Ancient China and its Eurasian Neighbors
Artifacts, Identity and Death in the Frontier, 3000–700 BCE

This volume looks at the effects of interaction and the nature of identity construction in a frontier or contact zone through the analysis of material culture, especially in mortuary settings.

Katheryn M. Linduff (Author), Yan Sun (Author), Wei Cao (Author), Yuanqing Liu (Author)

9781108418614, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 November 2017

288 pages, 59 b/w illus. 9 maps 2 tables
26 x 18.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.72 kg

This volume examines the role of objects in the region north of early dynastic state centers, at the intersection of Ancient China and Eurasia, a large area that stretches from Xinjiang to the China Sea, from c.3000 BCE to the mid-eighth century BCE. This area was a frontier, an ambiguous space that lay at the margins of direct political control by the metropolitan states, where local and colonial ideas and practices were reconstructed transculturally. These identities were often merged and displayed in material culture. Types of objects, styles, and iconography were often hybrids or new to the region, as were the tomb assemblages in which they were deposited and found. Patrons commissioned objects that marked a symbolic vision of place and person and that could mobilize support, legitimize rule, and bind people together. Through close examination of key artifacts, this book untangles the considerable changes in political structure and cultural makeup of ancient Chinese states and their northern neighbors.

Introduction: the inner Asian frontier restructured
1. Shaping the study of inner Asian artifacts and mental boundaries Katheryn M. Linduff
2. Technoscapes and the materialization of ideas in metal in the inner Asian frontier (c.3000–1500 BCE) Katheryn M. Linduff
3. Identity and artifacts in the north-central and northeastern frontier during the period of state expansion in late second and the early first millennium BCE Yan Sun
4. The rise of state and the formation of group identities in the Western regions of the inner Asian frontier (c.1500 to the eighth century BCE) Cao Wei, Liu Yuanqing, Katheryn M. Linduff and Yan Sun
5. Conclusions and future challenges Katheryn M. Linduff and Yan Sun.

Subject Areas: Landscape archaeology [HDL], Archaeology [HD], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Asian history [HBJF]