The dawn of the Iron Age in Eurasia (ca. 1000 - 200 B.C.E.) witnessed the emergence of regional polities that embraced broad personae of steppe realms rooted in making sacrificial offerings of domesticated animals and creating visuals of wild animals. At the same time, many of these groups relied on a heavy component of domesticated plants and animals in their subsistence economies. Although taken together, these aspects might be seen as contradictory, they demonstrate coordinated efforts of burgeoning elites to promote the cultural politics of prestige alongside economic diversification. This article draws on materials from the Altai region of northern Asia to demonstrate how steppe societies cultivated animal-oriented personae of might and wealth alongside the cultivation and consumption of domesticated plants in the course of developing the peer polities that punctuated Iron Age Eurasia.
This article explores how women have taken part in archaeological research in China from the end of the nineteenth century until today. In addition to Chinese women archaeologists, this article takes into account women scholars from other countries working in China, as well as students of archaeology and workers at field excavations. This study retraces the professional trajectories of such individuals in the evolution of gender norms in Chinese society through a multi-scalar analysis using biographical information, autoethnographic data, and statistics. We focus on the ways in which women’s contributions have been systematically erased and minimized in hope of opening a discussion about how women cope with and bypass gender biases in the Chinese archaeological community and its academic world.
Ivory has been a significant raw material throughout human history. Discoveries in the eastern regions of China provide evidence of its use dating back to the Neolithic period. Although abundant ivory remains from the Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites in the Chengdu Plain of southwest China highlight the importance of ivory use in the region during the Early Bronze Age, the origins and early development of this tradition remain poorly understood. This article presents newly discovered ivory artifacts from burials of the Baodun Culture, a Late Neolithic culture dating to 4500–3700 cal. B.P. and subdivided into four phases. Most of these artifacts are upperbody ornaments of diverse types, but also include an ivory staff and several tusk segments. Ivory objects first appear in the third phase of Baodun Culture and become more common in the fourth phase. Except for two bracelets from a Phase III child burial, these artifacts are generally in association with adult individuals. Ivory artifacts were found in only a limited number of burials, suggesting their role as symbols of personal identity. The production and use of ivory during the Baodun Culture period appears to have been restricted to a small social segment, reflecting emerging social differentiation. In the Early Bronze Age, the use of ivory continued but underwent notable changes in its usage context, assemblages, production patterns, and social significance. This study of ivory thus provides new insights into cultural transmission and the development of social complexity in prehistoric southwest China.
