[Dissertation] Effects of Food Preparation and Labor Organizations on Domesticated Millet in Ancient China (8000-1000 BP)

Author: Yufeng Sun

School: Washington University in St. Louis

Year: 2023

Abstract:

One of the most remarkable developments in Eurasian archaeology in the last 15 years has been the evidence of movements of domesticated crops and livestock across continents thousands of years before the historical "silk road." Considerable intellectual energy has been devoted to understanding the chronology and routes of a process considered as "food globalization in prehistory," which has generated much recent discussions. However, less is known about the context in which farming dispersals arose and the role of human agency in both the globalization and domestication process. Human engagement in food production and consumption is both biological and social, with moral implications. 

The expressive and communicative aspect of food is often used to signify social boundaries, including hierarchy, exclusion, and performance. Such dynamics are more commonly explored in cultural anthropology with regard to more recent times. They have been less investigated in projected archaeology, despite great potential when inquiry is directed by productive questions. 

This dissertation focuses on domestication and the underlying social process of early cultivation of foxtail (Setaria italica) and broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum). Both species were first cultivated in northern China and expanded across Asia by the second millennium BC. 

I investigated the everyday practices related to the cultivation, production, and consumption of millets, with a focus on morphological variations and isotopic properties shaped by culinary traditions and labor organizations in ancient northern China. To explore the underlying cultural and culinary conditions of millet domestication and early dispersals, I compiled over 3000 millet measurements from 145 archaeological sites across China and neighboring regions dating from 5000-2000 BCE. 

The findings suggest that millet grains increased in size as they dispersed from their North China origin to Inner Asian Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau. This suggests that there was a geographic separation between the grains and the cooking techniques that were associated with them. As millet moved towards the west, larger grains became more common in the grinding-and-baking system of Inner Asia, whereas smaller grains were preferred in the East Asian tripod steaming-and-boiling cooking systems. 

This division is consistent with the modern genetic variations of millet taxa based on their stickiness. This investigation revealed the tension between the fluidity of food materials and the rigidity of culinary traditions as food habits, the latter of which were inculcated and perpetuated through every practice and insusceptible to cultural change. 

To investigate millet cultivation strategies corresponding to labor organizations in changing historical conditions, I engaged with recent archaeological discoveries in the Chifeng region to explore how millet cultivation strategies were shaped by social conditions. I conducted plant isotope analysis on archaeological millet samples from over 20 sites dating to a broad span of time periods from the Neolithic to the historic Liao Dynasty (around 8000 BP to 1000 BP). 

The results indicate that during the Lower Xiajiadian Culture in the second millennium BCE, an intensive agricultural system with high labor input per unit of area was employed, possibly due to the growth of the population during that time. In contrast, during the Upper Xiajiadian and Warring State periods in the first millennium BCE, an extensive system is observed with relatively less labor input per area unit, as documented by depleted soil conditions. The observed pattern corresponded to a period of settlement disaggregation, likely indicating growing pastoral activities in subsistence strategies, as suggested by the material connection with the nomadic groups in the eastern Eurasian Steppe. 

To further articulate the crop management strategies with finer details, I chose to focus my archaeological investigation at Erdaojingzi (ca. 3500 BP), a well-preserved Lower Xiajiadian cultural site. Combined crop processing analysis and stable isotopic analysis demonstrated a household-based economy concerning restricted sharing among family members, resonating with traditional smallholders in ethnographic records. In addition, isotopic and morphological evidence conjointly revealed multi-seasonal harvesting strategy as household-based land tenure ship in the Bronze Age. It is the first time these processes were documented in archaeology with convincing measurables.

Abandoned Women and Boudoir Resentment: The Construction of the Feminine Voice in Early Medieval Chinese Literature

Author: Qiulei Hu

Publisher: Brill

Publication year: 2023

Abstract:

This book studies the formation of the male-constructed conventional voice of women in Chinese literature from the 3rd to 6th century. It highlights specific moments during which the feminine voice became recognized, accepted, and stabilized, including the shift of focus from the performative to the textual in female representations; the formation of a male literary community; the popularity of romanticized historical narratives; and the emerging sense of literary history. This study emphasizes the historicity of the feminine voice and strives to question and challenge established notions about textual stability, authorship, the literary canon, and literary history.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1 A New Type of Gaze and the Rise of the Feminine Voice

Chapter 2 Longing for a Worthy Match: Jian’an Writing about Women and the Beginning of a Poetic Tradition

Chapter 3 Gender, Genre, and Historical Narrative

Chapter 4 Is It a Man or a Woman Speaking? Mapping Gender in Early Texts

Chapter 5 Neglected Voices of Early Medieval Women Writers

Epilogue: Creating the Voice of an Other

[Open Access] Keeping Record: The Materiality of Rulership and Administration in Early China and Medieval Europe

Editors: Abigail S. Armstrong , Matthias J. Kuhn , Jörg Peltzer and Chun Fung Tong

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Publication year: 2024

Abstract:

The production and retention of written records was a common and important facet of pre-modern rulership and administration. Much of our understanding of governmental practices and expressions of authority come from the contents of such documents, which have been well studied. Less studied, however, are the records themselves as artefacts. This volume is an attempt to redress this balance by taking a more holistic, material approach to a range of written records. Through a series of case studies, this volume explores questions regarding the material characteristics of various records and their use. It demonstrates that the material features of the records, including the size and shape, the hands that wrote them and the material substrate, can shed new light on the functioning of government and the declarations of power these records asserted. The ten contributions of this volume focus on records from a variety of rulers, political systems and administrations. With four case studies from early China and six from medieval Europe, this volume offers transcultural perspectives to demonstrate how different cultures expressed rulership and administration materially through the use of text-bearing artefacts.

Table of Contents:

1. A Material Approach to Written Artefacts of Rulership and Administration: An Introduction
   Abigail S. Armstrong, Matthias J. Kuhn, Jörg Peltzer and Chun Fung Tong

2. The Charter Scribes of King Henry III. A Palaeographical Investigation of English Royal Charter Engrossments and Enrolments, 1259–1265
   Andrew Kourris

3. The Scribe and the Witnesses: The Drafting of Witness Lists in the Charters of the Counts of Flanders (1071–1191)
   Romain Waroquier

4. To Write or to Seal? New Evidence on Literacy Practices in Early Imperial China
   Tsang Wing Ma

5. Handwriting in the Official Documents from Liye and Bureaucratic Politics in the Qin Empire
   Maxim Korolkov

6. Between Slip and Tablet. Rulership and Writing Support in Eastern Han China, 25–220 CE
   Chun Fung Tong

7. Record-Keeping on the Estates of the Earls of Northumberland. Drafts, Templates and Innovation?
   Abigail S. Armstrong

8. Layouting Authority. Graphic Reflections of Power Relationships in Early Chinese Administrative Documents
   Enno Giele

9. Enrolling Lines of Power: Yorkist Pedigree Rolls as Material Evidence of Kingship
   Matthias J. Kuhn

10. The Cartulary as a Visual Representation of Rulership. King Henry IV of England (1399–1413) and the Great Cowcher (London, TNA, DL 42/1−2)
    Jörg Peltzer

11. The Power of Bookkeeping in Late Medieval Friedberg and Gelnhausen
    Hanna Nüllen

Link: click here

Peoples of Pingcheng (398-494): Cultural Diversity and Interaction

Editors:

Thomas O. Höllmann & Shing Müller

Publisher:
Harrassowitz

Publication year:
2024

Abstract:

Compared to the later capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Luoyang (494–534), Pingcheng on the northern border of the Chinese world has received less scholarly attention despite its far longer capital status (398–494). The main reason is the lack of written sources. In addition, there is the derogatory idea that Pingcheng was a latifundium inhabited by “barbarians,” since the rulers of the Northern Wei were the Tuoba Xianbei from the eastern steppe, who established the first long-term foreign control over northern China. 

Traditionally, Luoyang is the epitome of the sinicized Tuoba Xianbei, while Pingcheng represents the state of the Tuoba Xianbei who were on the way to “becoming Chinese.” Excavations show that Pingcheng, which was built on the ruins of a garrison from the Han-Dynasty, arose from nothing and the inhabitants came from outside. Burial finds indicate a steadily growing population, which is said to have reached one million in its prime. At first, tombs were erected to indicate their steppe origins. New rites and artifacts emerged in spurts. This corresponds to written records, according to which the city was mainly populated by steppe warriors, followed by forcibly relocated peoples from all conquered northern Chinese regions.

The authors focus on the people(s) in Pingcheng. Zhang’s epigraphic study is devoted to a Xianbei family that arose during the Pingcheng period and remained closely intertwined with the imperial court in the following centuries. Using burial finds, Müller explores the diversity and foreignness of funerary customs and artifacts, the ways in which different ethnic groups communicated and interacted, and the emergence of a new collective identity that was anything but Chinese.

Table of Contents:

Preface

Zhang Qingjie 張慶捷

The Brick Inscriptions of Yifu Mogui 乙弗莫瓌 and Yifu Qiangui 乙弗乾歸 of the Northern Wei Dynasty

Shing Müller

The Inhabitants of Pingcheng (398–494): An Archaeological Survey

Writing and Community in 300 BCE China: The Canonical Poems (Shi) at the Chu Capital of Ying

Author: 
Martin Kern

Publisher:
Brill

Publication year:
2026

Abstract:

Writing and Community in 300 BCE China is the first study to examin

e the anthology of the canonical Poems (Shi 詩) within their social and interpretive community at the ancient capital of Chu. Based on archaeological data and the analysis of recently discovered bamboo manuscripts, it identifies the Poems and other literary texts as the teaching tools of a class of low-ranking intellectuals who served the Chu royal court. From the manuscripts’ visual and literary features it reconstructs the procedures of writing, reading, and teaching at a single time and place: the court of Chu around 300 BCE.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. The Chronology and Geography of Early Shi-Related Manuscripts

2. The Distribution of Literary and Technical Manuscripts in Warring States Finds

3. Literary Manuscripts and Their Agents

4. Material Format, Visuality, and Use of Shi-Related Manuscripts

5. Writing, Vocalization, and the Procedures of Reading in Comparative Perspective

6. Reading the Poems in Manuscripts: Writing, Orality, and the Question of Stability

7. Defining the Canonical: the Poems as Discourse and Social Practice

8. Writing after Interpretation

Conclusion: The Poems as Discourse in Their Interpretive Community at Ying

Appendix: List of the Poems in Warring States Manuscripts from Chu

Silk Roads, Steppe Roads: History Unearthed from the Tombs of Medieval China

Author: Jonathan Karam Skaff

Publication year: 2026

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Abstract:
Silk Roads, Steppe Roads takes the reader on a journey to three sites in northwestern China and Mongolia to investigate medieval Chinese tombs containing evidence of Eastern Eurasian cultural contacts and exchanges. The construction, artifacts, and texts on paper and stone found at these tombs of the Sui (581–618) and early Tang (618–907) dynasties reveal glimpses of people, rituals, and objects that were in motion on the Silk and Steppe roads until being laid to rest over a millennium ago.

Jonathan Karam Skaff shows how the major transit hubs of the Silk and Steppe roads were particularly active sites of cultural contestation, experimentation, and mutual influence that had an impact on the historical development of China and Inner Asia. Challenging the idealized image of the Silk Road, he also examines travel permits and sales contracts that document the trade of enslaved people over the route.

Innovatively drawing on both textual and archaeological sources, Silk Roads, Steppe Roads shows how Eurasian peoples, despite believing their societies to be unique, spun overlapping and entangled webs of culture.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
A Slave Road? Slaves and Slavers at Turfan
Sogdians or Borderlanders? Part I:
Lives Revealed in Epitaphs
Sogdians or Borderlanders? Part II:
Death Rituals Revealed in Tombs
A Tang Dynasty Ally in Ritual and War:
The Tomb of Pugu Yitu (635–678) in Mongolia
Conclusion