Organizer: Amy Hweishuan Feng, Johns Hopkins University

Chair and Discussant: Hyung Il Pai, University of California, Santa Barbara

This panel focuses on the evolution of discourse on the origins of civilization in East Asia. Taking a multi-disciplinary and inter-regional comparative approach, the papers will contextualize historical and archaeological knowledge derived from the Edo period in the 17th century, Chinese intellectuals in the Republican period, and contemporary archaeologists working in Korea and Japan. Takao Hirase, a Tokyo University historian specializing in ancient China, assesses the development of the field of Chinese history in Japan. He suggests using a new conceptualization of space other than "city-state" and "tianxia" (or, "all-under-heaven") in understanding the spread of culture within the "Sphere of Kanji." Amy Feng, a modern Chinese historian studying in the U.S., examines debates on the origin of Chinese civilization with a focus on the hitherto unnoticed contributions made by local and amateur Chinese archaeologists in the 1930s to the field of Chinese archaeology. Hideo Yoshii, a Kyoto University archaeologist who has conducted field excavations of burial mounds in both Korea and Japan, discusses the origin and the definition of "Royal Tombs" using the most recent archaeological materials. Discussant Hyung Il Pai will conclude by summarizing how the politics of imperialism, nationalism, and ethnic identity formation in the past centuries have influenced current debates on the following historical issues in East Asia: (1) competing territorial claims over the "ethnicity" and "authenticity" of sacred sites, kings’ burials, and battle sites; (2) repatriation of cultural relics, e.g., who has more legitimacy as the "rightful" owner of archaeological remains?

Hideo Yoshii, Kyoto University, Japan

The emergence of the modern nation-state and imperialism in Japan during the late 19th century has influenced the development of archaeology and the re-writing of Japan’s ancient past. In post-war Japan and Korea, the definition, cultural origins, and the identification of so-called "Royal Tombs" have incited controversies and intense debates on both sides of the Straits of Japan, mainly because these contested sites could be viewed as evidence for a nation’s antiquity, cultural continuity, and even imperial territorial conquests. This paper will attempt a comparative approach to study the significant amount of large scale mounded burials constructed during a formative period, which occurred between the 3rd and 6th centuries C.E. all over the Korean peninsula and the Japanese islands. The regional character of these mounds can be analyzed by discussing these burials’ complex architectural features and grave goods, including iron weapons and armor, and prestigious burial goods, such as jade and gold jewelry. More than focusing on the distinctiveness of some of these burials and the significance of these differences to modern day controversies, this paper will also discuss a common process that underlies the emergence of these burials across the regional borders.

Takao Hirase, Tokyo University, Japan

This paper will address the historical, political and intellectual background to Edo scholars’ narratives of "Ancient China." Beginning in the mid-17th century, the translations and annotations done by Kangaku gakusha in Edo Japan concentrated on ancient histories and classic texts belonging to the Spring & Autumn period, such as the Zuozhuan and the Lunyu. This fascination of Edo-era scholars with reviving the remote founding myths, heroic legends of gods of antiquity, Confucian philosophers, and warring kings was tied to their own search for dynastic and clan legitimacy during the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

  Moreover, during my examination of works by these Edo scholars, "space of culture (bunka kuukan)" emerges as a new concept of understanding the territorial space of ancient East Asia. For a while, ancient Chinese historians have been utilizing the concepts of "city-state" and "tianxia" (or, "all-under-heaven") when analyzing historical texts and narrating ancient Chinese history. This "space of culture" can be understood as constituting various cultural territories or units developed since the Neolithic period. It is located metaphysically between the "space of city-state (toshikokka kuukan)," which was exemplified by city-states during the Spring and Autumn period, and the "space of civilization (bunmei kuukan)," to which Qin’s tianxia belonged. My research on Edo-era scholars’ works on ancient China leads not only to a better understanding of the political climate of the Edo era, but also directs historians’ attention to a larger issue: various conceptualizations of space and the making of the "Sphere of Kanji (kanji ken)."

Amy Hweishuan Feng, Johns Hopkins University

The introduction of Archaeology as a modern scientific discipline in early 20th century China by Western scholars gave rise to much speculation on the cultural origins of Chinese civilization. Chinese scholars started to question the veracity of ancient Chinese records which had over two millennia laid the basis for ancient Chinese historiography. In 1921 J. G. Andersson, a Swedish archaeologist who is now regarded as the pioneer of Chinese archaeology, made the first major discovery of the prehistoric settlement in Yangshao, Henan province. Based on his pottery analysis, he argued for the "Western origins" hypothesis of Chinese civilization. In reaction to these seemingly biased European ideas of the diffusion of cultures, Chinese scholars have instead argued for an indigenous origin, represented by the once widely accepted "Central Plains" (Zhongyuan) Theory. Beginning in the late 1920s with the famous Anyang excavations conducted by the Academia Sinica, many prominent government research institutions focused their archaeological projects on the Yellow River Basin for over fifty years.

However, it is not well known that, as early as the 1930’s, local Chinese scholars and amateur archaeologists, chiefly from Zhejiang and Jiangsu, contested the dominant Zhongyuan theory in search for a Yangtze River based "southern" origin of Chinese civilization. This paper will examine their "forgotten" archaeological contributions made through privately supported archaeological investigations. This research is my attempt to understand the continuing dichotomy between the national and regional interests that have characterized the professionalization and the practice of Chinese archaeology since its inception.