CHINA KOREA

AND JAPAN

The Rise of

Civilization

In East Asia

GINA L. BARNES

With 217 illustrations

H ..

THAMES AND HUDSON

For David

Any copy of this book issued by the publisher as a paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or

otherwise be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or

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subsequent purchaser.

1993 Thames and Hudson Ltd, London

First published in the United States of America in 1993 by Thames and Hudson Inc., soo Fifth Avenue,

New York, New York 1ouo

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 93-60205

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior

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Printed and bound in Slovenia by Mladinska Knjiga

Contents

Preface Background 7 Objectives 9 Grounding IO Limitations I3 Style I 3 Acknowledgments I 5

1 Orientation Different 'archaeologies' I6 East Asian chronologies 22

Box I: Documentary Sources zo-zi

2 Archaeology Emergent Antiquarianism 28 Archaeology from the West 29 Modern organization 35 The character of East Asian archaeology 39

Box 2: Confucius and his Impact 3o-3I

3 The Earliest Inhabitants: 1,ooo,ooo-4o,ooo years ago The peopling of East Asia 42 Homo erectus at Zhoukoudian 44 Behind the 'Bamboo Curtain' 48 Discovering the Palaeolithic outside China so A second peopling? 52

Box 3: Fossil Faunas 46-47

4 Innovations of Modern Humans: 4o,ooo-IO,ooo years ago Exploiting East Asialand 55 Late Palaeolithic flake technologies 57 A mobile lifestyle 6o Palaeolithic art 62 Harbingers of the Neolithic 64

Box 4: American Connections 64-65

7

1 6

28

55

5 Littoral Foragers: IO,ooo-IOoo BC 69 Anatomy of a shellmound 72 Affluent foragers? 77 Incipient cultivation? 89

Box s: Textured Pottery Traditions 7o-7I

6 Agricultural Beginnings: 700o-2ooo BC 92 Early farming villages 92 The domestication of species 94 Regional Neolithic cultures 97 Settlement studies I03

Box 6: Design and Shape of Neolithic Ceramics 98--{)9

7 The Emergence of Neolithic Elites: 350o-2ooo BC Before Longshan I08 Competition and conflict in the Late Neolithic I I3

Box 7: Jade, a Neolithic Valuable I I4-115

1 08

8 The Mainland Bronze Age: 2ooo-Isoo BC The advent of bronze-working I I9 Central Plain cultural development I24

Box 8: Advances in Kiln Technology I20

9 Early Mainland States: IJOD-220 BC Political development I3I Zhou warfare and sacrifice I36 Commercial endeavours I47

Box 9: Chinese Iron Technology I so

10 The Northern Frontier: JOOo-JOO BC Nomadic solutions I 54 Questions of ethnicity I s8 The Peninsular Bronze Age I 6o

Box Io: The Tungusic Speakers I65

I I The Spread of Rice Agriculture: 1000 BC-AD 300 Subsistence transformations I68 Yayoi culture I88

Box 11: Weaving Implements and Textiles 172-I73

I2 The Making and Breaking of Empire: 220 BC-AD soo Unification I92 Territorial expansion I93 Economic expansion 202 Dissolution of the empire 206

Box 12: Han Tombs and Art 20o-20I

IJ The Yellow Sea Interaction Sphere: soo BC-AD soo Choson 208 The Lelang commandery 209 The southern Peninsula 2I4 Western Yayoi interaction 2I8

Box I3: Stoneware Production 2I7

14 The Mounded Tomb Cultures: AD JOD--700 Rise of the regional elite 222 Secondary state formation 24I Regional interaction 243

Box 14: The Warrior Aristocrat 23o-23 I

15 East Asian Civilization: AD 6so-8oo Cityscapes 246 Territorial administration 253 State finance 257

Box IS: Music Archaeology 258-259

I6 Epilogue: AD 8oo-I8oo Porcelain production 26I Underwater archaeology 263 Mortuary studies 265 Reburial and preservationist issues 266 Urban archaeology 267 Future pathways 269

Notes to the Text Further Reading and Bibliography Sources of Illustrations Index

119

IJI

153

168

208

222

Preface

The East Asian countries of China, Japan and the Koreas1 are of everincreasing importance in today's world. Modern differences in political and economic systems, customs, languages and national characters sometimes obscure the fact that these three countries boast a common heritage of great historical depth . Several current books serve as syntheses of, or specialist texts for, the archaeology and early history of one or another of these three areas (see Further Reading: Preface and Chapter 1 ) . The present book, however, is the first regional synthesis of East Asian archaeology and early history, tying together the major early developments within the entire region .

This book outlines the social and political developments within the modern countries of China, Korea and Japan up to and including the 8th century AD. This is a natural cut-off point in the history of the region because it marks the maturation of governmental systems in all three areas based on a shared religion (Buddhism), state philosophy (Confucianism), and bureaucratic structure (founded on 'administrative law' ) . Prior to this date, the areas of modern Korea and Japan had a developmental trajectory rather different from China. I will be focusing on the evidence for initial differentiation and the trends for eventual integration of these areas. In one sense, it would be misleading to refer to the region as 'East Asia' until this integration was achieved - thus the rise of civilization in these three countries is actually the story of the formation of East Asia .

Background

Much of the current commonality among East Asian countries is due to the extraordinary influence of the early-developing Chinese civilization on its eastern neighbours, particularly the diffusion of Buddhism and Confucianism into the early states . This is not to say, however, that the later societies growing out of these states were carbon copies of China and lacked their own unique natures . One of the reasons for Japan's ascendancy in the modern world is her unusual development of a complex merchant economy and middle-class culture during the pre-modern Edo period ( I 60J-I 868) . In fact, Japan's historical relations with the outside world can be mapped in pendulum-like swings from active solicitation and absorption of foreign culture to periods of isolationist incubation leading to the development of a rich and infinitely refined native culture. Such isolationism also took hold periodically on the

PREFACE

Korean Peninsula, with the pre-modern Choson period (1392-1910) being popularly called the 'Hermit Kingdom' . Only in recent times (in the Meiji period from 1 868 to World War I and during the post-World War II period) has Japan looked to the West during her phases of foreign receptivity. Before this, China was a natural magnet for Japan, Korea and all other peoples of eastern Eurasia.

The crucial period of active importation and adoption of Chinese ways occurred in the 6th and 7th centuries . The contemporaneous governments of the Korean Peninsula (Shillaf and the Japanese Islands (Yamato) both looked at that time to the Sui and Tang Dynasties on the China Mainland for administrative patterns after which they could model their new states . Among the items borrowed were the gridded city plan of the Tang capital, the regional administrative system, and codes of law. One should not, however, make the mistake of thinking that this extraordinary period of receptivity characterized all previous interaction between peoples of the China Mainland, the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Islands . The fallacies in doing so are several, as iterated below.

One fallacy is to think that such countries as 'China' , 'Korea' and 'Japan' existed in those earlier periods. They did not. The East Asian landscape was much more politically and culturally varied, and if the above terms are used in this book, they refer only to geographical areas rather than to political entities unless otherwise specified . A second fallacy is to think that the flow of cultural influence was all unidirectional from the China Mainland eastwards to the Peninsula and Islands. It was not . Constant interaction linked smaller areas of East Asia, and within those spheres, contact and exchange was multidirectional . Moreover, there was considerable influence throughout the ages from the Eurasian steppe region and from Southeast Asia. Finally, it is wrong to think that all areas were constantly in touch so that development occurred in concert. It did not. Just as in historical times, there were periods of intense interaction and periods of relative isolation between these geographical areas . By treating the cultural histories of the modern East Asian countries together, it is possible to gain a sense of the mosaic of early peoples, cultures and polities which cross-cut what are now modern national boundaries . Although each East Asian nation today claims portions of the mosaic for its individual history, the ancient entities belong to no one and no thing other than their own time and place . Nationalistic views of local development are hereby eschewed.

For any particular topic, there are vast differences in the quality and quantity of archaeological data available in the different East Asian countries . Such inherent biases in the evidence are exploited to full advantage in this book, and no attempt is made to give 'equal coverage' to the individual archaeologies of the three nations . On the other hand, attempts are made to elicit comparable data from the three countries on developmental topics of interest. In doing so, some rich or well-known details may be excluded in order to provide a regional context for understanding the role of that case within a broader framework.

>3000 m m.s.l. II SOD-3000 m m.s.l. D

PREFACE

MONGOLIA

Xinjiang Uygur A.A.

2 Chinese provinces and cities. Autonomous regions ( A .R .) , with Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mongolia and major cities (dots) .

10

and tracing the individual sequences of Chinese, Japanese and Korean culture histories . In the former discussion, many of the anthropological concepts employed in the book are introduced and defined for those not familiar with the discipline .

Grounding

The central geographical point of reference for this text is the 'Yellow Sea fig. 1 Basin' , which begins at the Shanghai Delta and runs up the east coast of the

China Mainland to the mouths of the Yell ow River in the northwest (whose transported loess soils make the Yellow Sea yellow) and the Liao River in the northeast (draining the lower Manchurian Basin), then down the west coast of the Korean Peninsula to Kyushu Island . Internally, the pinching in of the Shandong and Liaodong peninsulae divides the Bohai Bay region in the north from the Y ell ow Sea itself. The latter is open-ended on the south, grading into the East China Sea which laps at the western edge of the Ryukyu I slands and

Chejudo Island

@

0

0

., r;l .... 'li " I> (747 "' p Okinawa Island

PREFACE

3 Modern Korean provinces and cities. Some provinces occur in north-south pairs ( N, S); the demilitarized zone (DMZ) is marked by a double dotted line, and major cities by dots.

Osaka

1 Hokkaido 13 Tochigi 25 Mie 37 Shimane 2 Aomori 14 Gunma 26 Nara 38 Hiroshima 3 lwate 15 Chiba 27 Wakayama 39 Yamaguchi 4 Miyagi 16 Saitama 28 Osaka 40 Fukuoka 5 Fukushima 17 Tokyo 29 Kyoto 41 Oita 6 Akita 18 Kanagawa 30 Hyogo 42 Miyazaki 7 Yamagata 19 Yamanashi 31 Tokushima 43 Kagoshima 8 Niigata 20 Nagano 32 Kochi 44 Saga 9 Toyama 21 Gilu 33 Ehime 45 Ngasaki

10 Ishikawa 22 Shizuoka 34 Kagawa 46 Kumamoto 11 Fukui 23 Aichi 35 Okayama 47 Okinawa 12 lbaragi 24 Shiga 36 Tottori

4 Modern Japanese prefectures and major cities (dots) .

II

PREFACE

12

nominally ends at Taiwan. To the east of the Korean Peninsula lies the Eastern Sea, more commonly known as the Japan Sea .

Several terms have been devised here to refer to parts of East Asia without using modern nation-state designations . 'Pen/Insular' and 'Pen/Insulae' refer to the combined areas of the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese I slands, whereas the term 'Peninsular' is used specifically to refer to the Korean Peninsula. On that Peninsula, names of the five major rivers (the Yalu, Taedong, Han, Kum and Nakdong) are used as geographical locators . Within the Japanese archipelago, areas on the four main islands are often referred to by sub-regions : Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Tokai, Hokuriku, Kinai, and San'in. In addition, the Inland Sea area of western Japan is here referred to as the Seto region . Finally, new terms have been coined to refer to the land areas underlying the Yell ow Sea and Inland Sea when they were exposed as broad plains during the glacial phases of the Pleistocene period : the Yellow Plain and Seto Plain, respectively . The entire northeastern landmass that was exposed during the maximum period of lowered sea level is referred to as East Asialand .

The 'China Mainland' refers to the body of the present-day Peoples' Republic containing the Central Plain, the Yangzi Basin in central China, the Sichuan Basin in the southwest, and the mountainous southeastern coastal region. The main rivers of north and south China respectively will be referred to by their Western names : the Yellow River (called the Huanghe in northern Chinese) and the Yangzi River (called the Changj iang in northern Chinese) . The Huang he Corridor is that section of the Yell ow River between its bend to the north and its emergence on to the Central Plain . The northwestern portion of the great hook of the Y ell ow River encompasses the arid region known as the Ordos. The Huai River and Q!nling mountain range have marked the division between the north and south Mainland at various times in the past.

Beyond the China Mainland lie the Manchurian Basin to the northeast, the Mongolian Plateau to the north, and the Tarim Basin to the northwest. The Bohai Corridor connects the Central Plain to the lower Manchurian Basin, drained by the Liao River; the upper Manchurian Basin is drained to the north by the Sungari River. The Gansu Corridor connects the Wei River valley, a tributary of the Yellow River, to the Tarim Basin . Today, this entire northern region is characterized by increasing aridity from the Pacific coast towards Inner Asia, with Manchurian forests grading into Mongolian steppe and steppe desert towards the true sand desert and oases of the Tarim Basin. In the past, however, the central and western arid areas were once colonized by greater tracts of forest and grasslands, leading to human patterns of settlement somewhat different from those seen today. The Tibetan Highlands are not dealt with at all in the present work .

Discussions of sites in East Asian countries usually refer to their locations in the modern prefectures and provinces of the individual countries . Maps of

jigs 2-4 these administrative divisions are provided, though references to such divisions are kept to a minimum in the body of the text.

Limitations

The problems in writing this book have been threefold . First, it proved a challenge to tie together the data from China with those from Korea and Japan. As mentioned above, the view that East Asia forms a coherent region is one of hindsight. In dealing with the material from the bottom up, so to speak, intraregional differentiation is considerable . Since what is commonly recognized as 'civilization' developed so much earlier on the China Mainland than in the Pen/ I nsular region, and because the latter derived a great many of its institutions and much of its material culture from the former, it has been difficult to avoid dealing first with the Mainland sequence and then with the Pen/Insular sequence, though an effort has been made to avoid Sino-centrism . A similar problem is the built-in contradiction generated by treating East Asia as a selfcontained region while avoiding national boundaries within the region . And, of course, East Asia cannot be understood fully without reference to phenomena outside its modern boundaries .

Second, the abundance of information available for East Asian archaeology is far in excess of that presented in this book. Anyone who is already familiar with the region's archaeology will invariably find the exposition here compressed to a fault. Rather than concentrate on details, which are provided in other publications, the aim has been to exemplify general trends and principles and to pinpoint controversies . With ongoing discoveries and resolution of controversies, details will soon be outdated . It is hoped that the framework given here will provide the means to integrate such changing perspectives and new information, so that while aspects of the content might soon be obsolete, the approach will continue to be useful.

Third, despite the surfeit of materials in certain categories such as pottery and bronze, data relating to some problems which are theoretically important in understanding the major transitions - for example, domestication of plants and animals - are scarce in East Asia . Furthermore, what data do exist are often lopsided, with more information available from one region than from another. For example, despite the differences in country size, the number of Palaeolithic sites in Japan is in the thousands, but only in the hundreds in China and in scores in Korea . Palaeolithic skeletal material comes almost exclusively from China, and the sites in Japan are almost exclusively Late Palaeolithic. These imbalances have been used to advantage in structuring the chapters, but a balanced treatment of all East Asian areas must be relegated to the future .

Style

Romanization Romanization of foreign words employs the Pinyin system for Chinese, the McCune-Reischauer system for Korean, and the modified Hepburn system for Japanese. I t was not, however, possible to include diacratic marks over Korean and Japanese vowels .

PREFACE

1 3

PREFACE

14

There is tremendous variation in Korean spellings in the Western-language literature . These derive from competing romanization systems based respectively on the structure of syllables in isolation or the pronunciation changes between adjacent syllables as they affect each other. For example, Songguk-ri (rendered structurally) becomes Songgungni (as pronounced). McCuneReischauer romanization is a pronunciation-based system and is adopted here, but even within it there are variations .3 Pinyin uses some letters whose pronunciation is not obvious to the uninitiated . These letters are as follows (Pinyin in capitals, Wade-Giles versions in parentheses) :

') followed by a vowel is pronounced like English ts in 'biy'; Pinyin ch, however, is like English ch. Q..') is like English ch but subtly different in sound from Pinyin ch. SHI (shih) is like American-English 'sure', with a retroflex !. sound. SI (ssu), ZI (tzu), CI (tz'u): the vowel in these syllables is similar to American-English 'could ' . X In the text, if Asian personal names are given in full, the surname appears in small capitals.

Dates Dating the past is almost a field unto itself in archaeology and can be quite complicated . For the general purposes of this book, it was decided to keep references to dates as non-technical as possible . Two different schemes are employed for referring to dates . The first is the standard BC/AD distinction for time before and after the beginning of the Christian era, even though the history of Christianity is irrelevant to the region under study. The second is the phrase 'years ago', which has been used in place of the scientific convention of BP, meaning years 'before present ' . This latter phrase was developed in conjunction with radiocarbon dating, where 'present' refers to a specific year -1 950. Most dates have been rounded off for easy consumption . For the uninitiated, it is often difficult to use both BC and BP or years ago simultaneously, resulting as they do in c. 2000 years difference in dates. For example, 1000 BC was 3000 years ago. This is particularly crucial for the date of the end of the ' Ice Age' , which was 1o,ooo years ago or 8ooo BC. References Suggested books and articles for 'Further Reading' are provided for each chapter at the end of the book; the general references were chosen for their capacity to elaborate on the cultures and periods presented in the chapter, while the specific references were chosen for their unique contributions. Special reviews of East Asian archaeology bibliographies also exist, to which the reader is guided in the Further Reading section. Controversies, detailed arguments and data on specific topics mentioned in the text can, of course, be followed up through the works cited in the Notes to the Text. Picture credits and citations

for boxes, tables, figures and plates are listed separately in Sources of I llustrations . All the works referred to in the Notes to the Text, Sources of I llustrations, and Further Reading section are listed in the Bibliography.

Five maps interspersed throughout the text (figs 16, 43, 59, 100 and 1 10) show the locations of sites mentioned in text and captions .

Acknowledgments

I would first and foremost like to thank my publishers for the long leash they allowed me for writing this book . Their encouragement, patience and editorial suggestions have been crucial to its production and are all much appreciated . Crane Begg applied his superb drawing skills to many of the illustrations at short notice, greatly enhancing the visual presentation. Previous drafts of the text were read and commented on by several colleagues, including Sarah Allan, Paul Bahn, Andrea Barnes, Gary Crawford, Nicola Di Cosmo, Clive Gamble, Sue Hughes, Mark Lewis, Michael Loewe, Jessica Rawson, and Don Wagner . I am grateful for their rescue from several pitfalls, though sometimes I have overridden their good advice, and the interpretations presented here are my responsibility alone . David Hughes has borne the brunt of a decade's lamentations during the gestation of this book. To him I owe my sanity and my profound thanks for his limitless support. His thoroughgoing critique of the text has without doubt made it a more readable book.

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1

Ori entation

Human society in East Asia extends back at least a million years, and each of the modern East Asian countries has its own scheme of how to divide this time-

jig. s span into archaeological periods and developmental stages . Because most of the research into these millennia is undertaken within national boundaries, these schemes must be respected; however, they do result in the confusing situation that any particular archaeological 'period' is not regional but only national in scope! Moreover, such Western names as Palaeolithic (meaning 'old stone age') and Neolithic ( 'new stone age') are routinely applied to certain East Asian periods when they might not be exactly comparable to their Western namesakes. This is particularly the case with 'Neolithic' , and it will be used here only to refer to developments on the China Mainland and not to the Jomon or Chulmun cultures as sometimes seen.

Archaeological data have been given primacy in this book, but the onset of written history generates documentary sources that often overshadow excavated information. Methods of research and interpretation thus change with the availability of written records, and the discipline of archaeology has three clearly different approaches depending on the prominence of documentary evidence. These are prehistoric, protohistoric and historic archaeology, all of whose natures will be discussed in the first half of this chapter. This same section also introduces several basic archaeological concepts and specialist terms used in the rest of the book. The second half of this chapter provides an overview of the sequence of periods in the modern East Asian nations . The periods are categorized in terms of the 'different archaeologies' , so that the general concerns raised here can be applied to the individual sequences in the following chapters .

Different 'archaeologies'

Prehistoric archaeology Archaeological research on societies extant before the advent of written history constitutes 'prehistoric archaeology' . This includes research on the evolution of our modern human species (Homo sapiens sapiens) and ancestral species (such as Homo erectus) . The first prehistoric period is the Palaeolithic, which is divided differently in the various East Asian countries according to the nature of the local data . The Early or Lower Palaeolithic is characterized at both its beginning and end by changes in the human population (Chapter 3), while the

Upper or Late Palaeolithic period in East Asia witnessed the development of refined stone tool technologies (Chapter 4) .

The entire Palaeolithic period falls within the Pleistocene geological era, popularly known as the Ice Age. Recent research has revealed that there were potentially seventeen major glaciations during the Pleistocene - not just the four classically defined glacial periods (termed Giinz, Mindel, Riss and Wiirm in Europe but named Boyang, Lushan, Dagu and Dali in China). 1 No large icesheets formed in East Asia despite these multiple cold periods: glaciers were confined to isolated high peaks, and the major changes consisted of alternating dry and humid phases triggering different successions of flora and fauna. Nevertheless, the formation of glaciers and ice-sheets elsewhere in the world did affect sea levels in East Asia, which rose and fell as much as 1 20 m, alternately exposing and drowning sections of coastal land which were of potential use to human groups. After the last maximum cold period x8,ooo years ago, the climate began to warm and the Ice Age is arbitrarily agreed to have ended xo,ooo years ago.

The geological time period since the end of the Pleistocene is known as the Holocene, our own era . The early millennia of the Holocene are often referred to as the 'postglacial' period . A significant feature of the time between 8ooo BC and AD 1 was the warming of the climate to levels higher than today's average and its subsequent cooling off, with a concomitant rise in sea levels to higher than present heights (the marine transgression) and then their slight regression. The parts of East Asialand that had been exposed during the glacial maximum were submerged again between c. 4000 and 2000 BC, bringing the sea right up to the edges of the major Pen/Insular mountain chains . 2 It is no coincidence that archaeological sites show an increased exploitation of sea resources from 8ooo BC onwards.

Human groups around the world began domesticating local plants and animals in the early Holocene, initiating the Neolithic periods of prehistoric archaeology. In East Asia, the term 'Neolithic' is ambiguously employed : for China, it refers to agricultural society (Chapter 6), while in Korea and Japan it is sometimes used in its more literal sense of 'new stone' - that is, the era defined by the introduction of polished stone tools. The Pen/Insular societies (Chulmun and Jomon) of the postglacial period are in fact characterized by their polished stone tools and ceramics but not by agriculture (Chapter 5 ). The subsistence systems in those societies - that is, their methods of food procurement - focused on the hunting of animals and sea mammals, the collection of plant foods and shellfish, and fishing. The tending of some plants might have been practised, but this horticultural activity contrasts with major investments in cropping and animal husbandry characterizing fully agricultural societies . The establishment of an agricultural economy seems to have been a prerequisite for mature political development around the world .

Within Western prehistoric archaeology, there are two conflicting ways of describing stages of social development. The European tradition concentrates on the type of material employed in successive stages : stone, bronze and iron .3

ORIENTATION

17

ORIENTATION

1 8

From these we have the terms Palaeolithic (for chipped stone tool use), Neolithic (for polished stone tool use), Bronze Age and Iron Age . By contrast, the American tradition of social evolutionary thought concentrates on the form of social organization rather than the material technology. Thus, we have the idealized succession of band, (tribe), chiefdom and state (with 'tribe' as a disputed optional stage), according to the degree of political centralization and status differentiation .4 In applying either or both of these Western schemes to the East Asian sequences, confusions and inconsistencies arise because each term carries with it a heavy load of preconceived images and meanings . To make matters even more complicated, Marxist scholars in China and Japan use an early form of Western evolutionary theory, based on the ideas of Lewis Henry Morgan,S which does not coincide with its more modern American verst on .

For example, it is within the later Chinese Neolithic period (Chapter 7), as defined by Chinese archaeologists, that we see the emergence of both centralized and hierarchical societies that would be termed 'chiefdoms' in the American evolutionary system. According to their own Marxist mode of interpretation, Chinese archaeologists describe the Neolithic as encompassing the transition from 'matriarchal' to 'patriarchal' society and focus exclusively on the clan as the basic form of social organization. As another instance, the Chinese Bronze Age (Chapter 8) is considered to be the age of 'slave society' by Chinese Marxists, but is identified as the period of state formation by American evolutionists. The state itself played no role in the European tripartite, material-based developmental scheme from which the Neolithic period's name is derived . Finally, the appearance of 'class society' or pronounced social stratification - which serves as the foremost threshold for state formation in American social evolutionary theory - is currently being sought by Japanese Marxist archaeologists in the Jomon period, while American researchers are content to search for evidence of chiefdom development among the J om on. For the American evolutionists (including myself), social stratification in the Japanese I slands is not thought to have occurred until much later - at the end of the 3rd century AD. The European criteria of bronze and iron are of no more help in understanding social development in East Asia than in the Americas, where highly stratified societies managed to operate without these working metals at all. Nevertheless, the terms 'Bronze Age' and 'Iron Age' are retained here to refer to sections of the East Asian sequence because these metals were indeed important to the social mechanics of the periods in question - the Shang and Zhou periods, ending with the appearance of iron towards the close of Middle Zhou (Chapters 8, 9, 1 0) . It should be recognized, however, that the natures of the societies referred to as Bronze or Iron Age are often quite different from those of their European counterparts .

Protohistoric archaeology Box 1 The advent of writing marks a tremendous watershed in the operation of

ancient societies as well as in archaeology's role in elucidating them. To be able

to draw on the records of the people themselves not only gives us an inside perspective on how they thought, but also provides us with innumerable details not recoverable through the excavation of decayed and incomplete material remains. Neither material nor documentary evidence is without bias or a direct 'reflection' of reality: the former often does not survive well or at all and may even serve to mask rather than represent realities, and the latter was often manipulated during its writing for specific purposes . Used together, however, they complement each other in their kinds and quantities of information; and of course, archaeological evidence gives a much longer-term view than does written evidence .

The amount of information accessible from inscriptions or written documents is less in the decades or centuries during which a writing system is being developed and perfected than when writing is fully developed and in common use for recording history. This transitional period between the prehistoric and the historic is called the 'protohistoric', but it is usually rather subjectively defined, depending on how individual researchers view the informative potential of the sequence.

Another meaning of 'protohistoric' applies to societies having no writing system themselves but which have been documented in print by their neighbours. Such cases involve problems in interpretation because the written materials usually reflect the needs and perspectives of the neighbours, not the people being documented . Writing was invented on the China Mainland , and only much later was the script borrowed by surrounding peoples . As a result, there is a long period for which there are only Chinese documents to augment the material records of those societies - documents which are undoubtedly a biased and less than fully informed source of evidence .

The term 'protohistoric' is thus used in this book to refer to periods in which societies are known through fragmentary or indirect textual references . These include the Shang and Zhou periods for the China Mainland (Chapters 8, 9), for which inscriptions on bronze and bone and texts on bamboo and wooden slips are known . The I ron Age, Proto-Three Kingdoms and Three Kingdoms periods on the Korean Peninsula, and the Yayoi and Kofun periods in the Japanese archipelago, are also protohistoric in nature (Chapters I I , I J , I 4) .

Historic archaeology The archaeology of fully historic periods presents special methodological problems in integrating the divers kinds of information offered by material remains and written records. There are three main ways of dealing with these problems. The first is the traditional 'handmaiden' or what is called here the 'I llustrator' approach,6 in which archaeological data play a subservient and passive role to history: they are used to substantiate and illustrate what is already assumed to be known from the written records. This approach encourages a 'see it for yourself attitude to archaeology and is heavily employed in museums. The second is the 'Elaborator' approach, which uses archaeological data to investigate what is not known from the historical records .

ORIENTATION

I9

ORIENTATION

a

b

20

+ ** rflr:f\+ l)!S QStf aae.u :,lMfl

BOX 1 Documentary Sources

Marks and s igns i nc i sed on Neo lithic pottery of the Ch ina M a i n l and constitute the earliest stage of writ i ng i n East Asia (a) . The i r mean i ngs are as yet unknow n , but s i m i lar symbo ls cast on to Shang-per iod bronzes are deci phered as emb lems of d ifferent e l ite c lans or occu pationa l groups (b). The f i rst fu l l sentences - the beg i n n i ng of East As i a n h istory - occ u r on the so-ca l led 'o rac le bones' i n the Shang period: bov id shou lder b l ades (sca p u l ae) and freshwater turt le u nd e r-she l l s (p lastrons) (c) used in d iv i nation proced u res . These were inscr i bed with a variety of informat ion , such as the diviner's name or the oracu lar content . Some i nscr i pt ions also occ u r on bronzes of the per iod ( d ) , and these become more com mon in the Zhou per iod as orac l e bones declined i n use. I nsc ribed stones are known from the Mid d l e Zhou onwards (e) , and in the Late Zhou and Han per iods i n ked i nscr i pt ions on bamboo or wood s l i ps fo rm the major body of excavated wr i t i n g (f) .

A l l of the above stand i n contrast to what are termed the transmi tted doc u m e nts , handed down th rough the ages in manuscr i pt form . These have specif ic i nte rpretat iona l pro b l e m s der ivi n g from d i ffe rent ed i t ions , copy ing errors, and the like . M oreover, they were usua l l y wr i tten for a specific ideological p u rpose to the exc l us ion of othe r data. The major h i stor ica l docu ments s h ed d i ng l i ght on the 1 st mi l l e n n i u m sc are the Ear ly Zhou Yijing ( Book of Changes) , Shangshu ( Book of Doc u ments) , and Shijing ( Book of Poetry); and the M i d d l e and Late Zhou Chunqiu (Spring and Autu m n Anna ls ) , Guoyu (State Disco u rses) , Yili (Book of Etiq u ette ) , The Confu c i a n Analects , Zuozhuan (Zuo C h ronic l e ) , The E leg ies of C h u , and the writ i ngs of var ious ph i losophers . These were a l l wr i tten i n the context of com pet ing states d u r i n g an era genera l l y known in the West as the t i m e of Confuc ius (Box 2).

The com p i l at ion of court h istor ies began i n the Han per iod . Two of the f i rst were the Shiji (Records of the Grand H istor iog rapher) ,

c

- - r-

1 '

.

I -"' . . ' _, J I A I I \ It " .

which conta i ns a h i story of the Zhou per iod , and the Hanshu (H istory of the Former Han Dynasty ) . Among the works of the ear ly 1 st m i l l enn i u m AD , the Houhanshu (H istory of Later Han) and the Weizhi (We i Chron ic les) a re o f g reat s ign if icance to East As i a n archaeo logy a s a who le , f o r a l though Han-per iod soc iety on t h e C h i n a M a i n land was fu l l y h i stor ica l , i ts n e i g h bours rema i ned without syste ms of wr i t i ng unt i l approxi mate ly the 4th centu ry AD . I ntent iona l ethnograp h i c reco n na issance by e m bassies of the Han cou rt, however , garnered m uc h i nformat ion about these soc iet ies wh ich was recorded i n the dynastic h istor ies . The Ch i nese wr i tten perspective on other East As ian cu l tures and peoples is then comp lementary to the archaeo logical record of i nd igenous deve lopment and change.

Some t i m e between the 4th and 6th centu r ies AD, poss i b l y i n conj u nct ion with the spread o f Buddh ism and Buddh ist sutra texts , the emerg i n g state soc iet ies of Pen/I nsu lar East As ia adopted the C h i nese scr i pt i n the i r cou rt dea l i ngs . Neverthe less, few ear ly documents have su rvived , and the earl iest extant records f rom Japan are the 8th-centu ry court chron ic les , the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. The ear l iest wr i tten records surv iv i ng i n Korea are m u c h you nger : the Samguk Sagi and Samguk Yusa date respect ive l y from t h e 1 2th a n d 1 3th centu r ies, though they were compi led from earl ie r docu ments no longer extant.

I t is worth noti ng here that the adopt ion of the C h i nese wr i t i n g system b y societies speak i n g ear ly forms o f the Korean and Japanese languages was m ost i n appropr iate . The latter be long to a com p l ete ly d i fferent l anguage fam i ly f rom C h i nese- the A l ta icand are re l ated to Mongo l i a n and Turk ic i n a large arc across northern E u ras ia. These l a n g u ages a l l have i nf lected verbal a n d adject ival forms, i n contrast t o the u n i nf lected C h i nese languages . The representation of i nf lected forms us i n g the Ch inese scr i pt became a g reat chal lenge to a l l As ian soc iet ies wh ich adopted i t . The Pen/I nsu la r soc iet ies eventua l l y deve loped supp lementa ry scr i pts more phonet ic i n natu re - the han 'gut a l phabet for Korean and the kana syl labar ies for Japanese, w h ich are used i n conj u nct ion with (or somet i mes i ndependent ly of) C h i nese characters.

d

m I

ORIENTATION

e

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(;f'

2 1

ORIENTATION

22

In this sense archaeology serves to complement history, providing the missing data of 'what history doesn't tell you ' . The third approach is that of the 'Challenger' , which is disputative and substitutive: archaeological data are used to correct impressions misleadingly garnered from the written evidence. In practical terms, one can integrate archaeology and history using the ' I llustrator' and 'Elaborator' approaches to produce a holistic synthesis, or one can keep the two forms of data separate using the 'Elaborator' and 'Challenger' approaches, either to see what each tells us in turn or to test one against the other. Elements of all three approaches are used in the protohistoric and especially the early historic chapters (Chapters I 2, I S ) .

East Asian chronologies

The Chinese sequence jig. s The material cultures of the early historic societies of China were systematiBox 2 cally studied as long ago as the I Jth century by Nco-Confucian scholars in one

of the world's oldest traditions. It was, nevertheless, a foreign researcher who introduced the modern discipline of prehistoric archaeology to China early in the 2oth century. Johan Gunnar Andersson, a Swedish geologist affiliated with the Geological Survey of China, is usually credited with the first discoveries (in the I92os) of Neolithic painted pottery sites and Palaeolithic human and

jig. 1 6 artifactual remains a t the site of Zhoukoudian .7 The skeletal materials excavated in I 9 2 I from Zhoukoudian, the first

Palaeolithic site to be discovered in China, include specimens of modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) and our ancestral species (Homo erectus). The earliest dates for Homo erectus and the beginning of the Chinese Palaeolithic are in the order of between I million and I 3 million years ago, though the exact dating is disputed (Chapter 3 ) . Homo evolved on the African continent about 2 million years ago at the beginning of the Pleistocene. Homo erectus thence migrated out to colonize southern Europe and Asia, and the transition to modern humans is presumed to have taken place worldwide between about Ioo,ooo and 45 ,000 years ago. Academic circles are currently wracked by great debates on the nature of this transition, and the skeletal evidence from China is crucial to the outcome.

The subsequent Palaeolithic record for the China Mainland is 'bottom heavy' in that there are more finds and data for earlier in the sequence than later . There is currently a considerable gap for the period between I4,000 and 7000 Be, during which very little is known of lifeways transitional from the mobile hunting and gathering societies of the Palaeolithic (nominally ending at 8ooo Be) to the emergence of agriculture .

The beginning of the Chinese Neolithic period is being pushed back regularly as new excavations reveal ever earlier evidence for agriculture . Currently, agricultural sites are known from the 7th millennium BC, but ceramics have been dated even earlier (Chapter 4). The Chinese Neolithic is relatively long and rather d iverse, lasting until 2000 BC and encompassing the

transformation from agricultural society to class society. This prehistoric period featured innumerable regional cultures with their own characteristic artifacts,8 which this book cannot even begin to describe . Instead, the two chapters devoted to this period examine respectively the development of agricultural society in the Early Neolithic (Chapter 6) and the increasing status differentiation which gave rise to a political elite in the Late Neolithic (Chapter 7). The designation 'Middle Neolithic' is adopted here to refer to agricultural societies of the late 4th and 3rd millennia Be, though this term is not generally found in the Chinese archaeological literature .

Following the Late Neolithic is the protohistoric Shang period of early state formation (c. 200o-I 027 BC). 'Shang', a term derived from textual sources, is commonly used in four distinct and sometimes contradictory ways as the name of 1) the archaeological period, 2) a protohistoric ethnic group, 3) a particular style of bronzes, and 4) an early state. In the most simplistic descriptions of the Shang period, the Shang people are portrayed as ruling the Shang state, which is marked archaeologically by the distribution of Shang-style bronzes . As an archaeological period, however, it encompassed several other regional bronze traditions as well . Here, the Shang period is defined as beginning with bronze vessel production regardless of possible differences in ethnic, political or cultural affiliations among bronze-users in the 2nd millennium BC (Chapter 8). As such, the Shang period is the first phase of the Chinese Bronze Age, followed by the second phase, the Zhou (Chapter 9) .

The protohistoric Zhou period ( 1 027-221 Be) traditionally begins with the overthrow of the Shang king and clan by a rival ethnic group, the Zhou . This is a historically attested event, though the date is much debated; 1 027 is chosen for use here . The lengthy Zhou period is traditionally segmented by historians into Western or Royal Zhou ( 1 027-771 BC) and the Eastern Zhou periods of Spring and Autumn (77 1-475 BC) and Warring States (47 5-22 1 BC). For simplicity's sake, these three periods are referred to here as Early (Western) , Middle (Spring and Autumn) and Late (Warring States) Zhou . With the advent of the Zhou period, numerous competing states and statelets proliferated across the north China Mainland and beyond. A significant feature of the 1 st millennium BC was the emergence of mounted nomads on the northern Zhou frontiers (Chapter 10) .

During the Late Zhou, seven states emerged as major rivals: . n, Yan, ao, Wei, Han, and Chu. The period ended with the n's conquest of the others in 22 1 BC and the proclamation of a united n Dynasty (22 1-206 BC). The fully historic Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) soon succeeded it, continuing the centralization and bureaucratization begun by n. The territorial and economic expansion achieved under the Han has earned it the reputation of being an 'empire ' . The Han period as defined here consists of three dynasties : the Western or Former Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 8) and the Eastern or Later Han Dynasty (AD 25-220) surround the brief Xin Dynasty (AD 9-23) . Also for simplification, I will refer to these as the Early, Middle and Late Han periods.

The fall ofHan resulted in the partitioning of the China Mainland into three

ORIENTATION

23

ORIENTATION

Date CHINA KOREA JAPAN

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ORIENTATION

main states - Wei (22o-65), Wu (222-80) and Shu (22 1-63) - and many minor statelets . The traditional historic period encompassing this time of disunity and strife is the Three Kingdoms Six Dynasties (22o-58 I ) . Only in the late 6th century was the region reunited under one rule, the Sui Dynasty ( S8 I -6 I 8), which then led into the florescence of Chinese culture under the Tang Dynasty (6 I 8-

its rivals and united the Korean Peninsula under one rule . Unified Shilla (668-93S) adopted several administrative units and techniques from Tang Dynasty China; though fully historic in its own age, no documents other than wooden tablets survive from this period (Chapter I S). The Japanese sequence

ORIENTATION

The Jomon period was the first prehistoric period to be discovered and fig. s documented in Japan, through the excavation of a shellmound in I 877 by an American zoologist, E .S . Morse, who was teaching at Tokyo University . Firm evidence of Palaeolithic occupation, however, was not obtained until I 949 As in China and Korea, dating of the beginning of the Palaeolithic period is still highly controversial (Chapter 3 ) . Japan has provided the most abundant and best-quality materials from the Late Palaeolithic period by which to trace the development of modern human culture in the region (Chapter 4).

At present, Japan lays claim to the world's earliest-known ceramic vessels at c. I o,ooo BC. These are used to mark the beginning of the Jomon period, a long period of lifeways based mainly on hunting, gathering and fishing that existed in the Islands between I O,OOO and 300 BC (Chapter s) . The manufacture and use of pottery by Jomon groups was facilitated by a sedentary rather than mobile lifestyle, which was in turn made possible by the postglacial richness of resources in the Japanese I slands. The Jomon period nominally ended with the introduction of rice agriculture from the continent (Chapter I I) .

The ensuing Yayoi period of early agricultural society (300 BC-AD 300) is named after the site in Tokyo where pottery of this period was first excavated. The development of this kind of pottery was formerly believed to have accompanied the adoption of rice agriculture; now, however, the introduction of rice and the emergence of typical Yayoi ceramics are known to have been independent events . Currently, there is a schism among Japanese archaeologists concerning whether to define the Yayoi period on the basis of the presence of rice agriculture or on the presence of Yayoi ceramics. This book employs the traditional ceramic date for the beginning of the Yayoi period (300 BC) so that rice agriculture is acknowledged for some Final Jomon groups . The transition from prehistory to proto history occurred in the Middle Y a yoi period when the Insular societies came into contact with the Han Dynasty (Chapter I 3 ) and were documented in Han court chronicles .

The Late Yayoi period witnessed gradual political centralization and the development of status hierarchies. Such processes culminated in the emergence of class society by AD 300, from which time large mounded tombs (kofun) were built for the elite . The protohistoric Kofun period (AD JOOj iO), defined by this burial tradition, also saw the formation of the first Japanese state and the emergence of court society (Chapter I4). Writing and Buddhism were adopted from the continent in the sth and 6th centuries, and urbanism took off with temple and palace construction . The succeeding, fully historic Nara period (AD 7 I--

CHAPTER 2

Archaeology E mergent

The discipline of archaeology as practised today in East Asia is essentially an import from the West . Yet each country into which it was introduced had its own traditions of antiquarianism which bequeathed a whole set of local outlooks and problems to the developing discipline . Moreover, the co-option of the majority of archaeological activity by the modern states has given the discipline a function in the growth of nationalism in the region . I shall set the stage here for this phenomenon by tracing the early structure of archaeological enquiry and its modern organization.

Antiquarianism

The present East Asian governments follow a long tradition of claiming continuity with the first centralized regimes of the distant past: the Shang of 3200 years ago for China; Yamato of 1 500 years ago for Japan; and the Three Kingdoms of at least 1 soo years ago for the Koreas. Between then and now, the perceived continuities were maintained not only through written history but also through a concern with the transmission of elite material culture .

The first instance of antiquarianism, in Song-Dynasty China (AD 96o-1 279), focused on the revival of ancient court culture . 1 Interest in the past was excited

Box z by the rediscovery of Confucianism in reaction to the other-worldly concerns of Buddhism . Scholarship came to focus more on secular subjects, and sophisticated historiographical methods were developed . Confucianism encouraged empiricism in the cataloguing of bronzes and jades dating from the Shaqg to Han Dynasties lodged in imperial and private collections . Surprisingly modernistic techniques of observation and representation were deployed in measuring the artifacts, drawing their profiles, describing their decoration, and copying any inscriptions. Reproductions of many objects were then made for use in court ceremonies, giving the rituals an authenticity based on historical precedent.

Contemporaneously with Song in 1 2th-century Japan, concern grew for the preservation of 'court etiquette' as ancient court society gave way to a militaristic feudal order. Not only were the intangible aspects of bureaucratic ranks and positions studied but also the material aspects of palace architecture, banqueting utensils, dress, weaponry, ctc .2 This concern subsequently encompassed actual palace and tomb sites of previous emperors; and in 1 692 the first recorded excavations in Japan took place as a regional daimyo dug two

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

tombs to investigate a stone inscription .3 A similar excavation was undertaken in 1 748 in southeastern Korea by the father of a local governor; he 'excavated six ancient tombs to see if they were the lost tombs of his ancestors from the Koryo Dynasty' .4

Beginning in the 1 9th century, the revival of Nco-Confucian scholarship encouraged objective observation and ' investigation into things' , resulting in popular scholarly pursuit that focused on objects . In Japan, major exhibitions of curious rocks and artifacts were held, and the many catalogues and treatises written about such collections demonstrate that these scholars not only followed the principles of systematic study but also employed techniques of description and classification,5 echoing the pioneering antiquarianism of Song. These subsequently became the foundation for Japanese archaeological research.

I t was characteristic of antiquarian thought in these countries that material objects from the past were assigned to peoples or ages which were named in historical documents. In other words, concepts of the past were entirely confined to written history - a limitation that also plagued early European antiquarianism.6 No populations or time periods apart from those described in the documents could possibly be imagined, especially since the documents often incorporated the mythological creation of the universe and humankind and so provided a ready-made history back to the beginning of time. The great contribution of modern archaeology was not the introduction of methods of observation, description and excavation, which as noted above were all variously present in the antiquarianism of the region . It was the introduction of the possibility of a past - the very 'idea of prehistory' - that resided external to written history and was accessible through excavation.7

Archaeology from the West

Inherent in antiquarianism was the knowledge that ancient objects could be found in or on the ground. Also, the general locations of former palaces or capitals were known and even visited for information.8 But the concept of a 'site' (especially ones that were non-imperial in nature) that could be investigated systematically through excavation to reveal something of the lifeways of past peoples was only introduced with archaeology .

The beginning of the discipline in Japan is usually attributed to the American zoologist Edward S. Morse, who arrived in Japan in 1 877 a mere twelve years after the publication of the seminal book by Sir John Lubbock, Pre-historic Times,9 that broke the historical grip on thoughts about the past in England . In China, credit for the introduction of archaeology in the 1 920s goes to the Swedish geologist J .G . Andersson. Both of these individuals, though not archaeologists themselves, demonstrated through systematic excavation the potential for prehistoric research about a past which was not included in the written documents . The Insular Jomon and Mainland Palaeolithic and Neolithic cultures were all defined during these initial archaeological activities.

29

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

30

BOX 2 Confucius and his Impact

The man we know today as Confuc i us ( K ' ung fu-tzu or Kongz i , 55 1 -479 ec) was b o r n i nto a fam i l y o f t h e lower ar istocracy i n the M i d d l e Z h o u state o f L u . He g rew u p t o become a m i no r court off ic ia l who , a t t he age o f 60 , left h is nat ive state to serve as an i ndependent pol i t ical adv isor to a series of other Zhou states. H is self-def i ned m ission in l i fe was to effect a retu rn to the ' go lden age' of mora l po l i t ics rep resented by the fou nder o f the Zhou Dynasty . H i s mob i l e career was both sti m u l ated a n d enab led by monumental changes in soc ia l organ izat ion at the trans i t ion from the M idd le to the Late Z h o u , when the power and autho r ity of the trad it iona l feudal ar i stocracy was be i n g cha l l enged by the g rowing m i n i steria l c lass (Chapter 9) .

Confuc i u s taught moderat ion and harmony in a l l th i ngs i n an era of i ncred i b l e v io lence and change. H is conception of good government was based on an ana logy with the fam i ly and was at once author i tar ian and h i e ra rch ica l : c h i l d re n honour parents (f i l ia l p iety) , w i ves obey h usbands, h usbands serve lords, and lords serve the ancestors. Yet, he was an ega l i tar ian ist who be l i eved that h u man nature was fundamenta l l y good and that the pract ice of ' l oya l ty , rec ip rocity, dutifu l ness , f i l i a l and fraterna l affect ion , cou rtesy , fr iends h i p and good faith ' among i nd iv idu a l s wou ld lead t o t h e natural emergence o f m o r a l l eaders. The loss of moral ity in a ru le r came to be see n , th rough Confuc ian ist eyes, as

I t is sometimes argued that the introduction of archaeology has been an instrument of Western imperialism. The case of the Korean Peninsula shows that it could also be an instrument of 'Eastern imperialism', since archaeology was begun in Korea by Japanese colonial archaeologists between 19 10 and 1 945 . The government used many of the projects and interpretations of Peninsular archaeology to justify the subordination of Korea to Japan during its period of annexation, but the actual quality of the archaeology conducted in this period was so high that the resulting publications are still necessary reference material today. 1 0

It is interesting to note that in all three of the above cases, local students were not explicitly trained to carry on archaeological activities in these countries . The discipline became fully established only later with the renewed initiative of resident scholars themselves . Ironically, however, the eras of establishment again coincided with heavy Western influence as students and scholars began to travel abroad . HAMADA Kosaku, an art historian, studied with Flinders Petrie in

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

the loss of the ' Mandate of Heave n ' to ru le , and such a leader cou ld j usti f iab ly be overth rown .

Confuc i us a lso accepted students without regard to soc ia l c lass, th us sett i ng a precedent fo r an em phasis on mer i t that under lay the bu reaucratic exa m i nat ion syste m . He was a cu l t f i gure w i th i n the state school system o f the H a n Dynasty (206 sc-AD 220) , and the Confuc ian Classics became the object of proper study for a l l asp i r i n g bu reaucrats . From the 5th to the 1 1 th century A D h i s teach i ngs were somewhat overshadowed b y concern with B u ddh i s m , but they under lay the powerfu l and p rest ig ious ad m i n i strat ive system of the Tang Dynasty (61 8-907) wh ich was w ide ly copied by other East As ian states (Chapter 1 5) . Confuc ian ism was rev ived d u r ing the Song Dynasty (960-1 279) in a Nee-Confuc ian movement wh ich brought a ' new h istor ica l consciousness' to pol i t ics .

Nee-Confuc ian ism had two major i m pacts on the study of the past. I n the 1 1 th century , i t sti m u lated a revival of ancient court r itua ls us i ng many of the arti facts of the ear ly dynasties as known from acc idental d iscover ies and extant i m per ia l co l l ections . Confuc ius h i mself be l i eved that one cou l d restore the anc ient (Ear ly Zhou) soc ia l order through the pract ice of the proper r ites and r i tua ls , and now the Song Cou rt attem pted a retu rn to the go lden age us ing h i s means ! I n the 1 8th centu ry , Q ing Dynasty Neo-Confuc ian ists propou nded that the essence of th i ngs cou ld never be g rasped through med i tation but o n l y by 'w ide learn i n g , carefu l i n vestigatio n , exact th i n k i n g , c lear reason ing , a n d s i ncere conduct ' . These att i tudes, acti vated by Neo-Confuc ian ists i n Japan , gave r ise to i n d i genous scient i f ic study of the wonders of nature and of ancient art i facts .

England and introduced Petrie's techniques of stratigraphic excavation to Japan in 1 9 1 7 . 1 1 HARADA Yoshito, who travelled through Europe and America in 192 1-3 , also brought back knowledge of new techniques . 1 2 In 1 923 LI Chi, the 'father of modern Chinese archaeology' , 1 3 finished his studies at Harvard University, and was followed by LIANG Ssu-yung, who participated in excavations run by Alfred V. Kidder; 14 XIA Nai studied at the Institute of Archaeology in London between 1935 and 1939, and eventually he went on to serve as director of the Institute of An.;haeology in Beij ing until his death in 1 986. And in the 1950s KIM Won-yong, the doyen of Korean archaeology, studied art history at New York University, becoming the first in a long line of Korean archaeologists to enrol in American Ph . D . programmes. Needless to say, the institutions within which these individuals developed their countries' archaeological disciplines were also Western forms of organization : museums, universities, scholarly societies, and journals. fig. 6

Before moving on to discuss the local characteristics of archaeology in the

3 1

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

32

* Japan A Korea e China

1 092 e 'An I l l ustrated Study of Anc ient Th i ngs' ( Kaogutu) publ ished by the N. Song scho lar Lu Dal i n

1 871 * I m per ia l Househo ld ( l ater Nationa l ) M useum estab l ished

1 876 * Fi rst cu ltural properties protection l aw passed

1 877 * Omori shel lmound excavation by Edward S. Morse, naming of Jomon pottery

1 884 * Excavation of M u kogaoka she l l mound , d iscovery of Yayo i pottery

* Anth ropological Assoc iat ion of Tokyo (for preh istor ians) formed by Tsueo1 Shogoro

1 889 e Gru m-Grzi ma i lo brothers (Russia) i nvestigate C h i nese Turkistan

1 892 e G renard and de Rh ine (France) to Ch i nese Turk istan

1 893 * Anthropological I nsti tute founded at Tokyo Un iversity

1 895--6 e ToR I I Ryuzo (Japan) i nvest igates Liaodong Pen insu la and Taiwan

1896 e Sven Hed i n (Sweden) to C h i nese Tu rkestan (X inj i ang Province)

* Lau nch ing of Archaeological Soc iety of Japan and its pub l i cation , Kokogaku Zasshi

1 897 * Law for the Preservat ion of Ancient Temples and Shr i nes

1 900 * Fi rst s ite l ist ing com p i l ed by Tokyo U n i versity

1 905 e ToRn Ryuzo researches Manchur ia

1 907 * Fi rst archaeo logy cou rse taught at Kyoto Un iversity by H AMAOA Kosaku

1 908 A Royal Household M useum of Chosen K i ngdom estab l ished

1 91 0 A Korean Peninsu la a nnexed b y Japan , comm ittee for archaeo log ical i nvestigat ion estab l ished

1 91 3 * Department o f Archaeology formed a t Kyoto Un ivers i ty

1 91 5 A M useu m o f Colon ia l Government estab l ished , l ater becomes the Nat ional M useum

1 91 7-1 9 * Fi rst stratigraph ic excavations at Ko and Satohama s ites

1 91 9 * Law for the Preservat ion o f H istor ic S i tes, Scen ic Spots , a n d National Mon u ments

1 920 e J .G . Andersson 'd iscovers' the Ch i nese Palaeol i th ic at Zhoukoud ian and the Pai nted Pottery Neol ith ic at Yangshao-cun

1 922 * Fi rst book on archaeological methods: Tsuron Kokogaku

1 925 * Law req u i r ing compi l at ion of site l i sts (pub l ished 1 925--9)

1 926 e Publ icat ion of Critical Reviews of Ancient History, advocat ing archaeo logical study of the past

6 Institutional histories for East Asian archaeology

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

* Japan .& Korea e China

1 927-34 e Folke Bergman leads Sino-Swed ish exped it ion to X in j iang

1 928 e Found ing of I nstitute of History and P h i l o logy, Academia S in ica e Discovery of B lack Pottery Neol i th ic at Longshan, Shandong Provi nce

1 928-37 e Excavation of Anyang by I nstitute of H i story and Ph i lo logy

1 927 * Tokyo Archaeological Society founded by MORIMOTO Rokuj i

1 929 * Law for the Preservation of Ancient Temples and Shr i nes changed to Law for the Preservat ion of National Treasures

e Excavation of f i rst complete sku l l of Sinanthropus pekinensis by PEl Wenzhong at Zhoukoud ian

1 930 .& Formation of the colonia l Society for Study of Korean Ant iqu ities

1 931 e Stratigraphic excavations at Hougang estab l ish cu ltural sequence

1 936 * Minerva debate estab l i sh ing ' i dea of prehistory'

1 944 e Dunhuang I nstitute for Cu ltu ral Rel ics estab l ished

1 946 .& Found ing of the National Museu m of Korea after l i beration from Japanese co lon ia l ru le .& The fi rst excavation by Korean archaeolog ists, Houchong Tomb, Kyongj u

1 948 * Found ing of Japanese Archaeological Society

1 949 * Discovery of Japanese Palaeo l i th ic by AIZAWA Tadah i ro e C h i nese Academy of Sciences (CAS) estab l ished

1 950 .& Beg inn i ng of Korean War, suspension of archaeolog ica l work for the decade

e I n it iat ion of Wenwu Cankao Zihao pub l i cation , chang ing to Wenwu i n 1 959

1 952 * Law for the Protection of Cu l tu ra l Propert ies (combi ned 1 9 1 9 and 1 929 laws)" * Nara National Cu ltural Properties Research I nstitute (Nabunken) establ i shed for the excavation of the Heijo Palace

e I nstitute of Archaeol ogy founded under CAS e Archaeology major establ ished at Beij i n g Un iversity

1 953 * Found ing of the Society of A rchaeological Stud ies and beg inn ing pub l i cation of Kokogaku Kenkyu, orig i na l l y cal led Watakushi-tachi no Kokogaku

e Cenozoic Research Laboratory reorgan ized i nto I n stitute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanth ropology ( IVPP) , and beg i n n i n g pub l ication of Vertebrata Pa/asiatica e I n it iat ion of Kaogu Xuebao publ icatio n

1 954 * Law amended to provide for ' bu ried cultural p roperties'

1 959 e I n it iat ion of Kaogu pub l ication

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ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

34

* Japan A Korea e China

1960-2 * Fi rst site reg istrat ion activit ies by prefectural Boards of Education at central government's request; reg istration m aps (publ ished 1 965-8)

1 961 A Department of Archaeology estab l ished at Seoul National Un ivers ity, publ icat ion of Kogo Misu/ beg i n s A B u reau o f Cu ltu ral Properties estab l ished

1 962 A Discovery of Korean Palaeol ith ic by G. Bowen A C u ltural Properties P rotection Law pro m u lgated

1 965 * Nihon no Kokogaku series publ ished, landmark in cu l tura l h i story stud ies

1 966-76 e Excavations suspended d u r i ng Cu ltural Revo l ut ion

1968 * Agency for Cu l tu ra l Affai rs estab l ished

1969 A Korean Atomic Energy Research I nstitute (KAERI ) and rad i ocarbon lab estab l i shed

1 972 e Zhoukoudian Museum and other schools and institutes reopened after Cu l tura l Revol ution; journa l publ icat ions recommenced

1 973 * Asuka and Fuj i wara Palace Site Research Department and Asuka H istor ical M useum estab l ished at Nabunken

1 974 * Centre for Archaeological Operations (CAO) estab l ished at Nabunken

1 975 A I nstitute of Cu ltural Properties estab l ished in Seoul e Artic le 1 2 i n Chi nese Constitut ion requ i res proletariat control over scientific research

1 976 A Consol idation of the Korean Archaeologica l Society and pub l i cation of Hanguk Kogo-Hakbo

1 977 e Chi nese Academy of Soc ia l Sciences (CASS) founded

1 981 e Anthropology Department formed at Zhongshan Un ivers i ty

1 982 * Founding of the J apanese Society for Scientific Stud ies on Cu ltu ral Property and co-option of Kokogaku to Shizen Kagaku as the Society's journal

1983 e Cultural Properties Law co-opt ing buried mater ia ls as national p roperty

1 984 e Open i n g of Anth ropology Department at Xiamen Un iversity

1 985 A F i rst Ph .D . programme in archaeology i n i t iated at Seoul Nat ional U n ivers i ty

1991 e Regu lat ion for fore ign part ic ipation in archaeological work promu lgated

1 992 * Membersh ip i n the Japanese Archaeolog ists' Assoc iat ion opened up i nternational ly

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

East Asian countries, it should be mentioned that subsequent to the post-war communist take-overs in North Korea and China, a specific Western interpretational framework - that of Marxist historical materialism - was imported. 1 5 According to this theoretical framework, societies around the world move through specific developmental stages : matriarchal clan society, patriarchial clan society, slave society, feudalism, capitalism, then finally communism. 1 6 Archaeological remains in these countries are generally assigned to these immutable stages but only as loose alternatives for period names, without heavy theorizing or excessive interpretation . Thus it has been said that efforts at least in China to apply historical materialism to archaeological data have resulted only in 'indifferent success' . ' 7

Modern organization

In East Asia today, archaeological excavation is mainly a government concern. The active institutions are government research institutes and museums, and the majority of the data being generated through excavation are subject to the time, budget and space restrictions of rescue archaeology . This means that locations of digs are generally determined not by specific research problems but where construction projects are planned. The degree of university involvement in rescue archaeology varies from country to country . In China and Korea, university teams can be called out to large projects when needed, such as the recent dam-site excavations in South Korea . In Japan, however, universities boycotted rescue excavations in the early 1 970s because increasing governmen- plate 2 tal demands for their participation left insufficient time to fulfil their teaching and academic commitments. This boycott led to the complete separation of rescue and academic excavation activity, with the government developing a huge bureaucracy of public archaeologists. 1 8 In all East Asian countries, academic excavations are poorly funded and small in scale, although there has recently been a significant effort in Japan to increase government support for research archaeology.

The structure of government archaeology is similar in all East Asian countries, since Japan's early organizational framework served as a model during her colonial period in the first half of this century . The seminal unit in Japan was the Commission for the Protection of Cultural Properties, which operated under the Ministry of Education at the national level with branches in the prefectural governments in Japan. This hierarchy was duplicated in China and Korea, and it is through this government administrative structure that current cultural properties laws are administered . In addition to these government offices there are state-run research institutes and museums, any of which might field teams of archaeologists to deal with sites threatened by development.

Separate from this hierarchy are the universities, both state and private . Some university museums co-operate in excavation projects; others merely serve as repositories for the excavated materials .

35

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

Japan In 1 968, a new Agency for Cultural Affairs was established within the Ministry of Education to take over the functions of the original Commission for the Protection of Cultural Properties . Archaeological resources (termed 'buried cultural properties') came to be administered under the Monuments Division, which liaised with Cultural Affairs Sections within the prefectural governments . This was the beginning of bureaucratic archaeology in Japan whereby each prefecture installed its own archaeological teams to investigate sites threatened by construction and development, as required by law . 1 9 The recruiting of trained personnel into government service has resulted in a nationwide staff of 4670 public archaeologists in 1992,20 in addition to 622 archaeologists working at universities. The former were originally employed by the prefectural Boards ofEducation, either full-time or temporarily for specific projects; now they are increasingly employed by archaeological resource centres which are established by the prefectural governments as adjunct contract units. These centres operate as autonomous foundations, but their standard of work is compatible with the prefectural units because they are all centralized under the Agency for Cultural Affairs . Moreover, continuing training opportunities for all public archaeologists are offered by the Centre for Archaeological Operations (CAO), created in 1 974.

The CAO is affiliated to the Nara National Cultural Properties Research Institute (Nabunken), which was established in 1952 for the investigation of the 8th-century Heijo Palace site. The CAO is a self-contained research, advisory, and training unit catering for the needs of government archaeology throughout the nation. I ts permanent staff travel to sites being excavated to give advice, and they run training courses several times a year for select groups of prefectural archaeologists .

The Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties ( 1 952 , 1 954) in Japan is very non-Western in that it makes no distinction between public and private land . This is in great contrast, for example, to the corresponding laws in the United States, which apply only to state-owned land . In Japan, all buried objects are decreed to be the property of their original owners (however many centuries in the past!) ; and if they or their descendants cannot be located, the state takes custody of them. Before the mid- 1 970s, the important materials were retained and sent to the Tokyo National Museum for curation; since then, however, almost every prefecture has built a new prefectural museum, and most excavated materials are curated locally . If conservation is necessary and local facilities are not available, artifacts may be sent to the Gangoj i Conservation Unit in Nara, which services most government and some academic excavations . In addition to their public museums, many prefectures have built site museums on the model of the Heijo Palace site museum established by Nabunken . Some of these stand in areas containing clusters of ancient monuments (mounded tombs, early provincial centres and temple sites, etc . ) which have been designated as historic parks.

These government facilities for archaeology complement those within the

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

university system, where both public and private universities often maintain museums which hold materials from previous discoveries and current academic excavations. Fifteen national and eleven private universities currently run graduate degree programmes in archaeology, while another fiftythree universites offer courses in archaeology.2 1

China In 1 983 China passed a law specifying that all buried materials are national property . I t resembles the Japanese law in making no distinction between public and private land . Any buried objects found in the course of construction are to be reported to the Ministry of Culture's Bureau of Antiquities and Museums, and any planned excavations must be licensed by this bureau . Excavations are conducted by a variety of institutions : university archaeological departments (of which more than a dozen offer degrees in archaeology),Z2 provincial or local museums, and government institutes .

Three government institutes located in Beijing are directly involved in ongoing archaeological excavation and research . The oldest is the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP), which succeeded the pre-war Cenozoic Research Laboratory (CRL). In 1 953 , the CRL was reorganized into the IVPP and then later affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), established in 1949, as one of its seventy-seven attached institutes . Pleistocene studies and the Palaeolithic are the main concerns of the IVPP, which has a branch office at the site of Zhoukoudian. The two other institutes concerned with archaeology - the Institute of Archaeology and the Institute of (Chinese) History - are now administered under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) which was founded in 1977. The Institute of Archaeology has permanent field stations in the cities of Anyang, Xi'an and Luoyang, where ongoing excavations of important protohistorical and early historical sites are conducted. The Institute also maintains about ten teams of archaeologists in Beijing which it can deploy to any area in the country where excavations are necessary . The Institute of History does not participate in excavation but acts as a locus for the analysis of excavated inscriptional material. In addition, there exists the Dunhuang Institute for Cultural Relics, which was established in 1 944 and reorganized in 1 9 5 1 expressly for the investigation of the Dunhuang Buddhist caves and fig. 1 10 manuscript material.

Virtually every province and many municipalities have museum facilities to house materials unearthed in their administrative districts, and have their own excavation teams. The Hunan Provincial Museum in Changsha City is unusual in that it was built specifically to house the finds from the Han-period Mawangdui Tomb. Another special museum - in Luoyang City, Henan fig. 100 Province - is that of a Han-period tomb mound which has been removed from its original location and reconstructed in a park to display its interior paintings . Museums have also been established at many archaeological sites: Banpo, Tahe, Zhoukoudian, Yinxu, Zhangjiapo, and the Shang Palace Museum in figs 16, 43. 59

37

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

Zhengzhou City . At the national level, there is also the Museum of Chinese Historical Relics and, of course, the Palace Museum in Beijing, which is complemented by the Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan.

In addition to museums, designated historical sites constitute an important part of cultural heritage preservation in modern China. Provincial branches of the Bureau of Antiquities and Museums are empowered to designate sites without consultation with the national headquarters. Thus, the provinces have some leeway in deciding for themselves what cultural remains will be preserved as their local heritage.

Interestingly, China has few national archaeological associations. The existing ones usually focus on specific topics or regions and include the recently

plate 15 formed Chinese Rock Art Association and the Society for Circum-Bohai Archaeology. Thus national meetings hosting archaeological discussions of mixed sorts are replaced by international conferences of fixed content. Recent conferences, for example, have dealt with prehistoric culture in South China,

plate 3 1 bronze drums and bronze cultures in southern China and Southeast Asia, Xia and Shang culture, circum-Bohai archaeology, and 'Dunhuangology' . China is also continuously involved in sending large exhibitions of Chinese archaeological materials abroad; expanded catalogues of these exhibitions, incorporating research and syntheses by major scholars, form a large proportion of the Western-language materials published on Chinese archaeology.

The major national journals for archaeology in China continue to be Wenwu, Kaogu, and Kaogu Xuebao. But the proliferation of local journals under decentralization policies has vastly increased the amount of data and research being published - the problem now being gaining access to these materials outside China.

Korea The Koreanization of archaeology on the Peninsula has taken place only since 1945 . With economic reconstruction occupying the first two decades after the Korean War, archaeological research has really only flourished since the 1970s . The two Korean governments have approached the task in somewhat different ways. South Korean excavations are conducted mainly by the national museums and the universities, whereas in North Korea government institutes play an important role . The Institute of Archaeology and Folklore, under the North Korean Academy of Social Sciences, fields a large archaeological team for excavations .

The National Museum structure inherited from the Japanese colonialists has been expanded in region and scope by the South Korean government. There are currently eight national museums (Seoul, Kyongju , Kwangju,

fig. 3 Ch'ongju , Chonju, Puyo, Kongju, Chinju) with plans for more (Ch'unch'on, Taegu, Kimhae and Cheju) . These are located in major cities or ancient cultural centres, supplanting the need for provincial museums, though some

plate 63 municipalities such as Pusan have their own facilities . The tumuli park in Kyongju, with one tomb opened as a site museum, is the oldest of several site

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

museums; the Murong tomb in Kongju and the Pokch'on-dong and Pangidong tomb clusters in Seoul are also preserved as parks where individual tombs can be entered . Amsadong is a Chulmun-period village in Seoul whose pithouse reconstructions are open to the public, and a small site museum displays artifacts of the period .

Most of the national museums field teams of archaeologists, and the finds are eligible for conservation and preservation by the Department of Conservation Science at the I nstitute of Cultural Properties in Seoul . This Institute is an arm of the Bureau of Cultural Properties under the Ministry of Culture; established in 1 975, it now has branches in Kyongju, Mokp'o, Changwon and Puyo, which fig. 3 focus on specific projects .

Several universities in South Korea have active programmes in archaeology, and sixty-one have museums holding large archaeological collections . In contrast to Japan, many Korean archaeologists hold doctoral degrees from the United States and England, but the first Korean Ph.D . programme in archaeology was instituted as recently as 1 985 at Seoul National University . One of the main journals, Hanguk Kogo-Hakbo, is published by the Korean Archaeological Society (Hanguk Kogohak'oe), with several other more specialized associations producing their own publications as well .

The character of East Asian archaeology

Despite continuing exposure to Western archaeological research, some aspects of East Asian archaeology are still conditioned by traditional concerns : the priority of inscriptional materials in Chinese protohistoric archaeology; the object-orientation of Japanese archaeologists; the search for Korean ethnicity in past cultures; and most interestingly, the common East Asian conception of time deriving from myth and legend . The last is realized in a vocabulary that sees times past as rising off the ground into the heavens, so that the earlier the fig. 7 period, the 'higher' in physical location it is . This gives meaning to the phrase 'the upper limit' of a site's existence as the oldest limit, whereas 'the lower limit' in East Asian terminology means the youngest. These meanings are exactly opposite to the Anglo-American archaeological vocabulary . Such contradic-tions are simultaneously confusing and enriching. With the input of local ideas into archaeology, the discipline becomes less 'Western' in character .

The recognition of on-the-ground prehistory as opposed to mythological and legendary history took a very long time to emerge in East Asian archaeology . In Japan, although Morse introduced the 'idea of prehistory' with his excavations in the late 1 9th century, it took over fifty years for Japanese archaeologists to cease equating prehistoric remains with individuals and peoples mentioned in the early chronicles and view them as anonymous cultures. The final incorporation of the idea of prehistory into Japanese archaeology was achieved in 1 936 after substantial discussion known as the 'Minerva debate' , since it was documented in the Japanese j ournal entitled Mineruva (Minerva)P Of course, such cultures are no longer anonymous to

39

ARCHAEOLOGY EMERGENT

Age of the Gods Imperial Ages

Takama-no-hara (P la in of High Heaven )

'\ \ "'', \$'+-' ', 06

+ ' , o...,._ 12: ' .... cs>'(:, ', ""' 7 1 2 720 ""'.... ............ 660 BC

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . ::::-:::.a-t----------t"----1--

(pre-h istorical )

Ash i hara-no-naka-tsu-ku n i (Central Land o f t h e Reed Plains)

A D 0 7 1 2

(proto-historica l ) (h istorical)

7 Traditional chronology of early Japanese history, as presented in the Nihon Shoki (compiled in AD 720) . The traditional history, extending from fact into legend into myth as it 'ascended' into the past, provided no room for recognition of on-the-ground prehistory (dotted line). The time words in Ea