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02/11/2016 06:00 PM
ISAW Lecture Hall
A View from Below
What a Bronze Age Village Can Tell Us About the Shang Dynasty
Roderick Campbell
The Shang Dynasty, or the second dynasty of Chinese historiography, is largely known to us from elite sources—be they royal divinatory texts, the archaeology of palaces and elite tombs, or the received accounts of kings and ministers. Indeed, despite the fact that archaeological investigation of the Shang dynasty is about as old as archaeology itself in China, never before in its nearly hundred year history has a village site been closely and thoroughly excavated and studied. This talk will focus on collaborative work at the first such site, Guandimiao, and the surprising things we are finding there—things that may force us to re-consider our understanding of Early China.