Archaeology of East Asia constitutes an introduction to social and political development from the Palaeolithic to 8th-century early historic times. It takes a regional view across China, Korea, Japan and their peripheries that is unbounded by modern state lines. This viewpoint emphasizes how the region drew on indigenous developments and exterior stimuli to produce agricultural technologies, craft production, political systems, religious outlooks and philosophies that characterize the civilization of historic and even modern East Asia.
This book is a complete rewrite and update of The Rise of Civilization in East Asia, first published in 1993. It incorporates the many theoretical, technical and factual advances of the last two decades, including DNA, gender, and isotope studies, AMS radiocarbon dating and extensive excavation results. Readers of that first edition will find the same structure and topic progression. While many line drawings have been retained, new colour illustrations abound. Boxes and Appendices clarify and add to the understanding of unfamiliar technologies. For those seeking more detail, the Appendices also provide case studies that take intimate looks at particular data and current research.
The book is suitable for general readers, East Asian historians and students, archaeology students and professionals.

Praise for The Rise of Civilization in East Asia:

“…the best English introduction to the archaeology of East Asia … brilliantly integrates the three areas into a broad regional context.” Prof. Mark Hudson

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Boxes
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
  • Multiple editions
  • Where is East Asia?
  • Dating preferences
  • Language issues
  • Note on referencing
  • Note on indexing
  • Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• Chapter 1: Orientation
  • Grounding
    • Starting from the Yellow Sea
    • Mainland geography
    • The loesslands
    • The Northern Zone
    • Westward ho!
    • Eastward bound
    • North–south divisions
  • National chronologies
  • With or without writing?
    • Prehistoric archaeology
    • Protohistoric archaeology
    • Historic archaeology
  • East Asian cultural successions
    • The Chinese sequence
    • The Korean sequence
    • The Japanese sequence
• Chapter 2: Archaeological Organization
  • Archaeology as a government endeavor
    • Japan
    • Korea
    • China
  • East Asian archaeology since 1990
    • Science and theory
    • Multiple archaeologies
    • Cooperative projects
    • Conferences
    • Journals
• Chapter 3: The Earliest Inhabitants (2,000,000–40,000 years ago)
  • The peopling of East Asia
  • The first peopling, or Out of Africa
    • What peoples?
    • Habitats, habits and habitation
    • Their tool kits
  • Intermediate peoples
  • The second peopling, or Out of Africa 2
  • How far east did Pleistocene hominins go, and when?
• Chapter 4: Innovations of Modern Humans (40,000–10,000 years ago)
  • Modern peoples and their accoutrements
  • Upper Palaeolithic climate and chronology
  • New lithic strategies
    • Significance of prepared-core technologies
    • Blade varieties and assemblages
  • What were they hunting?
  • A mobile lifestyle
  • Harbingers of the Neolithic
    • Edge-ground axes
    • Plant utilization
    • Coastal living
    • The invention of pottery
• Chapter 5: Earlier Holocene Subsistence Patterns (10,000–5000 years ago = 8000–3000 BC)
  • Settling down
    • Earliest villages
    • Feedback loops between food and sedentism
  • ‘In-between’ societies
  • Exploiting Holocene forests
    • The importance of nuts
    • Timbers, houses and woodworking tools
  • Living on Holocene shores
    • Anatomy of a shellmound
    • Fish stories
  • Pen/Insular species management
    • Jomon husbandry
    • Chulmun husbandry
  • Mainland cereal growers
    • Northern millet cultures
    • Southern rice culture
    • Mainland broad-ranging subsistence
  • Food studies
    • Proportional food resources
    • Isotope analyses
• Chapter 6: The Mid-Holocene Social Mosaic (5000–2000 BC)
  • Introduction
  • The Middle Jomon phenomenon
    • A regional exchange network
    • Core villages
  • The Loesslands tradition
    • Yangshao villages
    • Loesslands pottery
  • The East Coast tradition
    • Dawenkou villages
    • East Coast ceramics
  • The Hongshan enigma
  • Dimensions of social status
    • Gender distinctions
    • Ritualists
    • Social hierarchies
    • The importance of commensality
  • Summary
• Chapter 7: Emergence and Decline of Late Neolithic Societies (3300–1900 BC)
  • Introduction
    • Periodization
    • Agriculture, monumental architecture and social stratification
    • What is a state?
  • Urbanizing settlements
    • Of walls and terraces
    • Southern powerhouse: Liangzhu site complex
    • Intermontane Taosi
    • Liangchengzhen, Eastern Longshan
    • Quick comparisons
  • Site hierarchies
  • Central Plain polity development
    • Walled settlements
    • Sacrificial interments
    • Settlement system
  • The dramatic end of the Late Neolithic
  • The opening of the steppes
    • The western and central steppes
    • From west to east
    • Establishment of the Early Metal Province
• Chapter 8: Bronze Age Beginnings (2000–850 BC)
  • Bronze Age time span
  • Bronze and agro-pastoralism
    • Qijia and Siba cultures
    • Zhukaigou
    • Lower Xiajiadian
  • Bronze and Erlitou
    • The Erlitou site (1850–1550 BC)
    • Erlitou culture and polity
    • Significance of Erlitou bronze vessels
  • The Shang bronze tradition
    • Shang bronzes
  • Southern bronze cultures
    • Lower and Middle Yangzi
    • Sichuan Basin: Sanxingdui
  • The Northern Bronze Complex
  • In conclusion
• Chapter 9: Early State Florescence (1500–770 BC)
  • Dynastic successions
    • Was Erlitou the Xia capital?
    • Early, Middle and Late Shang
    • Royal Zhou
  • Early inscriptions
  • Shang state organization
    • Shang capitals
    • The late great capital of Yinxu
    • Territorial expansion
    • Political organization
  • Royal Zhou and enfeoffments
    • Zhou in the Zhouyuan
    • Early Zhou socio-political organization
    • Yan – a royal enfeoffment
  • Early Zhou architectural contributions
  • Sacrifice and warfare
    • Sacrifice at altar and tomb
    • Of horses and chariots
  • Early state overview
• Chapter 10: Eastern Zhou and Its Frontiers (1st millennium BC)
  • Eastern Zhou (771–221 BC)
    • State autonomy
    • Warfare tactics
  • Zhou and ‘non-Zhou’ identity formation
    • From huaxia to Han
    • Peripheral origins
  • Zhou border states
    • The eastern state of Qi
    • The southern state of Chu
    • Qin to the west
    • Jin in the northwest
  • Commercial endeavors
    • Bronzes: deterioriations and advances
    • Iron: the beginning of an industry
    • Salt
    • A cash economy
  • The Northern Zone
    • From Rong and Di to hu
    • Northern signifiers: animal art and gold
• Chapter 11: Pen/Insular Rice, Bronze and Iron (1300–200 BC)
  • Contributions from the China Mainland
    • Upper Xiajiadian
    • Yueshi culture
  • Establishing Mumun culture
    • Transmission of rice farming
    • Dolmen and cist burials
    • Final addition of bronzes to the funerary goods
  • Middle Mumun (850–550 BC) settlement and society
    • Taepyong-ri site
    • Komdan-ri site
    • Songguk-ri site
  • Late Mumun / Early Iron Age transitions (500–200 BC)
    • The Slender Bronze Dagger culture
    • Arrival of iron
  • From Jomon to Yayoi
    • Yayoi beginnings
    • Yayoi expansion
    • Craft advancements
    • Jomon resistance to wet-rice agriculture
• Chapter 12: The Making and Breaking of Empire (350 BC–500 AD)
  • Qin, the Unifier
    • Warring states reforms
    • United China
  • The Han Dynasty
    • Establishment of unified rule
    • Imperial capitals
    • Han burial innovations
  • Roads as arteries to the empire
    • Road to the west
    • Road to the south
    • Continuing northern border problems
    • Northeastern relations
  • Turmoil at the end of Han
    • Fragmentation of the empire
    • Succeeding polities
• Chapter 13: The Yellow Sea Interaction Sphere (400 BC – 300 AD)
  • Trade and tribute relations
    • Meeting the Hui and Mo
    • Han domination
  • Northeastern horse-riders
    • Puyo in the central Manchurian Basin
    • Early Koguryo in the eastern Manchurian massif
  • The Lelang commandery
    • Commandery sites
    • Relations with Shandong and Liaodong
    • Lelang tombs
    • From Gongsun to Wei rule
  • The Samhan of the southern Korean Peninsula
    • Commandery connections
    • Ceramic advancements
    • Iron production
    • From the Three Han to the Three Kingdoms
  • Yayoi bronze cultures
    • Renewed continental connections
    • North Kyushu continental gateway
• Chapter 14: Mounded Tomb Cultures (2–5c AD)
  • Pen/Insular state formation
  • On the Peninsula
    • Koguryo and Paekche origins
    • Kaya and Silla origins
  • In the Islands
    • From mound-burials to mounded tombs
    • Daifang and Queen Himiko
    • Kofun bunka: the mounded tomb culture (MTC) of Japan
  • Early state relations
    • Warfare
    • Writing
  • New tombs and art
    • Corridor-chamber tombs
    • Mural tombs
  • Expansion of Silla and Yamato
    • Administrative incorporation by Yamato
    • Military conquest by Silla
• Chapter 15: East Asian Civilization (3–7c AD)
  • Rapid transformations
    • On the Mainland
    • In the Pen/Insulae
  • Buddhism
    • Buddhist grottoes
    • Pen/Insular Buddhism
    • Temple excavations
  • Law and administration: a Yamato case study
  • Territorial control
    • Gridded cities
    • Provincial systems
    • A new field system
    • Taxation
  • Technological developments
  • Cosmopolitan lifestyles
• Chapter 16: Epilogue: Ancient East Asia in the Modern World
  • Why study East Asian archaeology?
  • Sharing of religious philosophies
  • Friction dating to earlier times
    • The problem with Mimana
    • Keyhole tombs in Korea
    • Koguryo split between two states
  • The importance of national heritage
• Appendices
  • Appendix A: Scientific dating
  • Appendix B: List of abbreviations
  • Appendix C: Language issues: pronunciation and alternative spellings
  • Appendix D: Institutional histories 1092–2014
  • Appendix E: Palaeolithic finds on the China Mainland
    • E.1 Early Palaeolithic, Early Pleistocene
    • E.2 Early Palaeolithic, Middle Pleistocene
    • E.3 Fossil hominins from the Late Pleistocene
  • Appendix F: Succession of lithic technologies in Upper Palaeolithic Japan
  • Appendix G: Major domestic species in East Asia
    • G.1 Domestication of species
    • G.2 Domesticates from the west
  • Appendix H: Household and sector structure and production data from two Mainland Neolithic sites
    • H.1 Jiangzhai
    • H.2 Fushanzhuang
  • Appendix I: Liangzhu burial data
    • I.1 Early Liangzhu burials
    • I.2 Middle Liangzhu burials
  • Appendix J: Evidence of early metallurgical production
  • Appendix K: Features of Northern Zone cultures in the Zhou period
    • K.1 Types I and II material cultures
    • K.2 Upper Xiajiadian and the Northeast (Manchurian Basin)
    • K.3 Northern Frontier art, divided into Early (9–4c BC) and Late (after 4c BC)
  • Appendix L: Analysis of burial goods in several tomb types during the Lelang period
• Endnotes
• Sources for Illustrations and Box and Table data
• Bibliography