Social Organizations in late Neolithic Dawenkou Culture - Evidences from Stable Isotopes and Ancient DNA

DONG Yu (Shandong University & Oxford) will give the first ICCHA China Night Seminar of 2018-19 at the UCL Institute of Archaeology on 17 October.

The seminar is entitled Social Organizations in late Neolithic Dawenkou Culture - Evidences from Stable Isotopes and Ancient DNA and all are welcome to attend. No booking is required. The talk will be delivered in English, and followed by a wine reception.

Abstract

The Dawenkou Culture of the late Neolithic period is very important in Chinese prehistory because it show signs of incipient social stratification, complex mortuary practices, supposedly changed gender relations, and the initial intensification of agriculture, etc. Many of these aspects are related to issues of how the societies were organised and how families were organised. In this presentation, several archaeological sites from the Dawenkou Culture will be used as case studies, to demonstrate what has been discovered about some aspects of the social organisation of these communities using the methods of stable isotopes and ancient DNA. 

Speaker

Prof DONG Yu is from the Institute of Cultural Heritage, Shandong University, China.  She received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013, and then joined the faculty of Shandong University.  Prof Dong is generally interested in the origins and spread of agriculture and the social organization of ancient societies, particularly from the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods of China.  She uses the tools of stable isotopes and ancient DNA to reconstruct paleodiet, to study the management strategies of crops and animals, to discern migrations, and to study kinship.  She is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford.

Any enquiries about the event or work of the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (ICCHA) may be directed to the Centre Administrator, Rui Pang.

China Night Research Seminar Series

Term I and II, 2018-2019 | Wednesday Evenings 6:10pm @ Room 612, UCL Institute of Archaeology

• 17 October 2018: DONG Yu (Shandong University & Oxford) Social Organizations in late Neolithic Dawenkou Culture - Evidences from Stable Isotopes and Ancient DNA
• 14 November 2018: HE Beijie (Tianjin University & Cambridge) Who Designed for the Emperors: Yangshi Lei (樣式雷) as Architects to Qing Court
• 12 December 2018: Julie Chang (UCL) A Technical Study on Chinese Lacquer Technology: Case Study of 17^th to 18^th century Coromandel Lacquer
• 23 January 2019: CHEN Kunlong (University of Science and Technology Beijing & UCL) Interaction and localisation: adoption and transmission of metallurgy in early China
• 27 February 2019: Rita Dal Martello (UCL) Exploring Agricultural Pathways in Southwest China: Archaeobotanical Analyses from the Early Sites of Baiyangcun, Haimenkou, and Dayingzhuang, Yunnan Province
• 20 March 2019: Norio Shinohara (UCL) Understanding the Structure of Buddhist Grotto Temples before the 6^th Century

The International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology, a joint association between the School for Archaeology and Museology of Peking University and the UCL Institute of Archaeology, is tasked with bringing China's cultural past to western scholars. Through its China Nights events and Guest Lecture Series, the Centre endeavours to promote all aspects of Chinese history and prehistory and strengthen academic links between China and Europe. In addition, the ICCHA regularly hosts world-class conferences, bridge the gap in archaeological thought and theory.