The Lower Yangzi Region in the Warring States Period (ca 481-221 BC): Textual Sources and Archaeological Discoveries

The UCLA Center for Chinese Studies hosts a seminar by Alain Thote, an archeologist specializting in the Chinese Bronze Age.

Starting from the presentation of early textual sources on the Yue people by Erica Brindley in her book Ancient China and the Yue: perceptions and identities on the southern frontier, c. 400 BCE-50 CE (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015), we shall see what archaeology may bring to our knowledge on the ancient Yue.

The students are invited to read Chapter 3 (The archaeological record, p. 62-81) and Chapter 6 (Tropes of the savage: physical markers of Yue identity, 141-171) of Brindley’s book before the seminar.

Born in 1949, Alain Thote is archaeologist and art historian. A specialist of Bronze Age China, he is currently teaching as a full professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris. He participated in archaeological excavations in France and China. In particular, he joined the Sino-French team of archaeologists in the Taklamakan desert, in Xinjiang (Western China) in 1993, 1994 and 1996. In 2000, he has started a cooperation with Wuhan University and the Archaeological Institute of Henan Province for the digging of a settlement of the Bronze Age in Central China. In 1999-2000, and in 2010-2011, Alain Thote was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in Beijing. He gave courses and seminars at the Kunsthistorisches Institut of Heidelberg University (Spring semester of 1996) and at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University (Fall semester of 2005 and 2007). Beside teaching, from January 2006 to December 2009 he has been director of the Research Centre on Far Eastern Civilizations, Paris. Now he is the director of the French Institute for Chinese Advanced Studies of the Collège de France. In 2009, he has been elected corresponding member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.