Ancient China and its Eurasian Neighbors

Artifacts, Identity and Death in the Frontier, 3000–700 BCE

Katheryn M. Linduff, Yan Sun, Wei Cao, Yuanqing Liu

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781108418614
• eBook ISBN: 9781108314206
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Charts
• List of Maps
• Introduction: The Inner Asian Frontier Reconsidered
• 1 Shaping the Study of Inner Asian Artifacts and Mental Boundaries
• 2 Technoscapes and the Materialization of Ideas in Metal on the Inner Asian Frontier (c. 3000–1500 BCE)
• 3 Identity and Artifacts on the North Central and Northeastern Frontier during the Period of State Expansion in the Late Second and the Early First Millennium BCE
• 4 The Rise of States and the Formation of Group Identities in the Western Regions of the Inner Asian Frontier (c. 1500 to the Eighth Century BCE)
• 5 Final Statements/Conclusions and Future Challenges
• Glossary of Terms
• Bibliography
• Index