▪ Abstract Archaeological textile studies are now recognized as a robust source of information for anthropological inquiry. Over the past two decades several important developments have taken place, enabling a more integrated approach to their study than in the past. Topics addressed range from the development of methods for analyzing degraded fibers to the comparative study of specific histories of textile and clothing traditions. Archaeological textile studies address relevant issues ranging from aesthetics and style to gender; from technological development to production and exchange economics. This chapter presents an overview of current research in the growing field of archaeological textile studies.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3069215.pdf

Archaeological Textiles: A Review of Current Research

When was silk first brought across the steppe from far China towards the European world? There is silk from the Middle Bronze Age of Uzbekistan, in Scythian burials of Siberia and among the Hallstatt grave-goods of western Europe. Teasing out the story of silk depends on identifying the textile, and distinguishing its several varieties apart.

On the question of silk in pre-Han Eurasia

The study of prehistoric Europe continues to be simplified in favour of a male-dominated world view. The interpretation of high-status female burials has been particularly plagued by gender bias, since such graves imply that women in these societies may have achieved positions of social and economic power. Changing burial customs and grave-good inventories, as well as documentary evidence from the Mediterranean, indicates that gender relations were affected in significant ways during the early Iron Age. The social changes that accompanied the late-Hallstatt/early-La-Tene transition cannot be understood without reference to gender, as the paper tries to show.

'Honorary Males' or Women of Substance? Gender, Status, and Power in Iron-Age Europe

The most controversial topic in Korean archaeology and history today concerns the Han Lelang commanderies that were established in the Korean peninsula during the Han dynasty in 108 BC and lasted for 400 years. Despite the many archaeological, historical, and inscriptional evidences to the contrary, North Korean archaeologists and the South Korean historian Yun Nae‐hyon continue to deny the existence of the commandery Lelang in the Korean peninsula. This work adopts a different approach from previous Japanese or Korean scholarship on Lelang studies by focusing on issues of acculturation and culture change. The analysis rests mainly on archaeological evidence, in addition to the earliest ethnohistoric data which date to the third century AD.

/pdf/culture-contact-and-culture-change-the-korean-peninsula-and-4x41slc82s.pdf

Culture contact and culture change: The Korean peninsula and its relations with the Han Dynasty commandery of Lelang

Cet article montre que le commerce dans la Catalogne sud-pyreneenne pendant la periode archaique tardive presente des caracteristiques specifiques, avec une remarquable predominance de la emporia sur le commerce oriente depuis zones de production et une grande importance des marchands phoceens. Nous maintenons egalement que cette activite commerciale joua un role important dans la formation et la consolidation des elites iberiques et dans l'integration de ce territoire dans un vaste systeme mondial.

Peter S. Wells

Papers

Culture Contact and Culture Change