This is part of Lissa Crane's class, "Anthropology of China." The talk is open to the public. Everybody is welcome. It is generously co-sponsored by Rutgers Global.
Abstract
In this talk I will discuss the collaboration and competition in Eastern Asian hunter-gatherer societies through the archaeological analyses of the site with the earliest pottery in the world, Xianrendong and Yuchanyan, in China. The invention of pottery by Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer groups is often associated with the development or introduction of new social practices. In East Asia a number of studies suggests that the earliest pottery is connected to the appearance of hierarchy through self-aggrandizement and feasting in trans-egalitarian societies. Archaeological reconstructions of cooking practices can help us deduce social practices such as feasting or collaborative labor.
Bio
Ilaria Patania is a postdoctoral associate with the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at Rutgers University. She is an environmental archaeologist, specializing in hunter-gatherer societies and human migrations. She conducts both land and underwater work using a multi-scalar geoarchaeological approach. Her research is aimed at understanding human-environment feedback and contextualizing biological and socio-cultural adaptive strategies of Homo.