scholarly journals Seeking Horses: Allies, Clients and Exchanges in the Zhou Period (1045–221 BC)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Rawson ◽  
Limin Huan ◽  
William Timothy Treal Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Soil Nutrients ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Ancient China ◽  
Central Plains ◽  
The North ◽  
The People ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
First Millennium Bc

AbstractHorses and chariots—and the associated technology and expertise—derived from the steppe contributed to the success of the Zhou conquest of the Shang in c. 1045 BC and remained important throughout Zhou rule in ancient China. On the basis of material cultural patterns, including the style and material used in bridle cheek-pieces found in tombs of the late second and early first millennium BC, this paper points to a northern origin for Zhou horses. Important intermediaries, providing these horses, were the clans whose cemeteries have been identified on the northern edges of the Central Plains. The necessity for repeated exchanges bringing south horses from the north was a consequence of key environmental differences between the steppe and the Central Plains, including climate, geomorphology, essential soil nutrients, and land use. These created significant difficulties in sustainably breeding and pasturing horses of quality. As a result, the people of the Central Plains were bound, over millennia, to seek horses from the northwest, along a cultural corridor that also moved northern materials and technologies, such as gold-, iron- and some bronze-working, into the Central Plains from the steppes.

Landscape and Land Use in First Millennium BC Southeast Italy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphne Lentjes
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Food Habits ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
First Millennium Bc ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Regional Land

This book offers a comprehensive overview of landscape and land use in southeast Italy in the first millennium BCE. Using the most up-to-date techniques, it combines archaeobotanical and archaeozoological data with information from excavations, field surveys, and ancient written texts to place the relationship between people and landscapes in a broad geographical and chronological framework. It also confronts questions of food habits, the scale and organisation of agricultural production, the influx of Greek and Roman colonists, and the effects of globalisation on local and regional land use.

scholarly journals Trial excavation of a terrace-edge enclosure at North Mains, Strathallan, Perthshire

1991 ◽  
Vol 120 ◽  
pp. 45-53
Author(s):  
Gordon J Barclay ◽  
Myra Tolan-Smith ◽  
Coralie Mills ◽  
J Barber
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Outer Edge ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
The North ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
First Millennium Bc

A small part of the terrace edge enclosure at North Mains was excavated to test the hypothesis that it was contemporary with one or other of the Neolithic/Early Bronze Age ceremonial monuments immediately to the north. Two cropmark ditches and an entrance through them were confirmed by excavation. The inner ditch was very steep sided; postholes were found on the inner edge of both ditches. Possible postholes were also noted on the outer edge of the outer ditch. Traces of a number of structures were located in the interior, including what may be the slight wall-trench of a circular house. The results of radiocarbon dating may suggest that the ditch was dug in the second millennium bc, while at least one of the structures in the interior was in use in the late first millennium bc. A comment on the radiocarbon dates is provided by John Barber (50--1). An appendix gives details of the `Identification of charcoal from North Mains' by Coralie Mills (52--3). Au

II.—Notes on the Origin of the Doric Style of Architecture

Archaeologia ◽  
1928 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 37-60
Author(s):  
George Jeffery
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The North ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Greek World

The adjective ‘Doric’, as applied to a certain well-defined style of art, has become a convention of such long standing, and so widely spread, that to question its appropriateness would be both meticulous and embarrassing. At the same time its origin affords considerable ground for speculation. It may, as Mitford suggested in the eighteenth century, have expressed to the ancients the idea of an out-of-date, old-fashioned style, at a time when the Athenians were introducing the Ionic or Asia Minor fashions on the Acropolis. At the same time it is difficult to imagine or explain why the Dorians, always regarded as a rude or rustic element in the formation of the conglomerate Greek world of the first millennium b.c., should be credited with the invention of the most refined form of architecture ever known, or how Phidias came to select it for enshrining his sculpture at the Parthenon. We must, perhaps, presume that the unintentional honour conferred upon the Dorians may have been due to some phase of that inter-racial and political antagonism between different factions which constitutes so much of the history of ancient Greece. The term ‘Doric Art’ must have originated long after the erection of the Parthenon, if it was used in any sense as an expression of reproach or contempt, and its connexion with the people from the north who invaded the Peloponnesus c. 1100 B.C. can only be of the very vaguest.

Epidemic and population patterns in the Chinese Empire (243b.c.e. to 1911c.e.): quantitative analysis of a unique but neglected epidemic catalogue

2009 ◽  
Vol 137 (10) ◽  
pp. 1361-1368 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. MORABIA
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Agrarian Society ◽  
The North ◽  
The People ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Chinese Empire ◽  
North And South ◽  
Epidemic Diseases

SUMMARYA catalogue of dates and places of major outbreaks of epidemic diseases, that occurred in the Chinese Empire between 243b.c.e. and 1911c.e., combined with corresponding demographic data, provides a unique opportunity to explore how the pressure of epidemics grew in an agrarian society over 2000 years. This quantitative analysis reveals that: (1) the frequency of outbreaks increased slowly before the 12th century and rapidly thereafter, until 1872; (2) in the first millennium of our era, the people of China lived for decades free of major epidemics; in the second millennium, major outbreaks occurred every couple of years, but were localized; (3) in the more recent centuries, these outbreaks were as common, but disseminated to more places. This evolution, closely matching the demographic growth, was similar in the north and south of China, and therefore may have been similar in other regions of the world.

Maritime Communities and Coastal Andean Urbanization

2020 ◽  
pp. 165-187
Author(s):  
Matthew Helmer
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
North Coast ◽  
The North ◽  
Important Crop ◽  
Early Horizon ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
First Millennium Bc ◽  
North Coast Of Peru

Chapter 6 discusses the Early Horizon, first millennium BC site of Samanco (450 to 150 cal BC), near the shore in the Nepeña valley on the north coast of Peru. Fishing and shellfishing were important, as was agriculture, with maize as the most important crop. Samanco was a food production center supplying inland polities with subsistence goods from the sea and from fields in the Nepeña delta. Trade in local, utilitarian goods was a defining feature of Samanco identity.

scholarly journals Excavation of a Neolithic enclosure and an Iron Age settlement at Douglasmuir, Angus

1996 ◽  
Vol 125 ◽  
pp. 29-67
Author(s):  
Jill Kendrick ◽  
Gordon J Barclay ◽  
Trevor G Cowie ◽  
A Saville ◽  
Jill Kendrick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Aerial Photographs ◽  
Internal Ring ◽  
Compressor Station ◽  
Broad Ring ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
The North ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
First Millennium Bc

The complete excavation of a post-defined Neolithic enclosure took place in 1979 and 1980 in advance of the construction of a gas compressor station for the British Gas Corporation. The enclosure appeared to have been constructed in two parts. There was little evidence for any associated activity except for a pit in the north half. Three charcoal samples from the post-holes produced radiocarbon dates in the range 3930-3390 cal BC. A small sample of a scatter of pits visible on aerial photographs was also excavated. Six penannular ring-ditch houses dating to the mid first millennium BC were also investigated. The houses were of the broad ring-ditch type with internal ring beam support. Other features included six-post structures and crescent-shaped hollows which might be the truncated remains of further house sites. There was little horizontal stratigraphy. The project was arranged and funded by Historic Scotland and its predecessor departments, with a contribution by British Gas.

Pre-Roman Iron Age Boats and Rocks in the North: Reality and ReXection

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Coles
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Recent Analysis ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
First Millennium Bc ◽  
Eastern Seaboard

This chapter is offered to Barry Cunliffe as a token of the respect that I have for his immense contribution to studies of the European Iron Age. Our research interests have sometimes overlapped, at the Glastonbury and Meare Lake Villages for example, but in general we have pursued different lines and areas of enquiry. Yet he has been unfailing in support of numerous projects undertaken in foreign Welds and none, perhaps, more foreign than the study of rock carvings in northern Europe, a long way from his beloved Atlantic lands. In 2003 an important documentation on north European late first millennium BC boats appeared, ably assembled and in part authored by Ole Crumlin-Pedersen and his collaborator Athena Trakadas. The boats, dated to the Pre-Roman Iron Age of the north, have been named after a famous discovery at Hjortspring, on the island of Als in southern Denmark. Here, in 1880 or thereabouts, fragments of planking were revealed by peat-digging, along with iron and bone spearheads; all were either burnt on the spot or discarded by the finders, and there the matter rested until a local antiquarian heard of the discovery and alerted the authorities. This led in the 1920s to a remarkable excavation, far ahead of its time in the technical recovery of the surviving evidence, in the documentation of stratigraphy and context, and in the conservation procedures devised. The history of the Hjortspring boat and its huge array of equipment need not delay us here as it is well set out in the primary report (Rosenberg 1937), in a recent analysis (Randsborg 1995) and in the book noted above (Crumlin- Pedersen and Trakadas 2003).What has intrigued me, and I hope will intrigue Barry, is the location of the Hjortspring deposit, the boat lying not by the present or the Iron Age seashore of the island of Als, but near one of the highest points on the island, and well inland. It was deposited in a pond, now a small peatbog some 50m in diameter, about 40–45m above sea level, and some two km from the eastern seaboard and about five km from the Als Fjord on the west.

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