Asian Perspectives, 2020 - Volume 59, Number 1 (Spring)
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ItemIN MEMORIAM Martin Thomas Bale( 2020-04-09)
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ItemAntenna-Style Daggers in Northeast Asia from the Perspective of Interregional Interaction( 2020-04-09)This article examines the process of diffusion of bird-pair antenna-style daggers and swords in southern Manchuria, the Korean peninsula, and northern Kyushu, analyzing the distribution of the daggers and swords, classifying them, and establishing a chronology. The daggers are classified into three types and sub-divided based on blade, handle, and pommel characteristics. Each form was produced and used at different time periods and in different areas, emerging first in the Jilin-Changchun region, then expanding into the Northern Liao region, Pyongyang, and as far as Tsushima and northern Kyushu. The bird-pair antenna-style dagger of Northeast Asia is unlikely to have been a trade item imported from outside of the region. It is more likely a local development as indigenous cultures that manufactured mandolin-shaped or slender bronze daggers were influenced by the bronze cultures of northern Asia and Ordos, the upper part of the Yellow River. This new type of dagger possibly represented a symbolic or prestige good reflecting political or economic alliances within the Puyŏ state of southern Manchuria or the early Wiman Chosŏn state in Pyongyang or among the statelets of Pyŏnhan and Chinhan in the Yŏngnam region. The bird-pair antenna-style daggers eventually flourished in the Yŏngnam region, where a local style developed. These daggers in turn diffused via immigration and trade to Tsushima in the mid-first century B.C.E.
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ItemRecovering Plant Microfossils from Archaeological and other Palaeoenvironmental Deposits: A Practical Guide Developed from Pacific Region Experience( 2020-04-09)Presented are revised procedures for recovering pollen and spores, phytoliths, and starch and other plant material from archaeological and other palaeoenvironmental deposits for microscopic analysis. The procedures are based on lengthy experience of preparing numerous samples of deposits from Malesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The procedures are designed as a simple laboratory guide, outlined in detail and summarized to provide a practical, time-efficient, step-by-step method. The method has been carried out successfully on many types of soils and other deposits from Pacific Islands, including: clays, silts, and sands; waterlogged, porous, peaty, volcanic, and coralline soils; and sediment cores, tools, pot sherds, dental calculus, and coprolites from a range of environmental settings in tropical, sub-tropical, and temperate climates. Also included in the procedures are mounting recovered microfossils on microscope slides and preparing and mounting modern reference samples.
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ItemIntegration and the Regional Market System in the Early Chinese Empires: A Case Study of the Distribution of Iron and Bronze Objects in the Wei River Valley( 2020-04-09)This article studies the economic structure of early Chinese empires (Qin and Western Han) by focusing on the contribution of market exchange to the distribution and transportation of metal goods. Emphasis is placed on the part played by market forces in integrating and connecting communities on a regional level, an issue that has not been comprehensively addressed in the literature but was essential to market exchange in ancient China. A tripartite framework is proposed for conceptualizing three forms of market exchange or regional integration: dendritic, administrative-integrated, and fully integrated. These models may also be applied to the study of interregional interaction. An analysis of distribution patterns of everyday iron and bronze items from burial contexts within the capital region (Wei river valley) of the Qin andWestern Han empires reveals a major shift in the development of the market system and sub-regional integration between the Qin and Western Han periods. The change in degree of integration shows that the region went from a more dendritic to a fully-integrated model, though one still dominated by major administrative centers (especially Chang’an). The new approach for investigating market exchange used in this article offers a framework through which the structuring principles of ancient markets, forces driving change in market systems, and underlying mechanisms of administrative control over the movement of material culture can all be explored in the context of ancient China. The discussion of integration at a regional level sheds new light on the market system during the formation of massive, unified, early Chinese empires.
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ItemLaptia on Wari Island: What's the Problem?( 2020-04-09)The 2007 excavation of Kasasinabwana Shell Midden opened a new chapter on Lapita on the south coast of Papua New Guinea. We look to establish the degree to which the Kasasinabwana assemblage fits into the current understanding of Lapita colonisation by investigating modes of pottery production utilising physico-chemical analysis of the ceramics and patterns of obsidian exploitation using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF). Three separate ceramic Chemical Paste Compositional Reference Units (CPCRUs) are identified along with the presence of calcareous non-plastic inclusions in layers associated with possible colonisation phases. Obsidian is present from around 2000 B.P. and its appearance seems to correspond with the emergence of Early Papuan Pottery (EPP). The Lapita ceramic production model fits well with Late Lapita production.