Rice fields and the ‘domestication’ of water in prehistoric China

This term's seminar series showcases current research by Institute of Archaeology staff tackling critical questions in Archaeology and Heritage.

Yijie Zhuang will give the next presentation in the series entitled Rice fields and the ‘domestication’ of water in prehistoric China.

Open to all UCL staff, students and alumni!

Yijie is Professor of Chinese Archaeology and Geoarchaeology whose research interests include the ecology of early agriculture; long-term land use and landscape changes; irrigation and water management; diverse trajectories to social complexity in East, South and Southeast Asia.

Yijie was awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship in 2022-23 to undertake interdisciplinary research on the origins of hydraulic societies in late prehistoric China.  His book on Environmental Foundations to the Rise of Early Civilisations in China was published by CUP in 2024.

Programme

• 8 October: Corisande Fenwick - Reframing the early Islamic Mediterranean: archaeology, empire and economy in the not very “Dark Ages.”
• 15 October: Louise Martin - Desert hunting ‘kites’ in the Middle East: challenging concepts of marginality
• 22 October: Johanna Zetterstrom Sharp and J.C. Niala (Oxford) - In a fractured world, what can milk, our first food, tell us about shared loss?
• 29 October: Mike Parker Pearson - Stonehenge: the last two decades of conflict

[Reading Week - No seminar]

• 12 November: Jeremy Tanner - Authoring empire, inscribing power: monumental writing of the first emperors of Rome and China
• 19 November: Andrew Gardner - How do borders shape societies? Imperial borderlands from Roman Britain to New Spain
• 26 November: Yijie Zhuang - Rice fields and the ‘domestication’ of water in prehistoric China
• 3 December: Rachel King - What's preservation by record for? Doing more with data from development-led archaeology