Sarah Milledge Nelson
University of Denver

Sarah Milledge Nelson is the John Evans Distinguished Professor with the University of Denver’s Department of Anthropology. She received her degrees from Wellesley College, and the University of Michigan (M.A. and Ph.D.), and her areas of specialization are East Asia (particularly Korea and northeast China), gender issues, religion in archaeology, leadership, and ethnicity. Professor Nelson has conducted fieldwork in China and South Korea, as well as several sites in the southwest U.S. Her recent main publications include Shamanism and the Origin of the State, Power and Gender in East Asia (2008, Left Coast Press), and Handbook of Gender in Archaeology, ed. (2006, Alta Mira Press).

Lecture Abstracts

Flutes, Wine, and Astronomy: Shamans in Early East Asia?
Chinese archaeologists have identified a number of archaeological manifestations that they attribute to shamanism. These include music (drums, flutes, and bells), alcoholic beverages, and evidence of worship of the sky. This talk examines the evidence, and then considers the Chinese evidence in the broader perspectives of shamanism in East Asia from the Neolithic to the present.

Horseriders in Korea and Korean State Formation
Horses are present in the development of the state throughout East Asia, but they seem to have had different uses. Horses appeared with chariots in China, but were ridden in the early Korean and Japanese states. Everyone rode horse in Korea, while in Japan horse are associated with the nobility. A broader perspective on horses allows a fresh look at the "horse-rider theory" of the development of the Yamato State in Japan.

Identities in the Hongshan Culture
Many archaeologists are interested in identities--how did the groups we excavate think of themselves vis-a-vis other groups with whom they interacted? From the earliest use of pottery and plant cultivation in ancient China, around 6500 B.C., stone objects were produced for ornament and ritual. These can be traced through time, as jade stone began to be used, and the carvings became more elaborate. The Hongshan culture of northeastern China (4000-2500 B.C.) created the first intensive jade use in China. Jades were found in elite graves, apparently with important ritual meanings. The carving of these jades was labor-intensive. Why was jade so important? In what way did jade play a part in establishing the identity of the buried elite? With so many unusual and high-quality worked jades in the Hongshan, the problems of the looting of these objects and forgeries is also discussed.

Korea and the Silk Road
The Korean peninsula was almost the Asian end of the "Silk Road", nevertheless exotic objects from the Mediterranean world are found in Korean burials beginning in the first century B.C. In studying how these objects came to be deposited in Korean burials, it becomes clear that objects arrived in Korea by at least three different routes. The Steppe Route north of the Altai Mountains, the Silk Road through Xinjinag, and a Sea Route are all discussed, along with the objects that arrived in Korea as far away as the Mediterranean world.

Temporalities in Ancient East Asia
Terminologies intended to facilitate comparisons across cultures can be counterproductive. Archaeologists have devised a number of ways to divide time. Although such temporal schemes were created for Europe and Southwestern Asia they are often applied to East Asia. Some of these time divisions are a poor fit, with consequences for the ways East Asian archaeology is interpreted. For example, the earliest pottery containers in the world appear in East Asia, scattered from Japan to the Russian Far East to southern China. In the terminology of other regions this is not "Neolithic" because there is not evidence of agriculture. What should it be called, then? Another problem arises with western periodization of the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Some archaeologists have tried to avoid these terms by speaking of a Jade Age. Finally, neither the notions of urbanism, nor discussions of the state, nor even "civilization" are helpful in understanding the rise of leadership and the creation of larger polities in East Asia.

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