SEAA News Blog: Noteworthies

The desert of far northwestern Utah stretches 60 miles from the arid border of Nevada to the saline-crusted shores of the Great Salt Lake. The terrain is exceedingly flat, punctuated only by the intermittent dry arroyo, rocky hill or volcanic cinder cone. Horned lizards and jack rabbits dart between thorny shrubs and scrawny box elder trees. Apart from the occasional cattle ranch or sheep-herding camp, the landscape appears desolate and lonely, forgotten in the expanse of geologic time.

Enhanced efforts will be made in China to encourage international cooperation in archaeology, and national-level plans for joint research are being drafted, the National Cultural Heritage Administration announced on Friday through a general blueprint centered on archaeological development during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25).

According to the blueprint, two to three Chinese archaeological research bases will be set up overseas by 2025, and five to 10"demonstration-level" cross-border projects are expected to be nurtured by then.

A study published in The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology in late February found that a small population of neolithic Hongkongers were highly reliant on fish.

Christina Cheung, a researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium who wrote the study, said these people were so reliant on seafood that they probably did not rely much on farming for food or hunting land animals.

As chaos reigned during the Warring States period (475-221BC), rulers across ancient China turned to intellectuals to find a way out of perpetual war, and the Jixia Academy in the state of Qi stood out for its power to attract the greatest Chinese thinkers of the time.

The institute used to be a place relegated to the historical record; experts believed it probably existed, but little was known about Jixia and there was no definitive proof that it was a real place.

For Chinese archaeology, 2021 was a banner year highlighted by the global breakthrough that was the beautifully preserved ancient gold masks discovered at Sanxingdui.

Last week, the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences announced what it believed were the most important archaeology finds in China last year. While most of the sites were discovered before 2021, they all featured remarkable excavation finds from last year.

The discoveries help paint a picture of ancient Chinese society across the millennia.

RANZAN, Saitama Prefecture--Artifacts labeled as “groundbreaking discoveries” from the ruins of structures associated with warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Siege of Odawara in 1590 could have been prototypes of ninja weapons.

Akihiro Iwata, an archaeologist and curator at the Saitama Prefectural Ranzan Historical Museum here, said the flat stones and clay balls may well have been the forerunners of “shuriken” throwing stars and “makibishi” caltrops that later made up ninja arsenals.

When did populations of Homo sapiens first arrive in China and what happened when they encountered the Denisovans or Neanderthals who lived there? A new study in Nature by an international team of researchers opens a window into hunter-gatherer lifestyles 40,000 years ago. Archaeological excavations at the site of Xiamabei in the Nihewan Basin of northern China have revealed the presence of innovative behaviors and unique toolkits.

"A high-profile letter sent in October 2021 told us everything we needed to know about the state of modern Chinese archaeology.
Sent by Chinese President Xi Jinping to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the Yangshao culture – considered the start of modern Chinese archaeology – the letter called for “developing archaeology with Chinese features, style and ethos” so the field could contribute to “national rejuvenation”.

The SEAA Community might be interested in the following information on academic-oriented job postings related to japan and East Asia compiled by Dr. Paula R. Curtis, a Japanese Medievalist. She has compiled data for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons. They are accessible from her webpage via the following link: http://prcurtis.com/projects/jobdata/?fbclid=IwAR27xE-emXE_wYnRM574ZM6b…

The Archaeological Centre at the University of Toronto will be hosting a talk titled "In a Nutshell: Examining the Oversimplification of Jomon Period Ground Stone through Starch Grain Analysis in Southern Hokkaido Japan" by Dr Emma Yasui via Zoom on Friday, November 5, 2021, at 3:00 PM EST. Those interested in attending can register via the following link: Meeting Registration - Zoom