ARTICLES

Landscapes of Inequality?: A Critique of Monumental Hierarchy in the Mongolian Bronze Age
Joshua Wright, 139

Khirigsuurs are stone monuments of variable scale and complexity that dominate the archaeological landscape of the Mongolian Bronze Age. Though there are countless typical-sized monuments, there are a few very large structures suggesting that a chiefly hierarchy directed their construction. Using measurements of size and formal complexity to compare these mega-monuments and khirigsuurs within fully surveyed areas this article argues that these monuments are not primarily tombs built to represent the social hierarchy of early nomadic pastoralists. Instead, they are monumental places created for living communities to communicate their organization and enduring nature to others and themselves. This communication was essential for early pastoralist communities to become established and survive.
Keywords: Mongolia, Bronze Age, monuments, pastoralism, heterarchy, collective action
Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 51, no. 2 (2012)”

ARTICLES

Na Koronivalu ni Bā: Upland Settlement during the Last Millennium in the Bā River Valley and Vatia Peninsula, Northern Viti Levu Island, Fiji
Patrick D. Nunn, 1

Former settlements, now abandoned, are found in inland upland locations on many larger islands in the tropical Pacific. In Fiji, such settlements are known today as koronivalu (war-towns) and, as elsewhere in the region, appear to have been established within the same period during the first half of the last millennium. Twenty-seven koronivalu were mapped for this research in the Bā Valley and nearby Vatia Peninsula, northern Viti Levu Island (Fiji); of these, nine were subject to detailed investigation. All koronivalu are in defensible locations, either with exceptional views across the surrounding landscape or hidden within deep narrow valleys. At all koronivalu, evidence for the consumption of marine shellfish was found, even though the sites are often far from the coast. Twenty- four radiocarbon ages from charcoal and shellfish remains were obtained. A single age around A.D. 700 from the farthest inland site (Koroikewa) appears anomalous. The remainder, once adjusted, suggest that most koronivalu in the study area were established A.D. 1200–1750, perhaps separable into early (A.D. 1200–1450) and later (A.D. 1500–1750) phases. While questions remain about the functions of these koronivalu, the fact that, as elsewhere in Fiji and in other western Pacific Island groups, they appear to have been established within the same period suggests that there is a region-wide explanation for the profound settlement-pattern change this implies. Climate change, perhaps expressed through drought and/or sea-level change, appears the only plausible external forcing mechanism.
Keywords: Pacific Islands, Fiji, hill forts, settlement pattern, marine subsistence, climate change.
Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 51, no. 1 (2012)”

ARTICLES

Traditional Corporate Group Economics in Southeast Asia: An Ethnographic Study with Archaeological Implications
Brian Hayden, 1

From the late nineteenth century to the present, social scientists and archaeologists have been intrigued by village-level corporate groups living under a single roof. Yet remarkably little is known ethnographically about the internal economic and social dynamics of these groups or why such groups emerge at certain time periods or places. My research focuses on some of the last indigenous corporate groups in mainland Southeast Asia. I document the advantages corporate organizations provide for members (mainly risk reduction), the high costs often involved for members, the range of status and wealth within such groups, and the probable motivations of individuals for organizing corporate groups. I contrast the communitarian models with aggrandizer models for the creation of corporate groups, but note considerable variability within the corporate residential phenomenon. I postulate that residential corporate groups were probably much more widespread in the Neolithic and Metal Ages of Southeast Asia than historically was the case.
Keywords: corporate groups, longhouses, Southeast Asia, archaeology, ethnography, economics, social evolution.
Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 50, nos. 1 & 2 (2011)”

Special Issue: New and Emergent Trends in Japanese Paleolithic Research

ARTICLES

Introduction
Peter Bleed, 227

This serves as an introduction to eight articles on Japanese Palaeolithic archaeology that illustrate the types of research issues recently addressed and the kinds of archaeological data currently available on Pleistocene deposits in Japan. The articles also show how Japanese researchers are setting out to explain Palaeolithic variability at various scales, including the regional level. Perhaps, most importantly, given the recriminations following the relatively recent exposure of faked “early and middle Palaeolithic” artifacts in Japan, these papers show how Palaeolithic archeologists working in Japan have recognized the importance of presenting reliable archaeological and paleoenvironmental data in the context of clear research methodology.
Keywords: Palaeolithic, Japan, Pleistocene, lithic technology.

Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 49, no. 2 (2010)”

The full run of Asian Perspectives: The Journal of Archaeology for Asia and the Pacific is now available online. All except the latest volume of AP can now be freely accessed in the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Library’s ScholarSpace digital repository, while the most current volumes (from vol. 39, 2000) are available online for subscribers to Project MUSE. To facilitate access to the individual contributions in the earliest volumes, we have inserted links to them from the AP Author/Title Index to vols. 1–39 (1957–2000) republished on this blog.

Continue reading “Asian Perspectives Back Issues Now Online”

ARTICLES

Early Pottery in South China
Tracey L-D Lu, 1

Potsherds of thick walls with coarse inclusions have been found in several archaeological sites in South China, associated with flaked or ground stone tools and ground organic implements. This paper focuses on the natural and cultural contexts, the chronology, and the characteristics of the early pottery found in South China, as well as the impetus to the origin of pottery and several related issues. It is argued that the earliest potters in South China were affluent foragers, who lived on diversified natural resources and were members of egalitarian societies.
Keywords: South China, pottery, terminal Pleistocene, early Holocene, foragers, subsistence strategies, exchange, ethnoarchaeology.

Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 49, no. 1 (2010)”

ARTICLES

Environment, Ecology, and Interaction in Japan, Korea, and the Russian Far East: the Millennial History of a Japan Sea Oikumene
C. Melvin Aikens, Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya, and Song Nai Rhee, 207

Encircling the Sea of Japan, or East Sea in Korean terms, is a north-temperate landscape that includes thousands of miles of deeply indented seacoast, mountains, and plains, all covered by variously mixed woodlands. The Japanese archipelago comprises its eastern edge, fronting the Pacific Ocean, while the great Amur-Ussuri-Sungari riverine plain forms its far west. We perceive the region comprised by modern Korea, Japan, and the Russian Far East as a “Japan Sea Oikumene,” and review culture-historical and environmental evidence to show that—contrary to earlier historical and archaeological impressions—the region has a long-lived ecological and technological unity as a distinctive “cultural world” that can be traced continuously from late Pleistocene into recent times.

Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 48, no. 2 (2009)”

ARTICLES

A Reconstruction of an “Officially Expunged” Kingdom in Colonial South India: Panjalamkurinchi through Memory and Archaeology
Raman Seylon, 1

Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 48, no. 1 (2009)”

Editors’ corner, 189

We are instituting a new system for contacting the journal editors to improve our communication with authors. General inquiries about the journal, initial requests for information about article submissions, and electronic submissions should be sent to ljunker@uic.edu and addressed to Laura Junker. Once articles are submitted, the assigned journal editor will notify you with their specific contact information for author queries. Mailed submissions should continue to be sent to: Asian Perspectives Editor Laura Junker, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago, M/C 027, 2102 BSB, 1007 W. Harrison St., Chicago, Illinois 60607-7139 U.S.A. Authors with large graphics files should send their submissions by mail or in several e-mails (5 MB maximum per e-mail) to avoid problems of file retrieval and electronic bounce-backs. We would like to emphasize that we encourage submissions from a broad range of theoretical perspectives. We also want to especially invite indigenous Asian archaeologists to submit manuscripts and, while we encourage all authors to use whatever resources available to produce clearly written English language papers, we are also happy to work with authors on English language issues to improve the peer review process. Please let us know if you would like to be added to our list of peer reviewers.

Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 47, no. 2 (2008)”

SPECIAL ISSUE: MARITIME MIGRATION AND COLONIZATION IN INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY
Edited by Sue O’Connor and Atholl Anderson

Editors’ Corner, 1

ARTICLES

Indo-Pacific Migration and Colonization—Introduction
Atholl Anderson and Sue O’Connor, 2

Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 47, no. 1 (2008): Maritime Migration”

Editors’ Corner, iii

ARTICLES

The Contingencies of State Formation in Eastern Inner Asia
J. Daniel Rogers, 249

Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 46, no. 2 (2007)”

Editors’ Corner, 1

ARTICLES

Toward a Political Ecology in Early South India: Preliminary Considerations of the Sociopolitics of Land and Animal Use in the Southern Deccan, Neolithic through Early Historic Periods
Andrew M. Bauer, Peter G. Johansen, and Radhika L. Bauer, 3

Continue reading “Asian Perspectives, vol. 46, no. 1 (2007)”