: The early metal production centers of mainland Southeast Asia and in the Yunnan Province of China, along with the circulation and exchange networks for early intermediate metal and copper-base products in these regions, are widely discussed by archaeologists. Higham (1996) has pointed out that various metal exchange systems between China and mainland Southeast Asia have existed ever since the Bronze Age (ca. 1050–400 b.c.) and speculated that these constituted early economic exchange activities. Hirao and Ro (2013) analyzed some early bronze objects excavated from Cambodia and Thailand. Pryce and his team scientifically tested metal samples from 30 sites in eight countries and built the SEALIP (Southeast Asian ... Read More PubDate: 2023-03-22T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Based largely on phytogeographic data and early ethnographic accounts, early Polynesian colonists introduced a large number (70+) of plant cultigen species to the Pacific Islands (Whistler 2009). Almost all these species originated in the broad area from Africa to Melanesia. The number reduced with remoteness, so the Hawaiian Islands (settled third to last), then Easter Island (second to last), have only around 22 and 10 introduced species, respectively. The last and by far largest Polynesian archipelago to be settled was New Zealand, where only six species were observed being cultivated by Māori at the time of early European arrival in the late eighteenth century. These six comprise Broussonetia papyrifera (aute ... Read More PubDate: 2023-03-22T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Inscriptions of Nature will appeal to diverse readers from a wide range of academic disciplines. Its eclectic synthesis of the origin and pervasive influence of the naturalization of India’s past is provocative and compelling. Chakrabarti seeks to understand how historical imagination was infused with the deep history of nature in colonial India. The volume will surely attract attention from anthropologists and historians, but students of Indian culture history and religion, as well as those with an interest in geology and prehistory, will find the book engaging. The author contends that the study of Indian antiquity was not confined to traditional disciplinary boundaries but was impacted by the interplay and ... Read More PubDate: 2023-03-22T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Dong Ningning’s prominent contribution to the field makes a breakthrough in constructing animal classifications, human categories, and social conceptions associated with taxonomies in the past. Dong Ningning is a member of the Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology at Fudan University; she acquired her doctorate degree in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge in 2017. This research expands on Dong’s doctoral dissertation on the topic of animal classifications in ancient China. Her book consists of eight chapters: chapters 1 and 2 present research questions and methodologies; chapters 3–6 introduce the archaeological background and present three case studies of Neolithic and Bronze Age sites; and the ... Read More PubDate: 2023-03-22T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: The seventh volume in the Origins of the Civilisation of Angkor series comprehensively describes the findings from excavations at Non Ban Jak (NBJ) over several field seasons in the upper Mun Valley, northeast Thailand. Two mounds were excavated, human burials recovered, and the material culture from domestic and industrial contexts and faunal remains are presented. The volume includes further analysis of the ceramic industry and health and disease. The volume summary includes comparisons with nearby Noen U-Loke (NUL) and Ban Non Wat (BNW) and offers important insights on social change in response to climate in mainland Southeast Asia between a.d. 200 and 800. Dating to the Late Iron Age, NBJ retains intact ... Read More PubDate: 2023-03-22T00:00:00-05:00