[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.

《水的思想：中国古代经典中的水》（Chinese edition of 中国の水の思想）

Author: Kunio Hachiya (蜂屋邦夫)

Publication year: 2026

Publisher: 上海古籍出版社

Abstract:
本书从中国思想史的视角，围绕相关典籍，考察中国古人对“水”的思考。全书分为三部分：一是儒家和道家的水思想，儒家部分主要围绕孔子、孟子、五行思想等展开讨论，道家部分主要以老子、庄子、《淮南子》为中心进行讨论。二是诸子书中的水思想，主要涉及《墨子》《荀子》《吕氏春秋》《管子》《列子》《韩非子》《淮南子》《说苑》等典籍。三是经书中的水思想，涉及《周易》《尚书》《诗经》《周礼》《仪礼》《礼记》《春秋左传》《尔雅》等典籍。采取这种形式能使读者欣赏中国水思想万花筒一般的多样景色，读者可以从任何一章开始阅读，了解中国思想的独特发展。

Table of Contents:
前 言 001

第一章 儒家和道家的水思想 001

第一节　儒家的水思想 003

一、 孔子—逝者如斯夫 003

二、 孟子—犹水之就下 016

三、 水与人的关系 021

四、 五行思想与水 026

第二节　道家的水思想 036

一、 老子—上善若水 036

二、 庄子—明镜止水的境界 045

三、 《淮南子》—描写水的第一流文章 053

四、 发现水之美 057

第二章 诸子书中的水思想 063

第一节　《墨子》—战争与水 065

一、 用水攻击意义上的水 066

二、 水灾意义上的水 070

三、 关于水战 072

四、 守城术中的水 075

第二节　《荀子》——水象征着努力、人民和初始 079

一、 努力的持续积累与水 079

二、 人如水，人心如水 083

三、 初始意义上的水 088

四、 天之道与职分的明确 091

第三节　《吕氏春秋》——从水德王朝的理论到水的谚语 095

一、 天地的生成与河川 095

二、 水德的王朝 098

三、 禹和水的关联 101

四、 渡过大河 105

五、 伊尹辅佐商汤王 109

六、 水的谚语 113

第四节　《管子》—统治的原理与河流的管理 118

一、 水是地的血气，人即是水 119

二、 河流的状态与人的性情 121

三、 营建国都的方法 123

四、 各类河流及其管理 125

第五节　《列子》——水的寓言与道的思想 129

一、 驾船的高手 129

二、 游泳的高手 131

三、 道多则人生迷惑 133

四、 循道而行者 136

五、 国氏之盗 138

第六节　《韩非子》——战争的手段和施政的教训 142

一、 晋阳的水攻 142

二、 宋襄之仁 145

三、 水与施政方法 147

第七节　《淮南子》——水思想的宝库 151

一、 水是至高的存在—《原道训》 151

二、 人的本性犹如水—《俶真训》 155

三、 阴、水、月—《天文训》 161

四、 昆仑的灵水—《地形训》 165

五、 至诚和达观 170

六、 救助溺水者的故事 173

七、 以鱼为例 178

第八节　《说苑》—有关统治术的教导 182

一、 知（智）者乐水 183

二、 溺水者的大志 185

三、 河神作祟 188

四、 与船有关的故事 191

五、 孔子的言论 196

六、 越国的使者 200

七、 鱼的故事两则 201

第三章 经书中的水思想 205

第一节　《周易》——与水有关的占卦 207

一、 利涉大川 209

二、 不利涉大川 211

三、 履霜坚冰至 213

四、 水和大地的关系 216

五、 密云不雨 218

六、 水流而不盈 219

七、 濡其尾，濡其首 222

八、 小狐汔济，濡其尾 224

第二节　《尚书》——关于渡河之难的比喻及实情 227

一、 《洪范》中的水 227

二、 渡大河的艰难 230

三、 周公的雄辩 234

第三节　《诗经》——河川成为诗歌的舞台 238

一、 滔滔黄河 239

二、 黄河水清澈吗？ 243

三、 长江和汉水 245

四、 对淇水的思念 248

第四节　《周礼》——川泽和水渠的管理及官职 251

一、 川泽之图 252

二、 川泽的管理 255

三、 整修水渠和农耕作业 260

四、 修筑田间水渠 262

五、 车的制造 266

六、 弓矢的制造 270

七、 祭祀山川 272

第五节　《仪礼》——从士到王的各类仪式 275

一、 玄酒的定位 276

二、 沐浴的重要性 283

三、 对诸神的祭祀 287

第六节　《礼记》——礼的详细规定和理论 290

一、 水与季节 290

二、 水与政治 298

三、 漱口、洗手和净身 301

四、 对沐浴的规定 305

五、 死者沐浴 307

六、 服丧中沐浴 309

第七节　《春秋左氏传》——关于大河、洪水、暴雨和雩祭的记事 312

一、 黄河的重要性 313

二、 向河流发誓 318

三、 洪水及其应对策略 325

四、 关于雨、雪、雹的记录 332

五、 干旱和祈雨 333

第八节　《尔雅》——对水的相关语汇的解说 336

一、 涌流而出的水 337

二、 流动的水 344

三、 河中的居住地—州、渚、沚、坻、潏 348

四、 渡河 357

Ancient Wisdoms for Modern Crises Learning From Laozi's "Daodejing"

Author: Steve Hallett

Abstract: We live in a time of abundance and comfort for some, scarcity and hardship for others—a period that seems to have all of us teetering on the brink. Certainly, there is no lack of modern crises, but do we possess the wisdom to overcome them, and where might we seek that wisdom? 

Ancient Wisdoms for Modern Crises: Learning From Laozi’s “Daodejing” looks to the Daodejing, a text written during the late Zhou Dynasty (600–400 BCE), for guidance. One of the core treatises of Eastern philosophy, it advocates humility, simplicity, and sustainable living. As both a personal and political philosophy, it is radically gentle, encouraging readers to embrace humility, modesty, compassion, and selflessness while simultaneously resisting the urge to conquer, control, and dominate—teachings that can help each of us navigate contemporary life. 

Finding solutions to such difficult problems requires all the wisdom, ancient and modern, that humans can muster. Replete with the author’s fresh translation of the eighty-one-verse Daodejing, this book touches on topics ranging from environmentalism and human suffering to biodiversity loss and the rise of authoritarianism in an effort to forge a more restrained, sustainable, just, supportive, and compassionate society.

Table of Contents:
Prologue: Wise Ancients?
1. The Ways of Nature
2. Emergence
3. The Ways of People
4. Shape the Path
5. The Ways of the Mind
6. Meetings of the Minds
The Daodejing of Laozi

The Evolving Landscape of Inquiry: Climate’s Growing Importance in Reconstructing Ancient China

Authors:
Yitzchak Jaffe, Andrew Womack, and Anke Hein

Publication date: 2025

Abstract: This paper examines the growth of climate change discussions in narratives concerning the development and evolution of human societies in Ancient China over the past two decades. This shift reflects climate’s ascension from a marginal factor to a central player in reconstructions of past human actions and societies. We provide an overview of the expanding research on ancient human–climate interactions in China’s prehistory and early history, emphasizing the increasing importance attached to climate as a major player in the rise and, significantly, the collapse of these societies. Through a meta-analysis of publication trends in the last two decades, we identify the chronological periods and topics where climate has come to be interpreted as having a notable impact.

Link: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/8/4/125

Environmental Equity in China and Beyond: Past, Present, and Future

Authors: Michael Nylan, Thomas Hahn

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Publication year: 2026

Abstract:

Together they explore the environment in the Chinese philosophical tradition and contemporary China through the lens of intergenerational justice. Nylan's analysis of lesser known texts from ancient China changes our thinking of Chinese political philosophy and legal antiquity codes. Hahn's comprehensive overview of recent data from China offers a response to the present crisis. Their original approach underscores why environmentalism is always more than a Western issue.

By applying ancient ideas to an urgent topic with a unique emphasis on East Asia, this one-of-a-kind guide to environmental thought challenges standard narratives. It is essential reading for anyone looking to understand how classical Chinese concepts can provide the necessary tools to improve how we think about the world we live in.

Table of Contents:

1. Anglo-American Law

2. Early Empires in China

3. Intergenerational Equity

4. Seasonality and Health for the Body Politic

5. Outlines Policymaking in the PRC

Conclusion

[Dissertation] Philological Botany: The Poetics of Plant Classification in Early China and Japan

Author:

Loren Waller

School:

Yale University

Year:

2023

30312999

Abstract: 

Flowering plants are a primary topic in Chinese and Japanese poetry, often used figuratively to express human emotions. Over time, as poets alluded to earlier works, these plants developed conventional metaphorical meanings. It is natural that such meanings would shift over time, but what is also striking is that historical understandings of the plants themselves, as well as the names used for the plants, also changed over time. An examination of three case studies will show how the identities of these plants changed over time as they were collected within literary texts and commentaries.
Chapter 1 on the hibiscus (Ch. mujin; J. asagaho, kikkyō, kenikoshi, mukuge) demonstrates the broad diversity of different flowers that share the same name, as well as the references to this ambiguity within some poetic works themselves. This chapter also introduces the complexity of the textual commentary tradition and considers how texts may be interpreted through reading between the lines of commentaries on literary works.

Chapter 2 on the orange tree (Ch. ju; J. tachibana) shows how the trope of regional loyalty to southern China changed as it was adopted in Japan. More than other plants with a shared cultural heritage between China and Japan, the Japanese tachibana developed dominant allusive connotations based on a well-known poem in the Kokinwakashū (905). Still, Chinese examples were not unknown in Japan, and it is productive to consider how Japanese texts might be reinterpreted considering alternative pretexts.

Chapter 3 on the plum looks at how a plant marked as representative of China became domesticated in Japan over time. While there are no plum poems in the Kojiki (712), Nihonshoki (720), or the early period of the Man’yōshū, plum poems and banquets suddenly became popular around the time of a well-known plum banquet at the residence of Ōtomo no Tabito in 730, making plums the second most popular plant in the Man’yōshū poetic anthology. The proliferation was so thorough that plum poems were anachronistically attributed to earlier times. The most extreme case was one commentary’s claim that the plum was the subject of the famous Naniwazu poem, which was also associated with an encounter with a Wani, a scribe from Paekche who was said to have brought writing in Japan in the early fifth century. Another wonderous tale of the plum is the famous flying plum of the apotheosized statesman-poet Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), whose plum tree from Kyoto uprooted and flew to be with him when he was exiled to Dazaifu. Such narratives show how the plum could be seen as a representative Japanese plant.

In addition to tracing the literary history of these important plant tropes, this study also offers cases studies of how plant metaphors are used in cases when the identities of the plants themselves change over time, between languages, or between genres.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Chapter 1. Of the Hibiscus and Fleeting Faces
Chapter 2. Of Orange Trees and Transplantation
Chapter 3. Of Plums and Origins

[Dissertation] The Politics of Ecological Memory: Changes in Human-Animal Relationships from the Neolithic to Early Bronze Age in the Middle Huai River Valley, Anhui Province, China

Author: 

Ko, Wing Tung Jada

School: 

Harvard University

Year: 

2022

Abstract:

In the world we currently live in, we hear about the loss of a slice of biodiversity almost every day. Meanwhile, stories about the repopulation and even overpopulation of some species make us question why certain living organisms are more susceptible to extinction than the others. While not a single explanation or narrative characterizes the disappearance of an infinite array of life forms, as a zooarchaeologist whose work involves bringing back to our living memories animals that no longer exist or no longer exist in their archaic forms, I cannot help but wonder if the survival of a species has anything to do with how it is conceptualized and remembered by human societies. 

My dissertation dissects the meanings, implications, and workings of what I have coined the Politics of Ecological Memory to address this concern. The term deals with the intersections between power dynamics, social memory, and human-animal relationships. It highlights the correlations between the political means by which certain animals are (to be) remembered, the survival of these animals, and the socio-cultural developments and survival of human societies. I argue that the Politics of Ecological Memory is a ubiquitous process in societies at different socio-political scales in both the present and the past, and bring together zooarchaeological analyses with historical and ethnographic research to reconstruct the longue durée of human interactions with animals and the environments within which they live, with a focus in the geo-political boundaries defining China today. 

The central focus of empirical discussions concerns archaeofaunal datasets from three archaeological sites namely Xiaosungang (5200-4800 B.C.), Nanchengzi (3100-1450 B.C.), and Taijiasi (1400-1250 B.C.) located in the middle reaches of the Huai River in Anhui Province. Using these data, I reconstruct the processes by which animals were transformed from inherent members of the biosphere to mnemonic devices that served the needs to construct and sustain different forms of power relations among and between societies. Through these processes, many animals were extracted and anthropogenically reproduced to maintain stable sources of social power. Rather than a linear narrative about how animals are remembered and serve similar political functions, I demonstrate through zooachaeological and historical evidence that the political significance of animals is constantly invented and re-invented, and can even be completely forgotten as human and animal niches overlap. I conclude the dissertation by providing the example of the changing roles various species of freshwater turtles played in China through time to point out how, despite changes in political agendas since prehistory in relation to which these animals were attributed with changing social values, these changes can have lingering effects on the survival of the animals in the long-run. 

This dissertation is an attempt to not only begin a conversation questioning how social memory and politics affect the integrity of the biosphere from the perspective of zooarchaeology, but also provide answers to the question “what it means to lose a species?” particularly in the world we live in today.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction: Embracing my Inner Biophilia

Chapter 2 The Becoming of a Political Animal

Chapter 3 Visualizing the Anhui Middle Huai River Valley (AMHRV)

Chapter 4 The Beginning of a Political Relationship with the Biosphere in the AMHRV:

Zooarchaeological Analysis of Xiaosungang (5200-4600 B.C.)

Chapter 5 Growing Interactions Beyond the AMHRV: Zooarchaeological Analysis of

Nanchengzi (3100-1450 B.C.)

Chapter 6 Animals as Local Sources of State Power: Zooarchaeological Analysis of Taijiasi

(1400-1250 B.C.)

Chapter 7 Pathways to the Politics of Ecological Memory in the AMHRV

Chapter 8 Turtles and their Changing Roles in the AMHRV and Beyond

Chapter 10 Conclusions: Stepping Back into Nature

The Buddha’s Footprint: An environmental history of Asia

Author:
Johan Elverskog

Publication year:
2020

Publisher:
University of Pennsylvania Press

Abstract:
In the current popular imagination, Buddhism is often understood to be a religion intrinsically concerned with the environment. The Dharma, the name given to Buddhist teachings by Buddhists, states that all things are interconnected. Therefore, Buddhists are perceived as extending compassion beyond people and animals to include plants and the earth itself out of a concern for the total living environment. In The Buddha's Footprint, Johan Elverskog contends that only by jettisoning this contemporary image of Buddhism as a purely ascetic and apolitical tradition of contemplation can we see the true nature of the Dharma. According to Elverskog, Buddhism is, in fact, an expansive religious and political system premised on generating wealth through the exploitation of natural resources.

Elverskog surveys the expansion of Buddhism across Asia in the period between 500 BCE and 1500 CE, when Buddhist institutions were built from Iran and Azerbaijan in the west, to Kazakhstan and Siberia in the north, Japan in the east, and Sri Lanka and Indonesia in the south. He examines the prosperity theology at the heart of the Dharma that declared riches to be a sign of good karma and the means by which spritiual status could be elevated through donations bequeathed to Buddhist institutions. He demonstrates how this scriptural tradition propelled Buddhists to seek wealth and power across Asia and to exploit both the people and the environment.

Elverskog shows the ways in which Buddhist expansion not only entailed the displacement of local gods and myths with those of the Dharma—as was the case with Christianity and Islam—but also involved fundamentally transforming earlier social and political structures and networks of economic exchange. The Buddha's Footprint argues that the institutionalization of the Dharma was intimately connected to agricultural expansion, resource extraction, deforestation, urbanization, and the monumentalization of Buddhism itself.

Table of Contents:
Preface
Introduction
Part I. What the Buddha Taught
1. The Buddha
2. Buddhism(s)
3. Buddhists
4. Wealth
5. Consumption
Part II. What Buddhists Did
6. The Spread of Buddhism
7. The Commodity Frontier
8. Agricultural Expansion
9. Urbanization
10. The Buddhist Landscape
Conclusion

The King's Harvest: A Political Ecology of China from the First Farmers to the First Empire

Author:

Brian Lander

Publisher:

Yale University Press

Publication date:

November 30, 2021

Abstract:

This book is a multidisciplinary study of the ecology of China’s early political systems up to the fall of the first empire in 207 BCE. Brian Lander traces the formation of lowland North China’s agricultural systems and the transformation of its plains from diverse forestland and steppes to farmland. He argues that the growth of states in ancient China, and elsewhere, was based on their ability to exploit the labor and resources of those who harnessed photosynthetic energy from domesticated plants and animals. Focusing on the state of Qin, Lander amalgamates abundant new scientific, archaeological, and excavated documentary sources to argue that the human domination of the central Yellow River region, and the rest of the planet, was made possible by the development of complex political structures that managed and expanded agroecosystems.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. The Nature of Political Power

2. Seeds of Life: How People Came to Build Their Own Ecosystems

3. Herding People: The Rise of Political Organizations in China

4. The Power in the West: A History of the State of Qin

5. Watching Over the Granaries: The Ecology of the Qin Empire

6. A Hundred Generations: How China's Empires Shaped Their Environments

Epilogue: States of the Anthropocene

Early China 43 (2020) 《古代中國》第43期

 

Table of Contents:
Letter from the Editor
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Sarah Allan 

主編的信

艾蘭

Articles
QIAN 謙 IN EARLY CHINESE THOUGHT
Doil Kim 

中國古代思想中的“謙”

金渡鎰

A DREAM OF THE SELF: IDENTITY IN THE “INNER CHAPTERS” OF THE ZHUANGZI
Matthew James Hamm

自我之夢：《莊子·內篇》中的“身份”問題

安天皓

REVEALING CONTINGENCY THROUGH SHUN'S 舜 ASCENSION TO THE THRONE
Youngsun Back

對舜即位故事的各種解釋和其“命”有關的研究

白英宣

CAPTURING THE WORLD IN WORDS: LATER MOHIST HERMENEUTIC THEORIES ON LANGUAGE AND DISPUTATION
Erica F. Brindley

以語言把握世界：後期墨家的語言與辯論的詮釋學理論

錢德樑

 
INTRODUCING THE *WU ZE YOU XING TU MANUSCRIPT FROM MAWANGDUI
Luke Waring

馬王堆《物則有形圖》概述

康路華

WHAT THE ELITES ACTUALLY WORE IN 500–300 B.C.E. CHINA: EVIDENCE FROM TEXTILES, BAMBOO, AND BRONZES
Kin Sum (Sammy) Li

公元前500-300年中國的精英穿甚麼：紡織物、竹器、銅器的證據

李建深

BIRDS AND BEASTS WERE MANY: THE ECOLOGY AND CLIMATE OF THE GUANZHONG BASIN IN THE PRE-IMPERIAL PERIOD
Brian Lander

禽獸衆：先秦時期關中盆地的生態與氣候

蘭德

WOMEN'S ROLE IN THE PRODUCTION AND SALE OF ALCOHOL IN HAN CHINA AS REFLECTED IN TOMB ART FROM SICHUAN
Hajni Elias

四川漢墓藝術品裡所見漢代釀酒與販售中的女性角色

薛好佩

WANG CHONG'S FATALISM
Yunwoo Song

王充的宿命論

宋允宇

Bibliography
DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS
Compiled by Wen-Yi Huang

博士論文提要

黃文儀彙編

ANNUAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Compiled by Wen-Yi Huang

年度論著目錄

黃文儀彙編

[Dissertation] Weathering History: Storms, State, and Society in South China since the Fifth Century CE

Author:
Alejandrino, Clark L.

School:
Georgetown University

Defended:
2019

Abstract:

My dissertation looks at typhoons in the history of the richest, most populous, and most typhoon-prone province of China: Guangdong. It considers political, social, cultural, and environmental aspects of typhoons from the fifth to the twentieth century and argues that successive states and generations of Chinese that occupied the province’s littoral regarded it as a "typhoon space." The real and perceived vulnerability of the Guangdong littoral inspired efforts at community- and state-building that had many consequences. In exploring the deep consciousness of storms and the social structures they inspired in a major part of China, I will contribute to both climate history and Chinese history by reimagining the spatial frameworks within which we study human interactions with the environment.

My project takes seriously the constructed nature of the Guangdong littoral as a "typhoon space" and its location in a tropical cyclone basin, arguing that its perceived vulnerability to storms across centuries was as influential in shaping its history as was the destructive force of the storms that so often came ashore. By delineating specific spaces where climatic phenomena have a deep influence on human society and culture, my project facilitates the reimagining of China, and even the world, as consisting of discrete, but at times overlapping, climate spaces. These, crucially, would not be the same as climate regions as understood by climatologists and enshrined in countless maps. Rather, they would be based both on climatic phenomena and social, cultural, and political structures that evolved to cope with climate features. Since climate spaces do not neatly coincide with the nation, province, or other familiar spatial categories, my project invites a rethinking of space in Chinese history and more globally in environmental history. Thinking in terms of climate spaces also eases comparisons by providing a common language for speaking about similar phenomena across the globe. For example, we can think of typhoon spaces in the Western Pacific and hurricane spaces in the Caribbean as comparable "storm spaces" within a transnational history of wind, water, risk, and response. It is my hope that reimagining coastal China as a typhoon space and thinking more broadly in terms of climate spaces may serve as catalysts for advancing both global environmental history and the underdeveloped field of Chinese climate history.

The East Asian World-System: Climate and Dynastic Change

Author:
Eugene N. Anderson

Publisher:
Springer

Publication date:
June 2019

Abstract:
This book studies the East Asian world-system and its dynastic cycles as they were influenced by climate and demographic change, diseases, the expansion of trade, and the rise of science and technology. By studying the history of East Asia until the beginning of the 20th century and offering a comparative perspective on East Asian countries, including China, Japan and Korea, it describes the historical evolution of the East Asian world-system as being the result of good or poor management of the respective populations and environments. Lastly, the book discusses how the East Asian regions have become integrated into a single world-system by a combination of trade, commerce, and military action. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars of history, sociology, political science and environmental studies, and to anyone interested in learning about the effects of climate change on the dynamic development of societies. 

Table of Contents:

Theoretical Overview

Cycles and Cycling

Before Empire: State Formation in China and Proto-states Elsewhere

The Creation of Stable Dynastic Empires in East and Southeast Asia

High Empire: The Glory Days of Early Medieval Eastern Asia

The Rise of Central Asia: 
Coastal Golden Ages Increasingly Threatened by Conquest Dynasties from the Deep Interior

The Mongol Conquests of China and Korea and Invasion of Japan

Long-Lived Dynasties: Ming and Its Contemporaries

The Early Modern Period in the East Asian World-System

Lessons: Factors Driving the Rise and Fall of Dynasties

Comparisons: Cycles and Empires in Agrarian Worlds

What East Asia’s Dynamics Teach Us about Climate, Society, and Change in the Modern and Future World

The Ecological Era and Classical Chinese Naturalism: A Case Study of Tao Yuanming

Author:
Shuyuan Lu

Publication date:
2017

Publisher: 
Springer

Abstract:

Reflecting the currently growing eco-movement, this book presents to western readers Tao Yuanming, an ancient Chinese poet, as a representative of classical oriental natural philosophy who offered lived experience of “dwelling poetically on earth.” Drawing on Derrida’s specter theory, it interprets Tao Yuanming in a postmodern and eco-critical context, while also exploring his naturalist “kindred spirits” in other countries, so as to urge the people of today to contemplate their own existence and pursuits. The book’s “panoramic” table of contents offers readers a wonderful reading experience.

Table of Contents:
Tao Yuanming and the Meta-question of Humanity
Tao Yuanming’s Natural Philosophy
Tao Yuanming and Naturalistic Romanticism
The Evolving Perception of Nature and the Death of Tao Yuanming
The Specter of Tao and the Plights of Contemporary Human Existence
Conclusion: The Last Sacrifice and the Evocation

[Dissertation] Biological Classification in Early Chinese Dictionaries and Glossaries: from Fish to Invertebrates and Vice Versa

Author:
Federico Valenti

School:
Università degli Studi di Sassari

Defended:
2018

Abstract:
This dissertation problematises the classification of chong 蟲 (invertebrates) and yu 魚 (fish) in Early Chinese texts. The loci classici analysed will range from the Warring States (ca. 453 – 221 BCE) to the Eastern Han period (dong Han 東漢, 25 – 220 CE). The focus is on the lexical ambiguity between these two zoological categories: despite being perceived as different, they include a more or less loose set of “dynamic” words that shift from one category to the other.

The project concentrates on two early Chinese texts: the Erya 爾雅 (III century BCE) and the Shuowen jiezi 説文解字 (100 CE). These works had a pivotal role during the development of Chinese lexicography and gave the lexical basis of later texts. They are also the first texts that deal with the problem of taxonomical classification in Early China.

By systematically applying a philological approach (Coblin 1972, Carr 1979) to a selection of zoological glosses preserved in these sources, this study aims at reformulating the way in which early Chinese “proto-zoological categories” are organised (Needham 1986, Sterckx 2002). Through the analysis of selected case studies, it aims at showing that even if there are fairly well attested categories that constitute a dichotomous system (such as “quadrupeds” versus “winged creatures” or “wild beasts” versus “domestic animals”), Early Chinese taxonomies represent a dynamic and unstable attempt at zoological classification for what we call today “fish” and “invertebrates”.

[Dissertation] Towards a Human Ecology of the North China Plain: Geoarchaeological Perspectives on Holocene Landscape Evolution

Author:
Michael Storozum

School:
Washington University in St. Louis

Defended:
2017

Abstract:
Archaeologists have traditionally called the North China Plain the heartland of Chinese civilization and focused much of their investigations on the progression of archaeological culture groups. However, this focus on culture history has often come at the expense of simplifying the complex interactions societies have had with their environments. In this dissertation, I discuss the ways in which archaeologists can use geological concepts and methods to better understand human-environmental interactions. I support this argument with two case studies of archaeological significance along the course of the Yellow River. One study focuses on a sediment source, the Luoyang Basin in western Henan Province, the other, a sediment sink in Neihuang County, Henan Province. These studies demonstrate that humans played a large role in shaping the hydrology of the Yellow River and smaller tributary streams since the late Bronze Age around three thousand years ago. Human influence on sedimentary and fluvial systems becomes increasingly apparent during China’s Imperial Age (ca. AD 200–1200). By using geological methods and concepts, scientists can understand how humans have shaped the much of the North China Plain.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Geoarchaeology in China
Chapter 3 The Luoyang Basin: A Sediment Source
Chapter 4 Anshang: A Sediment Sink
Chapter 5 Conclusions

馬が語る古代東アジア世界史

Editors:
鶴間和幸 (Kazuyuki Tsuruma) & 村松弘一 (Muramatsu, Koichi)

Publication Date:
February 2018

Publisher:
汲古書院

Table of Contents:

序  村松弘一

第一章　　車の起源と発展  林　俊雄

第二章　　中国の四輪馬車  濱川　栄

第三章　　秦始皇帝陵出土銅車馬に見る馬の制御システム（講演録） 鶴間和幸

第四章　　中国古代の馬の管理と漢代墓葬装飾  菅野恵美

第五章　　「生きた礼器」としての馬
    ──殷王朝後期における馬利用の本格的開始と「馬の道」──  久慈大介

第六章　　秦国の馬匹生産──考古科学からのアプローチ──  菊地大樹・覚張隆史

第七章　　秦漢時代関中平原・黄土高原の環境と馬
    ──漢代厩牧システムの形成と崩壊──   村松弘一

第八章　　漢代の関所における馬の通行規制とその実態
    ──肩水金関漢簡の分析から──  青木俊介

第九章　　新羅の馬と牧場（講演録） 李　相勲

第十章　　北朝後期の軍馬供給──洛陽遷都後の北魏から北斉期を中心に──  吉田　愛

第十一章　唐前半期における馬の域外調達──宦官「劉元尚墓誌」を中心に──  福島　恵

第十二章　唐代・日本古代の馬と交通制度──日唐厩牧令の比較から── 河野保博

第十三章　唐代の朝貢品・回賜品に見る馬  河野剛彦

第十四章　南宋臨安における馬の利用  原　瑠美

第十五章　ウマが持つ生物学的な特徴  川嶋　舟

後書き  鶴間和幸

中国古代史研究 第八：創立七十周年記念論文集

Editor:
中国古代史研究会

Publisher:
研文

Publication Date:
November 2017

Table of Contents:

巻頭文

中国古代史研究会発足時の思い出 佐藤武敏

第三論文集刊行のころ 小倉芳彦

論文

里耶秦簡の治獄について 池田雄一

統万城と代来城の地理的関係から見る匈奴鉄弗部の活動範囲 市来弘志

李柏文書の性格をめぐってー李柏文書断片群を中心に 伊藤敏雄

南陽の六門陂をめぐって 大川裕子

秦漢簡牘史料再考二題 太田幸男

中国古代国家論 楠山修作

戦国封君ー王権構造の一側面 小林伸二

刖者の力ー古代中国における門番についての一試論 齋藤道子

那珂通世の中国通史認識 佐藤武敏

中国古代の養生思想 清水浩子

殷王朝の集権機能ー武丁期を中心に 末次信行

中国古代の家族墓地ーその構成と配列について 高浜侑子

『群書治要』所引の二篇の『中論』佚文について 多田狷介

『尚書引義』にみえる王夫之の『詩経』論 富田美智江

出土資料「堪輿」考 名和敏光

古代中国における経済地理的境域区分について 原宗子

伏氏考 藤川和俊

『史記』平準書の歴史観ー八書の意図をめぐって 藤田勝久

漢代の救恤政策についてー『罷●』を中心として 藤田忠

『農言著実』からみた華北農業ー陜西省三原県農業調査記 村上陽子

放馬灘秦簡「日書」に見える音律占について 森和

中国古代における鳩の表象 矢島明希子

簡牘にみえる帰義について 山元貴尚

資料

写真╱中国古代史研究会の歩み 佐藤佑治╱あとがき╱執筆者紹介

環境から解く古代中国

Author:
Hara Motoko (原宗子) 

Publication Year:
2009

Publisher:
Taishukan, Tokyo

Abstract:

曹操を有利にした気温の変化とは？　「酒池肉林」が批判された本当の理由とは？　―『史記』『論語』『三国志』をはじめ、有名古典を「環境」の観点から読むことで、「森林伐採」「リサイクル」「公共事業の失敗」など現代にも通じる「環境問題」や、人と自然の関わりが、歴史をどのように動かしてきたかが見えてくる。

Table of Contents:

はじめに

本書中の主な史跡位置略図

第一話　「象」という字は、なぜできた？――殷周期の気候変動
　　漢字が映す動物たち／温暖だった華北／殷王の狩猟の記録／犠牲と酒

第二話　「七月」が詠う冬支度――西周期の黄土高原
　　『詩経』の中の“数え歌”／★風（ひんぷう）とは／住まいと食べ物／衣服

第三話　孔子の愛弟子・子路のバンカラの秘密――春秋～漢の毛皮観
　　毛皮を着る人・着ない人／毛皮コート作りの専門集団／
　　「末業」と呼ばれて／禁苑の野獣ランク／
　　『礼記』玉藻の動物観／狐狢って何？

第四話　「株を守る」のウラ事情――戦国期中原の開発と鉄器
　　なぜにハタケに木の根っこ／宋という国柄／春秋初期の耕地整備
　　ウサギはどこから？／東アジア農業の「大変」さ／
　　「株を守る」の出現条件

第五話　ホントは怖い（？）「一村一品」政策――春秋～漢代の斉の特殊性
　　古代の居住空間／斉の自然環境と社会構成／
　　『管子』が語る斉の国造りと衣類／軽重の策／孟軻の斉国滞在と観察／
　　『管子』思想の影響

第六話　合従連衡は、異文化同盟？――戦国秦漢期、北方・燕の環境
　　弁舌で作る天下の形勢／お世辞の中身／「黄腸題湊」／
　　漢帝国初期の多様な環境／交易された品々／合従策の実態

第七話　スパイ鄭国の運命―秦の中国統一と大規模灌漑
　　「統一」事業完成のいきさつ／「澤鹵」の出現した場所／古代の「環境破壊」／
　　「澤鹵」利用法の逆転ウラ技―イナ作／鄭国のラッキーポイント

第八話　司馬相如のカノジョはイモ娘？――秦漢期・四川に生きる心意気
　　オシャレ文士のバツイチ獲得作戦／卓文君の実像は？／卓文君のご先祖／
　　卓氏のもくろみ／鉄作りで生きる条件／イモから生まれた卓文君

第九話　「公共事業」は昔も今も……――漢・武帝期の大規模灌漑と後遺症
　　ドロは確かに肥沃だけれど……／畑作灌漑の盲点―再生アルカリ化／
　　代田法―再開発の秘策／白渠の記載の意義

第十話　“帰順”匈奴のベンチャービジネス
　　　　――漢代の「ペットボトル」と大狩猟イベント
　　古代中国の携帯容器／『氾勝之書』の農法／匈奴と漢の関係／
　　藁街の住人たち／多肥料農業の経営者／ヒョウタンで稼ぐ、という発想

第十一話　海と女と酒と「叛乱」―王莽・新の税制と環境
　　　海が支えた日本の農業／海の男のサボタージュ／王莽の新規税制／
　　「海に入る」呂母たち／「海辺」の色々／呂母の出自

第十二話　戦国男の夢実現（?!）―漢代シルクロードを支えた「内助の功」
　　孟子の理想社会／秦漢期男性の家事能力／桑弘羊の経済政策／
　　精耕細作と擬似森林／絹織物生産普及の余波

第十三話　曹操も手こずった黄河の凍結――魏晋南北朝期の気温変化と戦法
　　『三国志』の舞台は寒かった／曹操の勢力確立／黄河凍結／
　　寒くなって移動した人々／気温変化が変えた暮らし／鮮卑族や匈奴の凍結対応

第十四話　均田制、もう一つの貌――五胡から唐宋期の樹木観
　　土地を「支給」する法令の中身は？／北魏・均田制の特質／植樹の伝統／
　　唐宋樹木観“変革”期（?!）

第十五話　「貧困の黄土高原」はなぜできた――明清・中華帝国の光と影
　　華北の樹木消失のいきさつ／カラホトの悲劇／山西・太原付近の養蚕衰退／
　　中国の環境推移の流れ

あとがき

[Dissertation] Culture Change and Imperial Incorporation in Early China: An Archaeological Study of the Middle Han River Valley (ca. 8th century BCE - 1st century CE)

Author:
Glenda E. Chao

Thesis Advisor:
Li, Feng

School:
Columbia University

Defended:
2017

Abstract:

This dissertation analyzes historical and archaeological evidence of culture change and the effects of state and imperial expansion on local communities to show that early Chinese cultural history is enriched when commoners are taken into account. I do this by focusing on heretofore unexamined evidence in the middle Han river valley of north-central Hubei province in early China during the 8th century BCE to the 1strd century CE. I argue that this was a particularly important region because it was an important crossroads where multiple polities interacted in the period between the fall of the Western Zhou state and the rise of China’s first empires, the Qin and the Han. 

Traditional historiography attributes culture change during this period and in this region to the imposition of a holistic set of customs by elites representing state or imperial power on newly conquered lands. The sources used and analyses employed are disproportionately derived from elite contexts. As a result, current historical narratives privilege elite views of culture and society. By contrast, my dissertation employs a methodology that utilizes newly excavated archaeological data to enrich extant narratives of the early cultural history of this region. I do this in two ways. First, I interweave archaeological evidence of ordinary peoples’ cultural practices into the dominant political and social histories of the era. Second, I focus on the middle Han river area as a geographical crossroads that was as culturally complex as frontier regions, a perspective rarely taken in traditional studies of early China. 

Chapter 1 lays out the three-tiered theoretical and methodological framework of the dissertation. I first outline theories of culture change in ancient colonial encounters, derived from anthropological discourse, and that can be utilized to understand my novel data. I then describe how archaeologists utilize material evidence of past funerary rituals, which form the bulk of my data, to study culture change. Finally, I talk about the quantitative methods through which I render the archaeological data intelligible to interpretation. 

In Chapter 2, I engage with the third and narrowest tier of my methodology by using assemblage theory as the basis for archaeological periodization of funerary ceramics at Bianying 卞營 cemetery. This method takes as its premise the idea that the appearance of new ceramic types and the disappearance of others, signify moments of change due either to incoming practices or internal development, when the social and cultural affiliations of the community of mourners came under question, thus, allowing for the assertion and negotiation of emergent cultural identities. 

In Chapter 3, I use exploratory data analyses to identify meaningful patterns in the seven chronological periods identified in Chapter 2. In interpreting these patterns, I explain how, within the realm of funerary ritual, the introduction of new cultural practices into Xiangyang engendered the formation of hybrid culture at Bianying, and how the active agency of the local population was expressed through this process. 

In Chapter 4, I employ these previous analyses in returning to the level of culture change in order to build a more robust model of cultural hybridity in early imperial China. To do this, I analyze the more rural and idiosyncratic cemetery of Wangpo 王坡, located four kilometers north of Bianying. I use the evidence of hybridized burial practices at Wangpo to show how my model destabilizes accepted analytical categories and, thereby, allows new narratives of early imperial history in China to emerge, narratives that bring the discipline into dialogue with the study of other regions of the ancient world. 

In Chapter 5, I construct a new history of cultural formation in Xiangyang. I do this by interweaving the archaeological narrative outlined in chapters 2 through 4 with textual evidence drawn from bronze inscriptions, excavated texts, and transmitted historical records. I reconcile contradictions between the archaeological and textual records by tacking back and forth between these two categories of source materials, treating both as different facets of the same story. In doing so, I present a holistic narrative of elite political designs on Xiangyang and its effects on locals, arguing that both groups mutually constructed one another in forming what we now know to be early imperial China. This work has important implications for further research by demonstrating the value of making more nuanced use of newly excavated material to reinvigorate the genre of regional history in China.


** Thank Dr. Albert Galvany for sharing this information

[Dissertation] Bioarchaeology of Adaptation to Climate Change in Ancient Northwest China

Author:
Berger, Elizabeth S.

School: 
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Advisor: 
Dale Hutchinson

Defended:
2017

Abstract:

The 4000 BP climate event was a time of dramatic change, including a cooling and drying climate and the emergence of pastoral practices and a distinct cultural identity across northern Eurasia. However, the link between the climatic changes and the cultural changes has not yet been thoroughly explored. This dissertation therefore assesses human biological measures such as frailty, physiological stress, and nutritional status to ask whether late Holocene climate
change precipitated a crisis and collapse of subsistence practices, as has been claimed.

The dissertation employs the theoretical framework of the “adaptive cycle,” an understanding of complex systems that incorporates both change and continuity. The dissertation asks whether the Bronze Age transition, in which humans adapted to the arid climate of the second and first millennia BCE, constituted a “collapse” or “transformational adaptation,” in which the human-environment system changed categorically; or an “incremental adaptation,” in which defining system elements persisted with only peripheral changes. Skeletal samples from six populations (spanning 2600-221 BCE) were examined for bioarchaeological markers of oral health, nonspecific infectious lesions, trauma, stature, and fertility. There was broad continuity and some improvement in population health measures in the Bronze Age study populations, with a decline in health in the Iron Age groups. Bronze Age subsistence systems therefore seem to have been resilient enough to adapt to the new climate, while the sociopolitical conditions of the Iron Age led to poorer health outcomes.

The Bronze Age transition has often been described in terms of “collapse,” and by critically engaging with this narrative, the current project demonstrates that the transition in fact entailed an incremental adaptation, rather than a collapse. These findings also point to how sociocultural factors can serve as a buffer against environmental stressors in some groups, while themselves serving as stressors in others.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction and Background
Chapter 2 Theory and Method
Chapter 3 Qinghai Plateau: a mid-altitude temperate loess zone
Chapter 4 Hexi Corridor: a cold steppe and desert zone
Chapter 5 Loess plateau: a temperate loess zone
Chapter 6 Discussion and conclusions