Date:
Location:
Early Korea Project Lecture
Yangjin Pak
Professor, Department of Archaeology, Chungnam National University; Visiting Scholar, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
Professor Pak received his B.A. from Department of Archaeology and Art History at Seoul National University and M.A. and Ph.D. from Department of Anthropology, Harvard University. He is a professor in Department of Archaeology, Chungnam National University, South Korea, and the president of Society for East Asian Archaeology. As a visiting scholar, he spent a year at Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in 2004-05 and at Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, in 2008-09. His research is mostly focused on archaeology of northern China and Korean peninsula during the prehistoric and early historical periods. He has published papers on such topics as social complexity; ethnic, cultural, political, and social identities; mortuary archaeology; and archaeological practice and society. He is currently a visiting professor in Department of Anthropology at Harvard.
Chaired by Mark Byington, Project Director, Early Korea Project, Harvard University
Abstract
One of the most important aspects in our understanding of the ancient Korean society is related to the development of social inequality and complexity. A brief review of Korean historiography will reveal a changing perspective of early Korea in the past few decades. Complementing insufficient written records, archaeological discoveries and researches in recent years have produced fresh interpretations of prehistoric and early historical societies of Korea. This presentation will take stock of the current status of research on the social organization of ancient Korea, discuss the archaeological evidence of social inequality and complexity and its interpretations, and present constructive suggestions for the future research.
Sponsored by the Early Korea Project at the Korea Institute. The Early Korea Project receives operational funding from the Korea Foundation.
Funding for this lecture series is provided by the Northeast Asian History Foundation, Seoul
