Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:37:52.636Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The social context of early pottery in the Lingnan region of south China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

Richard Pearson
Richard Pearson*
Affiliation:
1890 West 17th Avenue, Vancouver V6J 2M9 BC Canada (Email: pearsonrj@shaw.ca)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Late Pleistocene and early post-Pleistocene communities in East Asia experimented with pottery production and the domestication of plants and animals. What was the nature of the social organisation of these early small-scale societies? Some North American writers consider pottery making to be a ‘prestige technology’ sponsored by aggrandising individuals. However, examples from south of the Nanling Mountains and other areas have simple tool assemblages and site plans showing very little evidence of social differences. Judging from recent debates about social agency, there are more appropriate explanations for the earliest pottery making, which focus on the collective rather than the individual.

Keywords

early HoloceneSouth Chinapotteryprestige technologyagency
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 79 , Issue 306 , December 2005 , pp. 819 - 828
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brumfiel, E. 2000. On the archaeology of choice: agency studies as a research paradigm, in Dobres, M. & Robb, J. (ed.) Agency in archaeology: 249–63. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cao, B. in press. The earliest ceramics in China: the findings, contents, and a preliminary interpretation. Journal of East Asian Archaeology.Google Scholar
Chang, K.C. 1986. The archaeology of ancient China. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, J. & Gosser, D.. 1995. Reinventing Mesoamerica’s first pottery, in Barnett, W.K. & Hoopes, J.W. (ed.) The emergence of pottery: technology and innovation: 209–22. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Dobres, M. & Robb, J.. (ed.). 2000. Agency in archaeology. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fu, X. 2001. Guilin diqu shiqian wenhua mianmao lunkuo chuxian/The prehistoric framework of prehistoric Guilin. Wen wu Bao April 4: 1.Google Scholar
Fu, X. 2002. Guangxi di ige shiqian kaoguxue wenhua – Huning Dingsishan yizhi, in Li, Wenru, (ed.) Zhongguo shinian baida kaogu xinfaxian/Top 100 New Archaeological Discoveries of China 1990–1999: 236–42. Beijing: Wenwu Publishing House.Google Scholar
Haaland, R. 1997. Emergence of sedentism: new ways of living, new ways of symbolizing. Antiquity 71: 374–85.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 1995. The emergence of prestige technologies and pottery, in Barnett, W.K. & Hoopes, J.W. (ed.) The emergence of pottery: technology and innovation: 257–66. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 1998. Practical and prestige technologies: the evolution of material systems. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 5: 1–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegmon, M. 2003. Setting theoretical egos aside: issues and theory in North American archaeology. American Antiquity 68: 213–44.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 2000. Agency and individuals in long term process, in Dobres, M. & Robb, J. (ed.) Agency in archaeology: 21–33. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Institute Of Archaeology, Cass. 1991. Radiocarbon dates in Chinese archaeology. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Jiao, T. 1994. Gengshinshi mozhi quanxinshi chu Lingnan diqu de shiqian wenhua/Prehistoric cultures of the Lingnan area from the Late Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene. Kaogu Xuebao 1: 1–24.Google Scholar
Johnson, M. 2000. Self made men and the strategy of agency, in Dobres, M. & Robb, J. (ed.) Agency in Archaeology: 213–231. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keally, C., Taniguchi, Y. & Kuzmin, Y.. 2003. Understanding the beginnings of pottery technology in Japan and neighbouring East Asia. The Review of Archaeology 24 (2): 3–14.Google Scholar
Keally, C., Taniguchi, Y. Kuzmin, Y. & Shewkomud, I.. 2004. Chronology of the beginning of pottery manufacture in East Asia. Radiocarbon 46: 345–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuzmin, Y. (ed.). 2003. The nature of the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic in East Asia and the Pacific. The Review of Archaeology, Special Issue. 24: 1–3.Google Scholar
Li, G. 2002. Subsistence of Neolithic Pearl River Area, south China. MA Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia.Google Scholar
Lu, T.L.D. in press. Early pottery in South China and its archaeological significance. Journal of East Asian Archaeology.Google Scholar
Obata, H. 2003. Shiberia: Enkaishu/Siberia and the Russian Maritime Province. Kikan Kokogaku 83: 80–84.Google Scholar
Onuki, S. 2003. Chugoku nanbu – Reinan sanmyaku no kita to minami/South China – north and south of the Lingnan mountains. Kikan Kokogaku 83: 75–9.Google Scholar
Ren, S. 1995. Gongyuanqian wuqian nian Zhongguo xinshiqi wenhua de jixiang zhuyao chengjiu/Important results from the Neolithic cultures in China earlier than 5000 BC. Kaogu 1: 37–49.Google Scholar
Rice, P. 1999. On the origins of pottery. Journal of Anthropological Method and Theory 6: 1–54.Google Scholar
Robb, J.E. (ed.). 1999. Material symbols: culture and economy in prehistory. Carbondale: Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 26.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, A. 1995. Early pottery in the Amazon: twenty years of scholarly obscurity, in Barnett, W.K. & Hoopes, J.W. (ed.) The emergence of pottery: technology and innovation: 115–31. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Saitta, D. 1997. Review of Foundations of Social Inequality, by Price, T.D. & Feinman, G. (ed.) Plains Anthropologist 42: 263–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saitta, D. 1999. Prestige, agency, and change in middle range societies, in Robb, J. (ed.) Material symbols: culture and economy in prehistory: 135–49. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Underhill, A. 1997. Current issues in Chinese Neolithic archaeology. Journal of World Prehistory 11: 103–60.Google Scholar
Wu, X. & Zhao, C.. 2003. Chronology of the Transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic in China. The Review of Archaeology 24: 15–20.Google Scholar
Zhang, C. 2002. The discovery of early pottery in China. Documenta Praehistorica XXIX: 29–35.Google Scholar
Zhang, F. 2000. The mesolithic in south China. Documenta Praehistorica XXVII: 225–31.Google Scholar
Zhang, W. & Yuan, J.. 1998. A preliminary study of ancient excavated rice from Yuchanyan Site, Dao County, Hunan Province, PRC. Acta Agronomica Sinica 24–4: 416–20.Google Scholar
Zhao, C. & Wu, X.. 2000. The dating of Chinese early pottery and a discussion of some related problems. Documenta Praehistorica XXVII: 233–9.Google Scholar
Zhao, Z. 1998. The Middle Yangtze Region in China is one place where rice was domesticated: phytolith evidence from the Diaotonghuan Cave, northern Jiangxi. Antiquity 72: 885–97.Google Scholar
Shehui Kexueyuan Kaogu Yanjiusuo, Zhongguo, Zhuang Minzujigu Wenwu Gongzuotuan, Gwangxi, Zengpiyan Izhi Bowuguan, Guilin, Shi Wenwu Gonzuotuan, Guilin (ed.). 2003. Guilin Zengpiyan (Zengpiyan, Guilin). Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe.Google Scholar