Flad, Rowan

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134 asian perspectives   .   51(1)   .   spring 2012In sum, the book’s English text “reads”  easily, although it would have benefited from tighter copyediting. For example, since it is aimed at English speakers wherever they re-side, recipe ingredients should have been listed both in grams and ounces. Closer atten-tion to the manuscript would have guaran-teed that all items discussed were defined somewhere in the text body, e.g., jujubes and lees, obviating the need to consult a diction-ary.  What emerges best from this volume is that, indeed, as the author asserts, “Korean cuisine is diverse” (9). Readers will have no difficulty in verifying that statement for themselves. But can readers make the con-nections that the author claims are evident between what Koreans have historically eaten and their culture with only the material pre-sented? And who are those readers? The gen-eral public? Academics? Students?The general public, “foodies” included, would find this book to be a delicious intro-duction to, and overview of, Korean culture and history as expressed in its cuisine — subjects not particularly well known or  appreciated in the  West. Bluntly, there are simply not many books that cover this coun-try’s cuisine with any amount of specificity, or provide recipes for making traditional dishes. Even Laurel Kendall’s classic, Getting Married in Korea (1996), does not go into great detail about the preparations of wedding feast foods, either in the past or currently. There are even fewer volumes in English linking the coun-try’s food and history, although one, The His-tory and Culture of Korean Cuisine in the Kegan Paul Library of Culinary History and Cook-ery series (Gunning 2008), apparently covers much the same ground, albeit more expen-sively.An academic audience, composed of culi-nary historians among others, might find the coverage of historical periods and religious influences on Korean cuisine a bit  cursory.  Yet, the “References” and “Bibliography” would be extremely helpful to specialists, even though most of the cited works are in Korean. Sociocultural anthropologists teach-ing comparative courses could assign this book as one of the Korean components with confidence. Indeed, Korean Cuisine . . . would be a solid supplemental text in any class fo-cusing on Asian food and culture. For archae-ologists working in Korea, the well-illustrated traditional cooking utensils and implements, along with the well-described spatial organi-zation of houses and kitchens might prove useful for interpreting their finds.REFERENCES CITEDGunning, Jeroen2008 The History and Culture of Korean Cui-sine. Kegan Paul Library of Culinary History and Cookery. London and New  York: Kegan Paul International.Kendall, Laurel1996 Getting Married in Korea: Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE. Gideon Shelach. Lon-don: Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2009. ix + 203 pp.Reviewed by Rowan Flad, Department of Anthropology, Harvard UniversityThis new book builds on more than 15 years of Gideon Shelach’s archaeological field re-search in the Chifeng area of Eastern Inner Mongolia. He previously investigated social and political changes during the Late Pre-historic and early historic periods of this area (Shelach 1999). Here, however, Shelach ex-pands his geographical scope to cover the  entire steppe region across China’s northern frontier, the so-called “Northern Zone.” He focuses on explaining the process by which an apparent dichotomy emerged from the 135book reviewssecond to first millennia b.c.e. between pas-toral groups in the steppe regions and agri-cultural societies to the south. He first argues that there was a great deal more diversity in economic practices among groups in the steppe areas than this dichotomy suggests. In fact, Shelach argues, the transition to pasto-ralism in the steppe was gradual and some-times incomplete. Shelach then proposes that the distinctions that developed between these broad regions were “ethnic-like” in the sense that they were the result of emergent social identities rather than economic activities. The emergent steppe identity was based on the conscious use of symbols at a local scale, which both emphasized long-distance inter-actions and explicitly distinguished steppe so-cieties from the Chinese states to the south.Shelach constructs his argument over the course of four chapters. He begins with an overview of changes that occurred across the Northern Zone between 1100 and 600 b.c.e. (chapter 2). He then considers evidence for change in economic and political processes (chapter 3), the use of symbols related to identity (chapter 4), and interaction at various local, regional, and global scales (chapter 5). Throughout these chapters he provides an excellent summary of archaeological evi-dence from across his region of interest. This summary will be a useful resource for other scholars interested in this area.This book is written for a relatively spe-cialist audience and assumes some familiarity with East Asian history and geography. For example, although Shelach often uses names of Chinese provinces for geographical orien-tation, the map provided does not include provincial boundaries nor do other figures in the book. Shelach may have deliberately left off these borders to make the point that mod-ern political boundaries often obscure ancient patterns of similarity or difference (Falken-hausen 1995), but consequently the maps are less useful as a reference tool for those not already familiar with the locations of Chinese provinces.In general, the figures in the book are dis-appointing, particularly when compared to the excellent quality of the text. For example, the book’s first figure (the aforementioned map, Figure 2.1) is included in a color plate section in the middle of the book, which makes it a little difficult to find. This line map of  Northern East Asia includes the national borders of Russia, Mongolia, and China; across the middle it has a color-scale Digital Elevation Model ( DEM) to show the topog-raphy of the Northern Zone. The map is un-projected so it exaggerates east–west distances in the northern latitudes relative to those in the southern part of the map. This makes the scale bar on the map misleading. It is not clear why the topography provided by the DEM is necessary, since it is mostly not referred to in the text and many of the sites and other geographical referents used in the text (such as province locations or the position of the Great  Wall) are not included on the map. These factors, as well as somewhat sloppy placement of river names and unnecessarily thick national borders result in a figure that is not very helpful in orienting the reader. One of only two other maps in the book — Figure 4.9 — is also not ideal since the (again unnec-essary) topography is too dark and obscures the site locations, a problem because the site locations are the primary reason for the map. Given that the usefulness of Geographical  Information Systems (GIS) in archaeological research is touted several times in the book, one would have expected more sophisticated map making.Shelach rightly claims that using GIS as a tool to examine patterns in archaeological data can lead to new insights. In his discussion of economic factors in chapter 3, he uses GIS to compare site densities from the Lower Xia-jiadian and Upper Xiajiadian periods, as well as modern villages across his survey zone in the Chifeng area to modern land-use catego-ries such as pasture, dry agriculture, and irri-gation agriculture. His data seem to suggest that the Lower Xiajiadian pattern is similar to that of modern villages that practice intensive agriculture, while Upper Xiajiadian patterns reflect a mixed economy of pastoralism and agriculture. The approach he takes is a useful experiment, but Shelach acknowledges that modern land-use patterns may not reflect prehistoric uses. He suggests that they never-theless roughly reflect estimates of the agri-cultural potential of the land in the last two millennia b.c.e. Given the longevity of his 136 asian perspectives   .   51(1)   .   spring 2012collaborative research in this area, one might expect for him to have presented evidence to support this claim.One of the strongest aspects of the book is the way that Shelach frames the various theoretical issues considered in terms of  contemporary anthropological discourse and offers new ways to address certain issues. For example, any archaeologist working in China is forced to consider how to deal productively with “archaeological cultures” (wenhua 文化). Shelach rightly criticizes the propensity of some scholars to uncritically associate such cultures with peoples referred to in historical texts. Furthermore, he points out that struc-turing one’s analysis based on archaeological cultures can obscure both variability within such cultures and connections between them. He then suggests one way to circumvent these problems by constructing a synthesis of the archaeological data in the Northern Zone according to several categories of material culture: ceramics (most closely tied to the ar-chaeological cultures of the region), metal-lurgy, settlement patterns, and burial practices. He leaves evidence relating to subsistence practices (such as animal bones and botanical remains) until chapter 3, where an extensive discussion of animal exploitation practices is provided. This approach to the material culture is quite useful as it avoids an over-determination of archaeological cultures. One might argue, however, that it borders on dismissing archaeological cultures altogether, which I would argue are meaningful when understood as shared traditions of (usually ce-ramic) production that reflect a certain de-gree of interaction in specific material realms. As Shelach points out, they decidedly do not equal historically identifiable ethnic groups.Another anthropological topic that Shelach treats rather extensively in both abstract and concrete ways is how the construction of identity can be explored in archaeological contexts. Shelach’s goals are to understand the emergence of different ethnic-like identi-ties in the Northern Zone during the first millennium b.c.e. and frame this emergence within the broader discussion of archaeologi-cal approaches to identity. His discussion of this literature (pp. 75–80) is excellent and does a good job of setting up his conclusions. In chapter 4, Shelach argues that the sym-bolic behaviors that emerged in steppe burial practices were expressions of identity. He supports this claim by using factor and cluster analyses to explore statistical patterns in graves from two cemeteries in each of the different regions across the Northern Zone, an ap-proach that provides a picture of diachronic changes in each subregion. Among the many useful analytic points Shelach makes in this section is his insistence that one must con-sider the spatial arrangements of artifacts within a tomb in order to grasp the charac-teristics of associated burial rituals. Elsewhere I have made a similar point when considering diachronic change in burial practices at Dadi-anzi, a second millennium cemetery from this region (Flad 2002).I mention the Dadianzi analysis here  because diachronic patterns seen at this site during the second millennium seem to offer an early glimpse of the changes that Shelach sees as characterizing the difference between second and first millennium burial prac-tices. Shelach detects “a shift in emphasis — symbolic and perhaps otherwise — on the small and closely affiliated group such as the family . . . to an emphasis on interactions with people outside of the local community” (p. 112). The emphasis on local communities in his early stage does not relate to a lack of extra-community exchange. On the contrary, he sees “a transition from an unrestricted ex-change during the second millennium BCE to an elite interaction (or manipulation) dur-ing the first millennium BCE” (p. 140). At Dadianzi, we see a shift from an earlier stage where burial practices involved aggrandize-ment by members of the community in the context of ritual to a later situation where  social status was more firmly set and burial rituals were an occasion to reify that status. This shift may have been related to the em-phasis on elite interactions with more distant groups that Shelach sees in the later period of his data set.A third topic that Shelach discusses at length is “interregional interaction” and  various ways that this may be framed in trying to understand change in a region such as the 137book reviewsNorthern Zone (chapter 5). He explores mi-gration, trade, center-periphery models, and identity, each of which is framed as a different form of long-distance interaction that may have played a role in the changes observable in the Northern Zone. Quite rightly, he makes the point that early long-range con-tacts were probably only sporadic. He may have overstated the case against long-distance connections, however.In his discussion of the possible mechan-isms of interaction, he first argues against mi-gration having played a significant role. He then discusses trade. Here I must take issue with two points. First, he argues that trade as an explanatory concept has advantages over migration because it focuses “on objects and raw materials rather than people” and there-fore “archaeologists can employ scientific methods . . . to chart transmissions” (p. 137).  While most of Shelach’s parsing of an-thropological concepts is convincing and nu-anced, here he has oversimplified things. Trade concerns people just as migration does. Things can move due to migration just as they can move through trade. Trace-element analysis and other methods that provide in-formation about distance from a raw material source do not unequivocally reflect the pro-cess by which things moved. Objects may also be transmitted through mechanisms such as capture during conflict. Studies of sourcing, therefore, do not necessarily privilege trade over migration as an explanation.A second point concerns the presence of horses at Anyang. Shelach (2009 : 138), cit-ing Linduff (1997 : 36 –37), argues that “the Shang and Zhou polities did not yet pos-sess the knowledge and experience for horse breeding and grooming.” Trade in horses from the steppe, therefore, was an impor-tant, ongoing activity of interaction through-out the period of interest in the book. Although the final point is undoubtedly true, I think it is an overstatement to claim that the Shang, much less the Zhou, did not  possess the knowledge of horse grooming. Oracle bone inscriptions suggest that there were royal stables at Anyang. Although possi-bly manned by specialists from the steppe, the specialists would nonetheless have been part of the Shang community ( Yuan and Flad 2006 : 129).Although the book seems targeted primar-ily toward an academic audience, there are several things missing that such an audience might expect. For example, sometimes radio-carbon dates are listed very imprecisely. One such date is given as “ca. 1390 BCE” (p. 29).  We are not told whether this date is cali-brated or uncalibrated and nowhere is it stat-ed whether calibrated dates are generally used in the book. Similarly, although appendix 9 does offer a Chinese glossary for site names, other locations, and certain Chinese terms, a list of Chinese terms for vessel types and descriptions would have been useful. For  example, Shelach discusses certain features of ceramic vessels including “flower-shaped ledges” (p. 20) and “wavy and flat ‘shelf ’  handles and protruding ceramic bands” (p. 21). Since these are not identified in the figures in the book, it would have been useful for a reader familiar with Chinese archaeo-logical literature to know the Chinese termi-nology for these features so comparison with published reports might be accomplished.Although there are occasional stylistic quirks in the book, including an inconsistent use of both full Chinese names and only fam-ily names in citations and occasional scientis-tic unnecessary overprecision in percentiles (e.g., p. 53), the book is otherwise well edited and easy to read. The prose is accessible, al-beit somewhat specialized, and the book will provide a very useful resource for those seek-ing to understand social change during the last two millennia b.c. in the Northern Fron-tier of China and compare it with emerging pastoralism in other regions of the world. Shelach’s new book is a very useful addition to the library of anyone dealing with the  archaeologies of pastoralism, social identity, interregional interaction, and, of course, the archaeology of prehistoric East Asia.REFERENCES CITEDFalkenhausen, Lothar von1995 The regionalist paradigm in Chinese archaeology, in Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology, 198–216, ed. P. L. Kohl and C. Fawcett. Cambridge 138 asian perspectives   .   51(1)   .   spring 2012and New  York: Cambridge University Press.Flad, Rowan K.2002 Ritual or structure? Analysis of burial elaboration at Dadianzi, Inner Mongo-lia. Journal of East Asian Archaeology 3(3– 4) : 23–52.Linduff, Katheryn M.1997 Archaeological overview, in Ancient Bronzes of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes: The Arthur M. Sackler Collection, 18–98, ed. E. C. Bunker. New  York: Sackler/Freer Gallery, Smithsonian In-stitution.Shelach, Gideon1999 Leadership Strategies, Economic Activity, and Interregional Interaction: Social Com-plexity in Northeast China. New  York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.Yuan Jing and Rowan K. Flad2006 Research on early horse domestication in China, in Equids in Time and Space, 124 –131, ed. M. Mashkour. Oxford: Oxbow.

Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE by Gideon Shelach (review)

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Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE by Gideon Shelach (review)

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