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Share the latest news of your work with your colleagues, advertise for job or fellowship openings, find participants for your conference session and more on the SEAA blog.
Guidelines: All posts should be related in some way to East Asian Archaeology. When writing your post, please use capital letters for surnames. Original script (Chinese, Korean, Japanese) for East Asian place names, personal names, or archaeological terms is encouraged. For the transcription of East Asian language terms, Pinyin for Chinese, Hepburn for Japanese, and the Korean Government System (2000) for Korean is encouraged.
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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
Virtual international conference
“Cosmopolitan Pasts of China and the Eurasian World”
2021 June 11, 12, 18, 19, from 1500 CET (2100 China, 0900 EST, 0600 PST)
Free and open to all. Registration required. Go to: https://www.cosmopolitanpasts.sinologie.lmu.de.
For questions, please contact Dr. Annie Chan at cosmos@ostasien.fak12.uni-muenchen.de.
Abstract:
Cosmopolitanism may prove to be the creed of our times. Globalized infrastructure and digital technologies have rendered alien political and cultural spheres unprecedentedly more accessible, hospitable, and intelligible, but also made visible new structures of segregation and “othering”. The paradoxical challenges of cosmopolitanism in tolerance and communication are, however, hardly a modern geopolitical tale, nor characteristically European for that matter. Statesmen in pre-imperial China had reached for the notion of “tianxia” (all under Heaven) somewhere between a concentric “fu” zoning by degree of civility, an all-encompassing appreciation of “xing” (human nature), and a mix of bridling and conciliatory diplomatic strategies. It was the expansive realization of this cosmic order that then made Tang Dynasty the (arguably) quintessentially cosmopolitan -and great Chinese- epoch. Fast forward to early Republic China, cosmopolitan ideals of Western education gave voice to the modernization of Chinese poetry and provided inspiration for literary exoticism and patriotism.
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
On the advancement of agriculture during the Pre-Qin period in the Central Plain of China from archaeobotanical findings
BY Hua Zhong, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
The Central Plain in China has been a core area of research, including on the origin of Chinese civilization, the process of social complexity, the formation of early states, etc. Throughout the Pre-Qin period, there were at least three profound changes in agriculture in this region. These developments demonstrate local advancements as well as deeply influencing trends of cultural development.
About the Project
The presence of Chinese material culture in Scotland has grown significantly over the last 200 years, much of it during Britain’s imperial expansion. However, Scottish collecting of Chinese material culture has never been studied through the lenses of critical collecting practices or decolonisation. The proposed PhD project will address this gap by researching Scottish collecting of Chinese objects in the early 20th century, currently held at NMS and selected Scottish museums.
Dear SEAA members and other scholars of East Asia,
On behalf of the SEAA Executive Board, it is my pleasure to announce the winners of the Student Award competition. Given in conjunction with SEAA conferences, the award is made to undergraduate and graduate students based on their submitted research papers. Each award consists of a $250 book prize, along with a complimentary 3-year membership in SEAA.
With the generous support of the Tang Center for Early China, the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University is pleased to invite applications for a one-year Postdoctoral Research Scholar position in Early China Studies, to start on September 1, 2021, and end on August 31, 2022.