Ancient Central China provides an up-to-date synthesis of archaeological discoveries in the upper and middle Yangzi River region of China, including the Three Gorges Dam reservoir zone. It focuses on the Late Neolithic (late third millennium BC) through the end of the Bronze Age (late first millennium BC) and considers regional and interregional cultural relationships in light of anthropological models of landscape. Rowan K. Flad and Pochan Chen show that centers and peripheries of political, economic and ritual activities were not coincident, and that politically peripheral regions such as the Three Gorges were crucial hubs in interregional economic networks, particularly related to prehistoric salt production. The book provides detailed discussions of recent archaeological discoveries and data from the Chengdu Plain, Three Gorges and Hubei to illustrate how these various components of regional landscape were configured across Central China.
Ancient Central China provides an up-to-date synthesis of archaeological discoveries in the upper and middle Yangzi River region of China, including the Three Gorges Dam reservoir zone. It focuses on the Late Neolithic (late third millennium BC) through the end of the Bronze Age (late first millennium BC) and considers regional and interregional cultural relationships in light of anthropological models of landscape. Rowan K. Flad and Pochan Chen show that centers and peripheries of political, economic and ritual activities were not coincident, and that politically peripheral regions such as the Three Gorges were crucial hubs in interregional economic networks, particularly related to prehistoric salt production. The book provides detailed discussions of recent archaeological discoveries and data from the Chengdu Plain, Three Gorges and Hubei to illustrate how these various components of regional landscape were configured across Central China.
The first three of the 14 articles examine Chinese historical sources for information about Chinese relations with the west and about the internal history of those regions. Others deal with identifyin
The subject of sex was central to early Chinese thought. Discussed openly and seriously as a fundamental topic of human speculation, it was an important source of imagery and terminology that informed
A unique overview of the fashion and dress, diet, hygiene, medicine, and other cultural aspects of the ancient Chinese. This entertaining yet informative book details practices that may seem peculiar
Focusing on Bronze Age societies in Central Eurasia and North China, this book presents a new scenario of early social evolution. Essentially it integrates the Marxist production-relation concept a
Writing and the Ancient State explores the early development of writing and its relationship to the growth of political structures. The first part of the book focuses on the contribution of writing to the state's legitimating project. The second part deals with the state's use of writing in administration, analyzing both textual and archaeological evidence to reconstruct how the state used bookkeeping to allocate land, police its people, and extract taxes from them. The third part focuses on education, the state's system for replenishing its staff of scribe-officials. The first half of each part surveys evidence from Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Maya lowlands, Central Mexico, and the Andes; against this background the second half examines the evidence from China. The chief aim of this book is to shed new light on early China (from the second millennium BC through the end of the Han period, ca. 220 AD) while bringing to bear the lens of cross-cultural analysis on each of the civilizations un
The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes investigates the trade routes between Rome and the powerful empires of inner Asia, including the Parthian regime which ruled ancient Persia (Iran). It explores Rom
Tearing up the Silk Road is an irreverent travelogue that details a journey along the ancient trade routes from China to Istanbul, through Central Asia, Iran and the Caucasus. As Tom Coote struggles t
The Cambridge History of Ancient China provides a survey of the cultural history of pre-imperial China. Fourteen leading specialists on early Chinese history and archaeology cover more than one thousand years. There are two chapters for each time-period - Shang, Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn, and Warring States: one on institutional history, based on both traditional and palaeographic literature, and one on material culture, based on archaeological evidence. There are also chapters on the Neolithic background, language, intellectual history, relations with Central Asia, and the debts of both the Qin and Han empires to these earlier time-periods. Although written by specialists, this Cambridge history aims to explain and describe pre-imperial China to an audience that will include scholars and students, as well as general readers without specialized knowledge of Chinese history. It can be consulted as a work of reference, or read continuously, alone or as part of The Cambridge History
The offering of sacrifices, the banqueting of guests, and the ritual preparation, prohibition or consumption of food and drink were central elements in each of ancient China's three main religious tra
Covering 3,500 years from the earliest records to the introduction of gunpowder, considers China, Japan, South Asia, and Central Asia as well as the tradition core of western culture. Defines terms fr
The preparation, serving and eating of food are common features of all human societies, and have been the focus of study for numerous anthropologists - from Sir James Frazer onwards - from a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives. It is in the context of this previous anthropological work that Jack Goody sets his own observations on cooking in West Africa. He criticises those approaches which overlook the comparative historical dimension of culinary, and other, cultural differences that emerge in class societies, both of which elements he particularly emphasises in this book. The central question that Professor Goody addresses here is why a differentiated 'haute cuisine' has not emerged in Africa, as it has in other parts of the world. His account of cooking in West Africa is followed by a survey of the culinary practices of the major Eurasian societies throughout history - ranging from Ancient Egypt, Imperial Rome and medieval China to early modern Europe - in which he rela
Beginning with familiar points in the Western tradition, this book samples the works of great thinkers from Central and South America, ancient China and Japan, the Arab and Jewish world of the Middle
Empires, the largest political systems of the ancient and early modern world, powerfully transformed the lives of people within and even beyond their frontiers in ways quite different from other, non-imperial societies. Appearing in all parts of the globe, and in many different epochs, empires invite comparative analysis - yet few attempts have been made to place imperial systems within such a framework. This book brings together studies by distinguished scholars from diverse academic traditions, including anthropology, archaeology, history and classics. The empires discussed include case studies from Central and South America, the Mediterranean, Europe, the Near East, South East Asia and China, and range in time from the first millennium BC to the early modern era. The book organises these detailed studies into five thematic sections: sources, approaches and definitions; empires in a wider world; imperial integration and imperial subjects; imperial ideologies; and the afterlife of emp
For some fifty years Sir Harold Bailey has studied and interpreted the northern area of Indian Buddhist culture in the Khotan Saka documents of Central Asia dated between the fifth and tenth centuries AD. In this volume the author discusses the form, provenance and identity of the peoples known to the Court of the Kingdom of Khotan and included within the Khotanese texts. Links are made with the languages, literatures and history of Asia, stretching from China to the Middle East. The Khotan Saka documents demonstrate the development of Indian Buddhist culture within Central Asia, and beyond. This volume of Khotanese texts documents and interprets the historical contacts of the peoples of ancient north-west China and of Sin Kiang before the dominance of the Turks.
From Britain’s most distinguished historian of ancient Greek art comes this account of the influence of Greek communities and their culture through Central Asia, India, and Western China, from the Bro
