Archaeology in Central and Southwest China: Travels in Guizhou

Anthropolog

Salt

Anthropolog

Studying the relationship between past people and their environments

AGU Chapman Conference on Climates, Past Landscapes, and Civilizations; Santa Fe, New Mexico, 21–25 March 2011; The fortunes of human societies are intimately linked to the environments that sustain them. This has been true from the first emergence of human ancestors through to the present day. An AGU Chapman Conference was held to discuss the relationship between past people and their environments. Participants examined the state of the field, debated issues of contention, and formulated ways that such cross-disciplinary research can progress. Scientists' increasing ability to generate high-resolution climate records has proliferated studies that link the rise and fall of cultures to climate change. This meeting brought together scholars from across the divide between Earth sciences and archaeology to derive a deeper understanding of how humans have reacted to and shaped the changing environment.Anthropolog

Testing a novel method to identify salt production pottery via release and detection of chloride ions

A recently published analytical technique to detect chloride ions in ceramic vessels that were used to produce salt is replicated (Horiuchi et al. 2011). The method involves releasing bound chloride ions permanently retained by the vessel via a chemical exchange reaction with ammonium fluoride, following the removal of all unbound salt with water. The chloride concentration is measured in solution and used to quantify the amount of salt that was bound to the ceramic matrix. Our data suggest that this method is not a viable way to consistently discriminate salt-making pottery, as the detected chloride may not be derived from salt production activities, but from the ceramic material of the pot itself. We employ experimental vessels in which salt-making was simulated, in addition to analyzing excavated sherds from two Chinese and one North American site known to have been involved in salt production. The method proposed by Horiuchi et al. is not able to distinguish salt-making and non-salt-making vessels from one another.Anthropolog

Preface

Anthropolog

Investigating ancient landscapes and settlement patterns in the Chengdu Plain, Sichuan, China

Introduction This paper introduces an integrated survey methodology that is being employed by the Chengdu Plain Archaeological Survey (CPAS) to examine settlement patterns in the context of natural and social landscapes in Sichuan Province, China. The discoveries of the Bronze Age sites of Sangxingdui and Jinsha in the Chengdu Plain have raised questions about the emergence of a complex society in this region, especially as it compares with other societies in the Yellow River valley in Northe..

Survey, Excavation, and Geophysics at Songjiaheba—A Small Bronze Age Site in the Chengdu Plain

The Chengdu 成都 Plain, in the northwest corner of the Sichuan 四川Basin (Figure 1), was the setting for the emergence of a complex civilization in the second millennium BC. This civilization is most notably associated with the site of Sanxingdui 三星堆, in Guanghan 廣漢, where two sacrificial pits discovered in 1986 revealed a rich and unexpected collection of jade objects, ceramics, elephant tusks, and elaborate bronze and gold objects (Bagley 2001; Flad 2012; Sichuan 1999). The discovery of the Sanxingdui pits was followed by research at other sites in the Chengdu Plain, including several loci in the city of Chengdu that post-date Sanxingdui, such as an elite residential location called Shi’erqiao 十二橋 (Sichuan et al. 1987; Jiang 1998), a zone of ritual deposits, cemeteries, and settlement areas named Jinsha 金沙 (Chengdu Institute 2006; Chengdu & Beijing 2002; Zhu et al. 2003), and Shangyejie 商業街, a Late Bronze Age elite burial site with large log coffins filled with lacquers and other elite objects (Chengdu 2002). Based on the excavations of these sites, we now know that bronze-producing communities that commanded multi-community networks of resource acquisition existed in the 2 Chengdu Plain starting at least as early as the middle of the second millennium BC (Flad and Chen 2013).Anthropolog

What do “barbarians” eat? Integrating ceramic use-wear and residue analysis in the study of food and society at the margins of Bronze Age China

The Siwa archaeological culture (ca. 3350 and 2650 cal yr BP) has often been associated with the tribes referenced in textual sources as Qiang and Rong: prized captives commonly sacrificed by the Shang and marauding hordes who toppled the Western Zhou dynasty. In early Chinese writings, food plays a key role in accentuating the ‘sino-barbarian’ dichotomy believed to have taken root over 3000 years ago, with the Qiang and Rong described as nomadic pastoralists who consumed more meat than grain and knew little of proper dining etiquette. To date, however, little direct archaeological evidence has allowed us to reconstruct the diet and foodways of the groups who occupied the Loess Plateau during this pivotal period. Here we present the results of the first ceramic use-wear study performed on the Siwa ma’an jars from the site of Zhanqi, combined with the molecular and isotopic characterization of lipid residues from foodcrusts, and evidence from experimental cooking. We report molecular data indicating the preparation of meals composed of millet and ruminant dairy among the Siwa community of Zhanqi. Use-wear analysis shows that Zhanqi community members were sophisticated creators of ceramic equipment, the ma’an cooking pot, which allowed them to prepare a wide number of dishes with limited fuel. These findings support recent isotope studies at Zhanqi as well as nuance the centrality of meat in the Siwa period diet

Pochan Chen 陳伯楨(29 October 1973–28 June 2015)

Professor Pochan Chen, of the Department of Anthropology, National Taiwan University (NTU), passed away of heart failure at the age of 41 in Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital in Taipei on the morning of 28 June 2015. He was interred in a flower burial in Taipei following a funeral service attended by over 300 mourners on Monday, 20 July 2015. He is survived by his parents, brother, and fiancée Lin Kuei-chen