SEAA News Blog

The Department of Asian and North-African Studies, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy, has launched a call for a 12-month research grant on The Maritime Ceramic Road: Chinese Ceramics in Asia and Africa. 

Archaeological excavations in China in modern times have occurred since the late 19th century, often organized by non-Chinese expeditions who took advantage of the tumultous times and unregulated situation in many regions. Also and famously, the beginning of the consecutive finds of the so-called oracle bone inscriptions at Anyang can be traced back to the years after 1899. So in many senses, Chinese archaeology is older than a century. However, the 1920s mark another kind of beginning for the discipline, as this was the decade that saw many of the most epochal finds in China, framed by the discovery of the Neolithic Yangshao ceramic complex in 1921 and that of the homo erectus pekinensis in 1929 and including the decades-long first fully Chinese-led modern excavation at Anyang from 1928 onward. Therefore, rather than taking the exact year of the “birth of Chinese archaeology” too seriously, we are happy to use this historical background as a convenient reason to celebrate the really astounding results that this discipline has achieved so far and especially in recent times. This should serve as both an introduction to specialists of non-Chinese archaeologies as well as to non-archaeological specialists on China. And it should serve as a forum for specialists on Chinese archaeology to talk about the latest developments in the field and think together about solutions for some of the more vexing and fascinating problems the field is facing right now. The topics, most of which have a certain provocative edge or focus on unsolved questions, have been chosen with the latter consideration in mind. (Enno Giele, Heidelberg University)

For more information and to get register, please visit: https://www.zo.uni-heidelberg.de/sinologie/arch/ls2021.html

Earliest arrival of millet in the South China coast dating back to 5,500 years ago

Authors: Jinqi Daiab, Xipeng Cai, Jianhui Jin, Wei Ge, Yunming Huang, Wei Wu, Taoqin Xia, Fusheng Li, Xinxin Zuo

Diachronic modeling of the population within the medieval Greater Angkor Region settlement complex

Authors: Sarah Klassen, Alison K. Carter, Damian H. Evans , Scott Ortman, Miriam T. Stark, Alyssa A. Loyless, Martin Polkinghorne, Piphal Heng, Michael Hill, Pelle Wijker, Jonathan Niles-Weed, Gary P. Marriner, Christophe Pottier , Roland J. Fletcher

Abstract: Angkor is one of the world’s largest premodern settlement complexes (9th to 15th centuries CE), but to date, no comprehensive demographic study has been completed, and key aspects of its population and demographic history remain unknown. Here, we combine lidar, archaeological excavation data, radiocarbon dates, and machine learning algorithms to create maps that model the development of the city and its population growth through time. We conclude that the Greater Angkor Region was home to approximately 700,000 to 900,000 inhabitants at its apogee in the 13th century CE. This granular, diachronic, paleodemographic model of the Angkor complex can be applied to any ancient civilization.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/19/eabf8441.full