Divination and Power: A Multi-regional View of the Development of Oracle Bone Divination in Early China

Rowan Flad will speak on the development of oracle bone divination in Early China at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Harvard Professor Rowan Flad is an associate professor of anthropological archaeology working in China. He holds an A.B. from the University of Chicago and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

His research is currently focused on the emergence and development of complex society during the late Neolithic period and the Bronze Age in China. This research incorporates interests in diachronic change in production processes, the intersection between ritual activity and production, the role of animals in early Chinese society - particularly their use in sacrifice and divination, and the processes involved in social change in general. Recently he has conducted excavations at a salt production site in the eastern Sichuan Basin and has started a new field project in the Chengdu region focusing on prehistoric settlement patterns and social evolution in that region. Current research and writing projects focus on several aspects of social complexity including: specialized production and technology, the anthropology of value, mortuary analysis, archaeological landscapes, interregional interaction, cultural transmission, and animal and plant domestication.