Over the past decades, archaeological exploration of southern China has shattered the image of primitive indigenous people and their pristine environments. It is known, for example, that East Asia's largest settlements and hydraulic infrastructures in the third millennium BCE were located in the Yangzi valley, as were some of the most sophisticated metallurgical centers of the following millennium. If southern East Asia was not a backward periphery of the Central Plains, then what created the power asymmetry that made possible 'China's march toward the Tropics'? What did becoming 'Chinese' practically mean for the local populations south of the Yangzi? Why did some of them decide to do so, and what were the alternatives? This Element focuses on the specific ways people in southern East Asia mastered their environment through two forms of cooperation: centralized and intensive, ultimately represented by the states, and decentralized and extensive, exemplified by interaction networks.
By:
Maxim Korolkov (Universität Heidelberg)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Weight: 149g
ISBN: 9781108964678
ISBN 10: 1108964672
Series: Elements in Ancient East Asia
Pages: 94
Publication Date: 30 January 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
1. Introduction; 2. Southern East Asia: geographical and environmental orientations; 3. Agricultural expansion, social complexity, and polity formation, 3000–1800 BCE; 4. Joining the Eurasian Bronze Age, 1800–1000 BCE; 5. States and networks: Southern East Asia meets China, 1000–250 BCE; 6. Southern East Asia in the Sinitic Empire, 250 BCE –300 CE; 7. Conclusion.
