Animal classification in Central China : from the late Neolithic to the early Bronze Age / Ningning Dong.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dong, Ningning, author.

Series:

Archaeology of East Asia ; volume 4.

BAR international series ; 3031.

Archaeology of East Asia ; volume 4

BAR international series ; 3031

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Animals--Classification--History.

Animals.

Animal remains (Archaeology)--China.

Animal remains (Archaeology).

Animals--China--History--To 1500.

Neolithic period--China.

Neolithic period.

Bronze age--China.

Bronze age.

China--Antiquities.

China.

Animals--Classification.

Antiquities.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 128 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour), maps (colour).

Place of Publication:

Oxford : BAR Publishing, 2021.

Summary:

This monograph uses an archaeological approach to decipher folk classification of animals in ancient societies. Ningning Dong collates faunal data from three late Neolithic and early Bronze Age sites in central China and integrates multiple lines of evidence. The analyses demonstrate a folk taxonomy remarkably different from the Linnaean system. The results show that age might have served as a critical categorical filter, particularly in ritual contexts, and that the wild/domesticated dichotomy was established no earlier than the Shang dynasty. This perceptual distinction is unlikely to have been synchronised with the initial occurrence of domestication in the early Neolithic. Animal categories constituted a vital part of a broader classificatory scheme that concerned the organisation of the cosmos as a whole.

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2021.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (viewed on August 30, 2021).

Other Format:

Print version :

ISBN:

9781407357935

140735793X

OCLC:

1291224772