R Flad
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 19583 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | R Flad |
| NOMBRES | R |
| APELLIDO | Flad |
| FIRMA | FLAD R |
| AFILIACIONES | Harvard University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7018-8868 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 44 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 352 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 44 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2001 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 9 |
Changing the Landscape of Archaeological Publishing
Disseminating research is a key component of scholarly labor, but the costs and benefits of the current structure of academic publishing are underexamined within anthropology. This paper brings together a range of authors from across archaeology and cultural anthropology to summarize current issues in archaeological publishing and offer potential interventions at multiple scales. The paper is divided into five core topics. “Ideology” discusses th…
Pyrotechnology and Gender in a Medieval China Borderland
During the 2016 and 2017 fieldwork seasons at the site of Qijiaping in Guanghe County, Gansu Province, China, the team of the Tao River Archaeology Project excavated a large intact kiln. The kiln is well preserved, and the first of its kind reported in an archaeological excavation in this region. Several lines of evidence demonstrate that this was a roof tile kiln used during the Song period ( ad 960–1279), possibly associated with the constructi…
Jessica Rawson. 2023. Life and afterlife in Ancient China. London
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Japanese Oracle Bone Divinations during the Yayoi to Heian Periods
Although often thought to be mostly relevant to Bronze Age China, oracle bone divination also has a rich history in Japan, primarily documented through literature and ethnographic records. In recent decades, the discovery of oracle bones spanning from the Early Yayoi (1000–400 b.c.) to Heian (a.d. 794–1185) periods has opened new avenues for research in pyro-osteomancy. These archaeological findings provide fresh perspectives on the social and cu…
Japanese Oracle Bone Divinations during the Yayoi to Heian Periods
Although often thought to be mostly relevant to Bronze Age China, oracle bone divination also has a rich history in Japan, primarily documented through literature and ethnographic records. In recent decades, the discovery of oracle bones spanning from the Early Yayoi (1000-400 B.C.) to Heian (A.D. 794-1185) periods has opened new avenues for research in pyro-osteomancy. These archaeological findings provide fresh perspectives on the social and cu…
Emulation and retention
Elite chariots and early horse transport at the Bronze Age burial site of Shijia
Horses and chariots played a crucial social, cultural and military role in the emergence and development of early states in China. Little research, however, has explored the life histories of individual chariot horses or assessed their role as working animals. Here, the authors present a detailed zooarchaeological and palaeopathological study of eight adult male horses, used for pulling chariots, recovered from a single chariot-horse pit at the b…
From local to long-distance
During the Neolithic and Bronze Age, goods and ideas moved between Central Asia and the Chinese Central Plain via north-western China. While the crops, animals and technologies exchanged are well documented, the local and social bases of these interactions are poorly known. Here, the authors use petrographic analysis of ceramic sherds from Gansu Province, China, to document the local production of pottery vessels and their circulation between sit…
Complex Pathways Towards Emergent Pastoral Settlements
The Xindian culture of northwest China has been seen as a prototypical example of a transition toward pastoralism, resulting in part from environmental changes that started around 4000 years ago. To date, there has been little available residential data to document how and whether subsistence strategies and community organization in northwest China changed following or in association with documented environmental changes. The Tao River Archaeolog…
The Majiayao to Qijia transition
Human adaptation to Holocene environments
Early evidence for mounted horseback riding in northwest China
Significance This study provides insights into the emergence and adoption of equestrian technologies in China. Analysis of ancient horse bones from Shirenzigou and Xigou in eastern Xinjiang demonstrates that pastoralists along China’s northwest frontier practiced horseback riding and mounted archery by the fourth century BCE. This region may have played a key role in the initial spread of equestrian technologies from the Altai region into the hea…
Zooarchaeology, ancient mtDNA, and radiocarbon dating provide new evidence for the emergence of domestic cattle and caprines in the Tao River Valley of Gansu Province, northwest China
Animal sacrifice in burial
Foraging and farming
Archaeological research has documented the migration of Neolithic farmers onto the Tibetan Plateau by 4000 BC. How these incoming groups interacted, if at all, with local indigenous foragers, however, remains unclear. New archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data from the Zongri site in the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau suggest that local foragers continued to hunt but supplemented their diet with agricultural products in the form of millet. Th…
Assessing site organization and development using geophysical prospection at Dayatou, Gansu, China
A petrographic analysis of clay recipes in Late Neolithic north-western China
Archaeology of Salt in China
Dating Human Settlement in the East-Central Tibetan Plateau during the Late Holocene
Recent multidisciplinary research indicates that prehistoric agriculture innovation promoted permanent human settlements of areas up to 3400 m above sea level (asl) in the northern Tibetan Plateau, but when and how ancient humans extensively occupied areas above that altitude remains uncertain. In this paper, we investigated 12 archaeological sites situated above 3600 m asl in the Yushu autonomous prefecture, east-central Tibetan Plateau, to expl…
Cultivation strategies at the ancient Luanzagangzi settlement on the easternmost Eurasian steppe during the late Bronze Age
Mapping Qijiaping
Recent work at the Qijia Culture type-site of Qijiaping in the Tao River valley of Gansu Province, China, has shed light on the complex nature of this early Bronze Age site. Situated at the intersection between the mixed pastoralists of eastern central Asia and the agriculturalists of China’s northern Central Plain, Qijia peoples absorbed, evolved, and transmitted products and technologies that shaped cultural developments in both directions. The…
Recent research on the archeology of the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding areas
Urbanism as technology in early China
Pochan Chen 陳伯楨
Pochan Chen 陳伯楨(29 October 1973–28 June 2015) Rowan K. Flad Click for larger view View full resolution Pochan Chen at Gaocheng site in Turfan, Xinjiang, June 2012. Professor Pochan Chen, of the Department of Anthropology, National Taiwan University (NTU), passed away of heart failure at the age of 41 in Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital in Taipei on the morning of 28 June 2015. He was interred in a flower burial in Taipei following a funeral s…
Testing a novel method to identify salt production pottery via release and detection of chloride ions
Early wheat in China
The earliest direct dates of wheat in East Asia come from Donghuishan in Gansu Province, China. Few other dates of wheat in East Asia are direct dates. The previous direct dates at Donghuishan were obtained from wheat without secure context. New samples were taken from a stratigraphic profile at Donghuishan and directly dated. The wheat remains are earlier than any other directly dated wheat east of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, but considerabl…
Divination and Power
Divination is a form of ritual practice frequently employed as an important source of social and political power. Elaborate forms of divination can be crucial to state control, and the power of elaborated divining techniques has widespread influence. In ancient China, as elsewhere, divination was the domain of ritual specialists who used their skills to mediate uncertainty, but the role that these specialists played in society differed considerab…
"Specialized" Production in Archaeological Contexts
The contributions to this volume are introduced via a critical review of terms and concepts used in craft production studies today. Recent detailed contextual and technological analyses of artifacts from all aspects of complex societies have revealed interesting patterns that are difficult to conceptualize using a purely economic framework. Furthermore, interest in practice theory, and sociocultural theory in general, has shifted some foci of arc…
New zooarchaeological evidence for changes in Shang Dynasty animal sacrifice
Ritual or Structure? Analysis of Burial Elaboration at Dadianzi, Inner Mongolia
For an analysis of the Early Bronze Age cemetery site at Dadianzi in Inner Mongolia a model is proposed which combines aspects of various anthropological approaches to burial studies. The effectiveness of this model is demonstrated using measures that assess the elaboration of individual graves at the site. These values are used to examine political and social action in the context of mortuary ritual. The evidence suggests that the social system …
Pig domestication in ancient China
The pig appears to have been among the earliest domesticated animals in China, with evidence for pig domestication at Cishan from 8000 BP. The authors propose a model for the development of animal domestication
Meat-acquisition patterns in the Neolithic Yangzi river valley, China
The authors provide an overview of animal exploitation in the Chinese Neolithic, emphasising regional differences in meat procurement strategies. While the Yellow river peoples turned from hunting wild animals to the rearing of pigs, dogs, sheep and cattle during the Neolithic, the peoples of the Yangzi valley continued to rely on an abundant supply of wild creatures into their Bronze Age. Their staples were deer, fish and birds and there was a s…
The Majiayao to Qijia transition
Foraging and farming
Archaeological research has documented the migration of Neolithic farmers onto the Tibetan Plateau by 4000 BC. How these incoming groups interacted, if at all, with local indigenous foragers, however, remains unclear. New archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data from the Zongri site in the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau suggest that local foragers continued to hunt but supplemented their diet with agricultural products in the form of millet. Th…
A petrographic analysis of clay recipes in Late Neolithic north-western China
Urbanism as technology in early China
Evaluating Fish and Meat Salting at Prehistoric Zhongba, China
Cultural deposits at Zhongba, one of the most important archaeological sites in the Three Gorges Dam reservoir area in central China, provide a comprehensive perspective on diachronic changes from the late Neolithic through the end of the Bronze Age, or from ca. 2500 to 200 B.C. (calibrated radiocarbon years). Excavations produced large quantities of pottery, stone tools, small finds, and animal bones, which document the changes in the organizati…
Cultivation strategies at the ancient Luanzagangzi settlement on the easternmost Eurasian steppe during the late Bronze Age
Is Poverty in Our Genes
We present a critique of a paper written by two economists, Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor, which is forthcoming in the American Economic Review and which was uncritically highlighted in Science magazine. Their paper claims there is a causal effect of genetic diversity on economic success, positing that too much or too little genetic diversity constrains development. In particular, they argue that "the high degree of diversity among African popula…
Complex Pathways Towards Emergent Pastoral Settlements
The Xindian culture of northwest China has been seen as a prototypical example of a transition toward pastoralism, resulting in part from environmental changes that started around 4000 years ago. To date, there has been little available residential data to document how and whether subsistence strategies and community organization in northwest China changed following or in association with documented environmental changes. The Tao River Archaeolog…
Mapping Qijiaping
Recent work at the Qijia Culture type-site of Qijiaping in the Tao River valley of Gansu Province, China, has shed light on the complex nature of this early Bronze Age site. Situated at the intersection between the mixed pastoralists of eastern central Asia and the agriculturalists of China’s northern Central Plain, Qijia peoples absorbed, evolved, and transmitted products and technologies that shaped cultural developments in both directions. The…
From local to long-distance
During the Neolithic and Bronze Age, goods and ideas moved between Central Asia and the Chinese Central Plain via north-western China. While the crops, animals and technologies exchanged are well documented, the local and social bases of these interactions are poorly known. Here, the authors use petrographic analysis of ceramic sherds from Gansu Province, China, to document the local production of pottery vessels and their circulation between sit…
Human adaptation to Holocene environments
Testing a novel method to identify salt production pottery via release and detection of chloride ions
Radiocarbon Dates and Technological Change in Salt Production at the Site of Zhongba in the Three Gorges, China
The prehistoric chronology of the Three Gorges region along the Yangzi River in China has only become the focus of significant archaeological research in the last decade. The site of Zhongba is one of the most significant sites among those recently studied. Thirty-two radiocarbon dates produced by the C-14 laboratory at Peking University, and five additional dates from the Beta Analytic laboratory in the United States show a clear chronological p…
Elite chariots and early horse transport at the Bronze Age burial site of Shijia
Horses and chariots played a crucial social, cultural and military role in the emergence and development of early states in China. Little research, however, has explored the life histories of individual chariot horses or assessed their role as working animals. Here, the authors present a detailed zooarchaeological and palaeopathological study of eight adult male horses, used for pulling chariots, recovered from a single chariot-horse pit at the b…
Rethinking the Context of Production through an Archaeological Study of Ancient Salt Production in the Sichuan Basin, China
Excavations at a salt-production site named Zhongba in the Three Gorges region of China document a complex system of intersecting activities that changed gradually over a long period of time. As the salt production became much larger in scale during the Bronze Age, the context of this production shifted from one for which there is no archaeological evidence for attachment between producers and those who control the products to a situation in whic…
Emulation and retention
Zooarchaeology, ancient mtDNA, and radiocarbon dating provide new evidence for the emergence of domestic cattle and caprines in the Tao River Valley of Gansu Province, northwest China
Assessing site organization and development using geophysical prospection at Dayatou, Gansu, China
Ritual or Structure? Analysis of Burial Elaboration at Dadianzi, Inner Mongolia
For an analysis of the Early Bronze Age cemetery site at Dadianzi in Inner Mongolia a model is proposed which combines aspects of various anthropological approaches to burial studies. The effectiveness of this model is demonstrated using measures that assess the elaboration of individual graves at the site. These values are used to examine political and social action in the context of mortuary ritual. The evidence suggests that the social system …
Pig domestication in ancient China
The pig appears to have been among the earliest domesticated animals in China, with evidence for pig domestication at Cishan from 8000 BP. The authors propose a model for the development of animal domestication
Evaluating Fish and Meat Salting at Prehistoric Zhongba, China
Cultural deposits at Zhongba, one of the most important archaeological sites in the Three Gorges Dam reservoir area in central China, provide a comprehensive perspective on diachronic changes from the late Neolithic through the end of the Bronze Age, or from ca. 2500 to 200 B.C. (calibrated radiocarbon years). Excavations produced large quantities of pottery, stone tools, small finds, and animal bones, which document the changes in the organizati…
New zooarchaeological evidence for changes in Shang Dynasty animal sacrifice
Archaeology of Asia
Archaeology of Asia. Miriam T. Stark, eds. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 364 pp
On “Rethinking” Craft Specialization
Rethinking the Context of Production through an Archaeological Study of Ancient Salt Production in the Sichuan Basin, China
Excavations at a salt-production site named Zhongba in the Three Gorges region of China document a complex system of intersecting activities that changed gradually over a long period of time. As the salt production became much larger in scale during the Bronze Age, the context of this production shifted from one for which there is no archaeological evidence for attachment between producers and those who control the products to a situation in whic…
"Specialized" Production in Archaeological Contexts
The contributions to this volume are introduced via a critical review of terms and concepts used in craft production studies today. Recent detailed contextual and technological analyses of artifacts from all aspects of complex societies have revealed interesting patterns that are difficult to conceptualize using a purely economic framework. Furthermore, interest in practice theory, and sociocultural theory in general, has shifted some foci of arc…
Meat-acquisition patterns in the Neolithic Yangzi river valley, China
The authors provide an overview of animal exploitation in the Chinese Neolithic, emphasising regional differences in meat procurement strategies. While the Yellow river peoples turned from hunting wild animals to the rearing of pigs, dogs, sheep and cattle during the Neolithic, the peoples of the Yangzi valley continued to rely on an abundant supply of wild creatures into their Bronze Age. Their staples were deer, fish and birds and there was a s…
Divination and Power
Divination is a form of ritual practice frequently employed as an important source of social and political power. Elaborate forms of divination can be crucial to state control, and the power of elaborated divining techniques has widespread influence. In ancient China, as elsewhere, divination was the domain of ritual specialists who used their skills to mediate uncertainty, but the role that these specialists played in society differed considerab…
Investigating ancient landscapes and settlement patterns in the Chengdu Plain, Sichuan, China
Introduction This paper introduces an integrated survey methodology that is being employed by the Chengdu Plain Archaeological Survey (CPAS) to examine settlement patterns in the context of natural and social landscapes in Sichuan Province, China. The discoveries of the Bronze Age sites of Sangxingdui and Jinsha in the Chengdu Plain have raised questions about the emergence of a complex society in this region, especially as it compares with other…
Radiocarbon Dates and Technological Change in Salt Production at the Site of Zhongba in the Three Gorges, China
The prehistoric chronology of the Three Gorges region along the Yangzi River in China has only become the focus of significant archaeological research in the last decade. The site of Zhongba is one of the most significant sites among those recently studied. Thirty-two radiocarbon dates produced by the C-14 laboratory at Peking University, and five additional dates from the Beta Analytic laboratory in the United States show a clear chronological p…
Early wheat in China
The earliest direct dates of wheat in East Asia come from Donghuishan in Gansu Province, China. Few other dates of wheat in East Asia are direct dates. The previous direct dates at Donghuishan were obtained from wheat without secure context. New samples were taken from a stratigraphic profile at Donghuishan and directly dated. The wheat remains are earlier than any other directly dated wheat east of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, but considerabl…
Salt Production and Social Hierarchy in Ancient China
This book examines the organization of specialized salt production at Zhongba, one of the most important prehistoric sites in the Three Gorges of China's Yangzi River valley. Rowan K. Flad demonstrates that salt production emerged in the second millennium BCE and developed into a large-scale, intense activity. As the intensity of this activity increased during the early Bronze Age, production became more coordinated, perhaps by an emergent elite …
Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China
Reviewed by: Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE by Gideon Shelach Rowan Flad Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE. Gideon Shelach. London: Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2009. ix + 203 pp. This new book build…
The Sichuan Basin Neolithic
This chapter focuses on the Neolithic era of the Sichuan basin. It emphasizes developments in the Three Gorges region, which has been a recent focus of archaeological research due to the construction of the Three Gorges dam, and the Chengdu Plain, where archaeological evidence related to political and cultural topographies is more robust than elsewhere in the Sichuan basin. Additional reference is also provided to Neolithic sites that have been i…
Ancient 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 …
Survey, Excavation, and Geophysics at Songjiaheba—A Small Bronze Age Site in the Chengdu Plain
Archaeological survey in the Chengdu Plain of Sichuan Province has revealed settlement patterns surrounding Late Neolithic walled sites, including large numbers of small settlements from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Han Dynasty eras. Here geophysical survey and excavation at one of these small-scale sites dating to the Middle Bronze Age are reported, showing for the first time the value of high-resolution geophysics for evaluating site size and…
Is Poverty in Our Genes
We present a critique of a paper written by two economists, Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor, which is forthcoming in the American Economic Review and which was uncritically highlighted in Science magazine. Their paper claims there is a causal effect of genetic diversity on economic success, positing that too much or too little genetic diversity constrains development. In particular, they argue that "the high degree of diversity among African popula…
Testing a novel method to identify salt production pottery via release and detection of chloride ions
Recent research on the archeology of the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding areas
Urbanism as technology in early China
Pochan Chen 陳伯楨
Pochan Chen 陳伯楨(29 October 1973–28 June 2015) Rowan K. Flad Click for larger view View full resolution Pochan Chen at Gaocheng site in Turfan, Xinjiang, June 2012. Professor Pochan Chen, of the Department of Anthropology, National Taiwan University (NTU), passed away of heart failure at the age of 41 in Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital in Taipei on the morning of 28 June 2015. He was interred in a flower burial in Taipei following a funeral s…
Cultivation strategies at the ancient Luanzagangzi settlement on the easternmost Eurasian steppe during the late Bronze Age
Mapping Qijiaping
Recent work at the Qijia Culture type-site of Qijiaping in the Tao River valley of Gansu Province, China, has shed light on the complex nature of this early Bronze Age site. Situated at the intersection between the mixed pastoralists of eastern central Asia and the agriculturalists of China’s northern Central Plain, Qijia peoples absorbed, evolved, and transmitted products and technologies that shaped cultural developments in both directions. The…
Archaeology (39 obras) · Geography (33 obras) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (31 obras) · China (29 obras) · History (24 obras) · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (23 obras) · Bronze Age (16 obras) · Ancient history (14 obras) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (13 obras) · Biology (11 obras)